Cooking and managing your "kitchen" while tent camping is a daunting notion. There is so much to pack just for sleeping and comfort, then you add in a kitchen and the meals and the table settings and you can almost lose your nerve and decide to stay home or worse yet, wuss out and get an RV. Just kidding.
With a little planning, cooking over a campfire or portable stove can be easy and actually fun! It is so satisfying to see your oven rolls come out light and fluffy in your dutch oven or that campfire pizza make little eyes wide with delight.
This is how I meal plan, cook ahead and pack our coolers for our trips (which are usually a minimum of five nights. Anything less than that is cake!)
At about two weeks out, take some time to look at your itinerary and plan meals around timing of activities while on the trip. For example, on arrival day I like to make something super easy (because there is a lot of other work setting up tents, etc. and we are all tired from the drive) like putting a frozen chile block into our dutch oven and heating it up over a lovely fire to eat with fresh bread or Frito Lay corn chips (camping is all about comfort food!) Raw veggies are an easy side dish. After a day of relaxing at or near the camp site I may make something more involved like campfire pizza or a hobo hash.
Prep it all Ahead
Make the bagel sandwiches, stuff the burritos, shred the cheese, cut the onions, season the items, fry the bacon, crack the eggs...then freeze all of it (except the eggs). All of that frozen stuff saves you having to use ice blocks in your cooler.
Bag Meals by Day
Separate out the meals per day. Ie. Monday breakfast and dinner items go into one jumbo ziploc (ie. breakfast burritos and frozen chile), and so on. At the beginning of the day, I pull that bag out of the "Freezer" (cooler #1) to begin to thaw the items that are frozen. Any unfreezable side items would be in the "Fridge" (cooler #2).
I always keep lunch items (or "deli" as I call it) in it's own large ziploc because it's not a planned meal. So, I usually have non-perishable foods available along with deli meat and cheese. Then people eat what they're in the mood for. Examples are bagels and cream cheese, peanut butter and jelly, salami sandwich, meat rolls, etc.
I place all dairy items (cheese, cream cheese, deli meat, sliced or shredded cheese that has been frozen ahead) into gallon ziplocs that then go into Jumbo ziplocs.
While our coolers work great at keeping things cool as long as possible, I hate when my food sloshes around in the water that collects in the bottom of the cooler, and hate it even more when the water gets into my food bags. Hence, the double bagging.
Two Coolers: Freezer and Fridge
One cooler is for my made ahead meals and food that I have frozen. I call that the "Freezer" cooler. This acts as a freezer keeping things cold and frozen until needed, opening as infrequently as possible.
One is for our daily food to which I need easy access. And that is the "Fridge" cooler. This cooler acts as our fridge.
My "deli" ingredients go into the "Fridge" cooler. Also included in that cooler might be things like the bacon I've made ahead to sprinkle here or there as needed, or the eggs that I crack in advance into a sealable jar.
Keeping Coolers Cold
This is quite a science. In order to keep our coolers the coldest, we freeze blocks of ice in ceramic baking dishes. Once frozen, I remove the ice block from the dish and place it in the bottom of the cooler. It is important that your baking dish is ceramic (metal doesn't want to release the ice) and that it is smaller in width than your cooler.
Yes, the ice thaws into water that sloshes at the bottom, but from what I've read this system of ice takes the longest to thaw. And that spout on your cooler is for releasing that water.
Cooling the cooler prior to use is also important and makes your ice work less hard. So, put some big gallons of frozen water into your coolers the night before and cool those puppies down.
Get ready to pack the cooler as quickly as possible so as to retain the cold. Don't want to let the penguins out. Once packed, open as little as possible.
Pack the "Freezer" with your meals that you have frozen ahead. That way everything that goes in there is working with itself to stay cold.
Pack the "Fridge" with your deli meats, dairy, and items you need more frequently.
Try not to leave your coolers in the sunshine or a hot car. Do whatever you can to keep those suckers cold and all your meals icy until you want to nosh.
Pantry and dry items are kept in a big tub. Crackers, gorp, peanut butter, tea bags, coffee, chips, graham crackers...
