Summer Camping 2013

It is with a heavy heart that I decree the ‘summer’ officially over. My still sleepy but excited children have left this morning for their respective schools and there is a distinctive smell of crispness to the air accompanied by the changing of leaves on the trees. Summer went by in a blur but we did end up doing some fun things like traveling to BC and Saskatchewan as well as a couple of really short weekends of camping.

Our home away from home right after set up and still nice and orderly.

A nice hike to get our appetites up.

I always mean to do some fancy camping cooking but we end up going with our tried and true meals that can be prepared easily and with as little dirty dishes as possible. I also like to have the kids prepare some of our meals because cooking outdoors is always a fun adventure!

The kid’s specialty…mac n cheese!

Our cooking appliances are limited to a fire, camp stove and a very nice portable gas grill. Barbecuing is probably the most convenient, tastiest, and least messy  methods for camp cooking. We discovered on our first camping foray that the gas regulator had quit working on the stove so we ended up boiling water on the BBQ too!

The dogs enjoy us cooking outside as well, especially when it involves sausages…

Often I’ll make one of the meals at home and just re heat it after we’ve set up camp for the evening. Curries work well for this kind of camp meal but for one of our camp trips I decided to make some pulled pork and serve it on a bun along side some fresh garden carrots.

Sometimes if we’re lucky we’ll forage for food along the hiking trails. We caught the tail end of berry season, eating wild blueberries and raspberries as we walked along trail. We also found some really fresh mushrooms that I was able to cut up and fry in some butter to accompany our BBQ chicken and green beans that I had picked and prepared at home.

 

And of course there’s always room for dessert. Sometimes we’ll slice a banana length ways and stuff it with chocolate chips and mini marshmallows, cover it with foil and bake it in the hot coals.  Of course our favourite is the very traditional s’mores eaten by the waning fire as we count the stars. This is usually accompanied by a ‘mug up’ of hot chocolate and a game of chubby bunnies.