Camp cooking and food storage

[nogravitasatall]

If I told you I was a camping novice, it wouldn't even begin to cover how inexperienced I am! However I'm trying to persuade dh to try glamping this year, but one question we have is about food? Should we take a couple of days of perishables (milk, bacon, eggs etc) then expect to pick up fresh when there? Any directions to good camping recipes happily received too!

Looking for same idea...

I take a cool box or bag with ice blocks in and take milk, eggs, bacon, butter/Marc.
I also take storecupboad food such as pasta and pesto and a few tins, bake beans and a tinned chilli or curry for emergency and boil in the bag rice.

Then pick up food when we are away

I always pre make and then freeze a chilli or a bolognese and a chicken curry in those foil takeaway containers. I put them in the cool box and they stay frozen for a good few days. You need a good quality cool box though.

We always take bacon ,sausages and eggs , orange juice and milk for breakfast and some hotdogs and rolls for the first night plus some chicken mini fillets to put on skewers on the BBQ.

The kids like pancakes and maple syrup with their bacon and eggs but we have wholemeal baps.

I roast peppers courgettes and aubergines at home and freeze those too to go with BBQ meat and couscous or rice. We have houmous and pitta bread with it too.

We buy steak and lamb chops for the BBQ from a local supermarket once we are there and top up with groceries as we go.

I buy those sliced ready fried crispy potatoes to go with steak instead of chips and always take a jar of bearnais sauce.

Pre sliced cheese/ready grated cheese makes life easy too.

Proper coffee is a necessity for us so we use a couple of bodum travel presses.

I love camping cooking! I'd rather cook than go out to eat when I'm camping.

I've just bought an electronic frying pan after seeing our friends produce a full English breakfast for four people on one. It can even be used to cook pizza and make toast apparently. I'll be trying it out in Devon in July.

Always plan for an easy first-night hot meal. You'll be hungry and tired from travelling, it'll have taken a while to get yourself all unloaded and settled in and you probably won't feel like venturing out to find food. If there's on-site pizza or similar available (often the case at glampsites) then it doesn't get easier than that.

Otherwise, my favourite thing to do is this: before we go I make a coconut curry with either Thai or Indian curry paste, red peppers and trimmed been beans. I pack this with a pack of frozen uncooked king prawns and a bag of uncle bens pre-cooked basmati rice. Then it's mega-easy when you've set up camp to heat the curry sauce through and add the prawns which will be nicely on their way to defrosted (having helped keep the coolbox cold) and just heat through the rice.

We take cravendale milk. Lasts a few days with coolants in coolbox. Quick cook pasta. Pasta sauce. Cake biscuits chocolate crips as you seem ti be hungry from being outdoors.

Yes Cravendale is a good shout. Also if you have room in the coolbox, take a frozen 2L bottle of water which works in conjunction with the ice packs but also provides nice icy cold drinking water (obvs!)

First night we normally BBQ so take marinaded lamb/ chicken or whatever with new potatoes and a packet of salad.
Second night is a curry/ chilli/ bolognese which I have made and frozen. Depending on temperatures and timings I can often stretch the frozen meals to the third night as well.
Breakfast is always at least a bacon sandwich if not a full fry up but we take cereal as well as a snack. For lunch we tend to eat wraps as they keep so much better than bread.
Take a large lidded box to store perishables that don't need cooling in or you will find yourself popular amongst the local mouse population :o

Many campsites provide a freezer service for ice blocks. We have a cool bag for milk, butter, cheese, etc and just replace the ice blocks everyday. We just get a pint of milk each day from the campsite shop so it's not standing around for more than a day.

Quick cook pasta with a stir in sauce is easy, as are hot dogs or Uncle Ben's express rice. We take the individual cereal boxes (to avoid attracting mice) and long life juice cartons. We like the tins of baked beans with sausages but obviously any tins are your friends - don't forget tins of fruit and rice pudding! Anything that doesn't need to go in a cool bag is stashed in one of those plastic crates from Homebase or the like.

We decant biscuits into a plastic box with a lid to keep fresh and deter mice.

Buy a box of wine.
Remove the box
Freeze the bag (takes about 2 days)

Eh voila! Ice block and chilled white combined!

That wine idea is genius, stealing that

And the wraps, good plan.

We freeze several meals and cook as well. Have to say don't keep any cereals, biscuits etc in anything other than their packets and have never had a mouse visit us.

These are all brilliant ideas, thank you! Especially liking frozen wine, chicken skewers for kids and frozen curry..

I'm planning on cooking a pot of chilli before we leave, and doing the usual freezing and packing for our overnighter to France. I have a question:-

If I buy a couple of packs of mini chicken fillets and freeze them beforehand, will they be able to be used for the 2nd night for cooking? I have hired a small fridge for the tent for when we arrive, so they'll go straight from the coolbox into a fridge. Do you think it'll be ok? Sorry for the hijack OP.

Angels, if you were pitched by us I'd be popping over every mealtime to borrow something in the hope if an invitation to stay for a bite. I'd be very wearing I'm afraid- your list sounds girt lush x

I have a really good cooler. I put ice blocks in it. I buy any meat I need and vacuum pack it with its rub or marinade before I freeze it.I have a couple of lidded plastic boxes I keep in my good cooler that I keep salad stuff,etc in.I only open the really good cooler once a day and thats to transfer that nights dinner into a smaller cooler,which I also keep ice blocks in ( its a cheaper cooler and not as good). once something is opened ie milk or eggs or salad it goes in that cooler.I can keep my meat and veggies good in my good cooler for 5 days, Between the freezing and vacuum packing it lasts great.I can also get 5 days out my milk.
Im really fussy about food storage and would rather err on side of caution but so far so good,my system works for me.

Ill take steak,pork,lamb and chicken plus salad stuff, potatoes and maybe a flavored rice .There will be bacon,sausage and eggs for breakfasts. I also bring cold cuts and cheese for lunch. I freeze my bread and rolls before putting in cooler too. I will make a bread mid week and bake in the dutch oven next to the fire too.

Im in the USA and it gets hot here in the summer and my cooler still does the job. All camp sites here have fire pits so everything I cook is over the fire,be it BBq or in a dutch oven.

I LOVE camping :o and cant wait till I go next week :o

Jamie Oliver makes an awesome chilli using shin of beef and canellini beans. I'll be making that and freezing it for the first night.

Then Caribbean chicken curry frozen for the second nite

Or maybe spag bol.

Hot dogs as soon as we arrive

Pancakes for breakfast with nutella

I'll be taking a small carton of long life milk for each day

Great ideas on this thread esp Thai prawn curry and freezing wine!!!

splatpancake - we usually have other campers laughing at us as we try to produce these meals in the pouring rain! They sit there with their takeaway fish and chips and pot noodles thinking we are bonkers.