Camp Food

So as most of you know, we just got home from our first camping trip of the summer. One of our biggest obstacles to overcome would be FOOD! And this is an issue on SO MANY levels. Food takes up a lot of space, wastes a lot of my time, requires a lot of clean up, and tends to be over done when camping.

Last summer was the first summer that Melanie and I had been working out and really trying to become more health conscious. We were working out and watching our food choices, etc... and then camping season started! Suddenly I was gaining 3-5 pounds over a weekend camping trip! I would spend the next week working the weight off, only to put it back on the very next weekend. I was so disgusted! So we really tried to get a better perspective. All the workouts and smart eating during the week couldn't compete with soda, chips, marshmallows, burgers, and hot coco during the weekend! So we started to slowly make changes. We left all of the soda and juices at home. Instead we brought along water bottles and powdered drink mix (Gatorade or poweraide). We started cutting out the snacks and instead just brought one treat (like marshmallows) that we didn't want to part with. Then I did a bunch of food research to find healthier meals that strayed from the normal burger options. Lastly we committed ourselves to stick with the food plans and not just stop somewhere and grab fast food, etc...

Well all of those strategies were good starts, but this year I decided to take it even further! This summer I spent a couple of weekends, well in advance of camping season, to plan "menus" and prepare/portion/freeze all of the food. I started with breakfast: I decided to make mini muffins (just using the tiny muffin tins), and then bagged them up by portion size and froze them (to be eaten a few at a time with a piece of fruit), and my Loaded Oats recipe that is super easy and super filling. I just bagged up all of the dry ingredients in Ziplocs. For lunches I decided to do stuff like chicken salad wraps. Wraps are a great idea in lots of ways, but my favorite so far is that a bag as flat as a pancake packs a heck of a lot easier than a loaf of bread! Then I bought a few snacks (pretzels, apples, banana chips, etc.) and bagged them in snack ziplocs per person, per day. Finally, for dinners I came up with a handful of easy meals that could be made, frozen, and easily reheated over a campfire when the time came. I used our slow cooker and made a huge pot of chili, BBQ pork, baked beans, and fried up ground meat. Then I measured out portions and froze it all. The chili and beans can be reheated and eaten with mini corn bread muffins. The BBQ pork can be eaten on buns, and the ground meat is for Hobo dinners.

Well our first trip this summer put it all to the test! The boys griped the first night saying "what do you mean this is all there is for dinner?!" and tried out lines like "so if I get hungry in the middle of the night...where are the snacks?" Well I put my foot down and didn't give an inch! Plus it helped that there wasn't a fridge that they could raid in the middle of the night;) Once they relaxed it was clear that there was more than enough food still. All of it was much healthier options, all of it was cooked in disposable foil trays over the campfire (and eaten out of them too, so no clean up!) and nobody went hungry. We went biking and exploring and got in some good exercise too! And when we got home everybody felt great with no guilt trips! Just a few sore muscles from the 6 mile bike ride:)