What's your biggest camp cooking gripe/challenge

JasonJNSmith wrote:g. cheap

Contains blueberries.

Pressure cookers can be pricey but decrease cooking time and fuel consumption.

baking...

- Unattended dogs in places like Indian Creek (some are actually crafty enough to open unattended coolers).
- Having to switch to vegetable oil instead of olive because of cold temps.
- Keeping leafy greens from wilting fast.

Bisquick is my favorite at the end of a messy meal in the backcountry. It packs light and doesn't spoil, sure, but also: cooking a flat biscuit in a dirty pan soaks up everything leaving your cookware very close to clean. Got a pan coated with pesto and cheese? That pesto-cheese biscuit is going to be delicious, and the pan will be nearly clean. Biscuits are also delicious with almost any flavor, savory or sweet. Mmm maple bacon biscuit. Oh wait did you say "healthy"?

Make sure to get the "just add water" type.

Hard Landin' Brandon wrote:Bisquick is my favorite at the end of a messy meal in the backcountry. It packs light and doesn't spoil, sure, but also: cooking a flat biscuit in a dirty pan soaks up everything leaving your cookware very close to clean. Got a pan coated with pesto and cheese? That pesto-cheese biscuit is going to be delicious, and the pan will be nearly clean. Biscuits are also delicious with almost any flavor, savory or sweet. Mmm bacon biscuit. Oh wait did you say "healthy"? Make sure to get the "just add water" type.

this is a great trick!

My biggest issue is a lack of motivation. Anything that makes camp cooking easier, faster, and tastier is a positive in my book. I go on trips to climb, not sit in camp and make crappy food. I often just make up food at home and eat it partially frozen.

Anything that can help me get excited about camp cooking is a positive.

I think we have to designate here between 'camping cookouts, right off the tailgate or at a nice picnic area; and backcountry meal making under stressful conditions. They are 2 distinct types of cooking, from the stoves to the choices of food to prepare.

The best way I've found for doing dishes on the road is with a spray bottle and paper-towels. Get a spray bottle with a nice fine mist, fill it with water, and add a couple drops of bleach (like the final rinse bucket on a river trip). 'Viva' paper-towels seem to be the best, the 1-2-3 choose a size type roll. It can help to let the spray soak in for a minute or two, especially with sticky meals, or when you're too lagging to do the dishes right after you're done eating.

With this setup and some practice on how to strategically fold the paper-towels to get the most out of them, you can clean the plates and pans from a fully messy meal for four with maybe half a quart of water and 3-5 paper-towels.

EDIT- a couple more tips: a good/new non-stick coating on your cooking pans helps a ton (and take care not to scratch them), and 3 pronged forks are easier to clean than the normal 4. I've found those thin and flexible spatulas to be the best (without the holes), and if you've used one for cooking, use it to scrape off as as much as you can from your plates/pans before getting at them with the spray bottle and paper-towels.

Maybe I am just hungry...but I found this on Pinterest and think people will like... 30 WaystoMake Grilled Cheese

Breakfast, Lunch AND dinner Grilled Cheese ideas.... Just remember,cheese in moderation is important if you want to be...on the go.

doligo wrote:- Unattended dogs in places like Indian Creek (some are actually crafty enough to open unattended coolers). - Having to switch to vegetable oil instead of olive because of cold temps. - Keeping leafy greens from wilting fast.

Most of these problems can be solved with beer.

Cooler full of beer, dogs aint interested.
Switching to vegetable oil dont matter if youre drunk off beer.
And lastly, replacing the greens with...you guessed it!BEER! will prevent them from wilting.

To keep a cooler cold without water in the bottom of ur cooler that eventually gets wasted use old juice jugs and fill them with water then freeze them. They stay frozen as long as a block of Ice and then you have a freezing cold bottle of water to drink off of once they start to melt. You don't end up with soggy packaging and have extra water available!

Most of my gripes pertain to backpacking or multi-day climbing trips.

1. Weight - packing fresh veggies / fruit 10 miles in and 6,000' up sucks.

2. Taste - I do a lot of my camping in and around treeline in Co, which is around 12,000'. I tend to lose my appetite due to a combination of exhaustion, elevation, and not wanting to deal with setting up the stove, cooking, and cleaning up. Weather can compound this. Food has to be tasty enough to warrant the effort to prepare and eat it. Most camp foods just don't cut it. Candy, chips, beef jerky, tend to top my camping pantry.

3. Preparation time - It's been a long day, I just want to eat NOW.

4. Cleanup time - after eating all I want to do is curl up in my sleeping bag and pass out. 3am comes awfully early.

The typical foods I bring along are:
Beef-jerky, snickers bars, really tasty granola bars, instant oatmeal, yogurt tubes (frozen), cheddar lil-smokies, cliff shot-bloks, reese's pieces, instant mocha.

Joshua, google up "freezer bag cooking" - you can find lots of good recipes and ideas for inexpensive delicious 5-min 'just add hot water' meals with minimal cleanup. On multi day trips when I know I'll be craving fruit, I bring dried fruit - just put it in your nalgene in the morning (no need for hot water) and in a few hours you'll end up with nice juicy plump fruit and bonus fruity drink.

Meme Guy wrote: Most of these problems can be solved with beer.

I always know I can keep my veggies crisp and cold because I always have some room with my ice and beer in a cooler somewhere.

grocery shopping.

I just need a list of stuff to buy then a list of recipes to make with that stuff. So many recipes use 1/2 of something. I want to use everything and buy simple stuff and it has to be cheap and ideally it should cook itself while I am sleeping so that it will be ready when I wake up.

Strongest statements made above are probably for the 'dry campground' predicaments. No water after cooking to spare for clean up, not much for fancy cooking, pasta boiling, rinsing etc. so a solid water supply AND proper place for draining away dirty water without polluting is more important than our personal choice of recipe, menu or fresh food fetish. Keep it clean and sterile.

SMG wrote:I What I'm looking for is what you find the most challenging in your camp cooking: .

Not being French.

One year I was in the south of France climbing on the coast. I had a bit of an epic which involved hitting the deck, a helicopter, nearly drowning and finally being left almost naked in the dark on a beach without any money or my passport.

Some French climbers on the beach had a spear gun and a simple 1 burner gas stove. They cooked one of the best meals I've ever had: sea food, fish, wonderful sauces. Great wine.

Helen and I had been living on dried climbing rations and other shit for a month. I still don't know how our rescuers did it.

Finding a good restaurant that's close and open

dude you should check out the Wal Mart cooler than a Mac. It keeps ice for 4 to 5days.

20 kN wrote: A. D is not applicable as it would be WAY too costly to try to buy refrigerated goods along a many-month-long trip. That's my largest challenge with camp cooking--you cant really buy refrigerated goods.