Camp Cooking

Now that we’re done with the history lesson and the ‘why’, what is needed to cook over fire?  To begin with, you should only make a fire in a fire ring.  It can be a metal ring, like in most campgrounds, or a circle of stones.  If you want to get fancy, you could use a propane fire that connects to your RV propane tank.  If you are building your own fire ring, make sure it is at least 10 feet from trees in an area free of leaves and other brush.

Accessories

The next items may not be necessary, but a grill grate for placing the food on is always handy if the fire ring doesn’t already have one.  Other possible accessories include pie irons, stick waffle irons, hot dog/marshmallow roasting forks, wood sticks, skewers, cast iron cookware like fry pans, Dutch ovens and griddles, coffee pots, popcorn shakers, and rotisserie. A broiler basket is great for hamburgers, fish, toast, steaks, and veggies. 

Starting the fire.  Get two sticks to rub together…. kidding.  Did you bring matches or lighter?  You’ll need tinder, crumpled newspaper, thin twigs, and dry branches in a teepee cone shape or log cabin stack.  When no one is watching, I give the wood a squirt of charcoal lighter fluid (or WD40) before lighting it.  Let the fire burn down for approximately 45+ minutes until you have a nice pile of white coals.  You don’t want to cook over open flames unless you really like charred, burned food that is still raw inside.

Fire Wood

When camping, we enjoy a nice fire in the evening for cooking with pie irons, foil packs, and, of course, marshmallows. Many campgrounds recommend not transporting firewood since it may contain invasive species of insects and their eggs. Unfortunately, much of the CG wood we’ve bought is either too damp or so dense that it just smolders and smokes in your direction no matter where you move. As a woodworker, I usually have a bucket of cuttings, but I have found another great source of firewood – wooden pallets.

TIP#155: A neighbor got a load of sod and put the pallet out to the curb. Now that I’m looking, I’m seeing pallets everywhere, along side of the road, behind stores, and on construction sites, free for the asking. I cut them up, pull them apart, hammer the nails over flat, and stack the pieces in a cardboard box (Ummm, Mango Moscato!) which also gets burned. (The box, not the Moscato.)

Caution: Pallets are treated to kill insects and branded with a code. Look for ones with: HT= Heat Treatment, DB= Debarked, KD= Kiln Dried. While rare in the US, avoid: MB= Methyl Bromide insecticide.

TIP#098: When you are done cooking, drop in a couple packs of Chromo Flame Color Changing Packets, sit back, and watch the show. It’s much more entertaining than what’s on TV.

Sticks, Forks, and Skewers

The first thing many people think of when someone mentions camp cooking over an open fire is roasting marshmallows on a long fork. Hot dogs taste better with a little campfire smokiness flavor added. Take hot dogs to the next level by wrapping them in crescent roll dough to create their own buns.

Bread or crescent roll dough wrapped around a thick wooden stick is one of my favorites. It also makes great eclairs filled with vanilla pudding and topped with chocolate frosting.

Foil Packs
Foil packets over a campfire grill is one of the simplest methods of camp cooking. They’re hard to mess up, and you can make packets with any kind of meat, vegetables, or fruit. Save time and effort by putting together the packs ahead of time and storing them in the refrigerator.

What can you cook with aluminum foil? Almost anything you would cook in an oven. Vegetables: potatoes, carrots, green beans, onions, apples, pears, bell peppers, and broccoli. Meats: ground beef, turkey, chicken, steak, fish, sausage, etc. You can mix and match different combinations of ingredients.

Pie Iron

One of my favorite campfire cooking utensils is a pie iron. It is a small cast-iron or aluminum pan that can toast, bake, or grill over your campfire coals. It is perfect for grilled cheese sandwiches, mini pizzas, cinnamon rolls, and, of course, pies.

TIP#015: To use a pie iron, you simply butter one side of two slices of bread, fill it with your ingredients (example: cheese, pizza sauce, pepperoni), place it in the cooker with buttered sides out, and place it over your hot coals.

Experimentation is the key to creating some fun camping recipes.

Recipes: PDF File: RV_Cooking_PieIron-RvXplore_us

Camping Dutch oven

Dutch ovens are cast-iron pots that may be used for frying, baking, sautéing, boiling, and simmering, to name a few. They have stubby legs and a flat lid with a lip around it to help support coals placed on top. These features set them apart from home-use Dutch ovens.

A Dutch oven can be used as a… well… an oven, with coals on top and bottom, to bake biscuits, cakes, and pies. In addition, the lid can be flipped over and utilized to cook on, which is perfect for bacon and eggs.

Recipes: PDF File: RV_Cooking_DutchOven-RvXplore_us

Solar Oven

For the ultimate “off-the-grid” cooking method, nothing beats a Solar Oven. If you have sunshine, you have a hot meal. A solar oven can use the sun’s nuclear fusion energy to bake, boil, or steam a meal. Pretty much anything you can cook in a conventional oven, you can make in a solar oven.

TIP#204: A simple solar oven can be constructed using a couple of nesting cardboard boxes, newspaper, aluminum foil, and a glass cover. Commercial solar ovens are available for $$$ but it’s much more fun to build your own. I even combine mug cooking (TIP#121) with a solar oven.

Update: We have upgraded from our DIY cardboard box solar to a tube-style solar oven. The performance is amazing, and it easily reaches 300 °F in full sun. The tube is a double-walled cylinder similar to a vacuum thermos bottle for extra insulation. The tube diameter limits the size of the food portion, but it is perfect for creating two-person meals. The tube is much easier to take camping than the cardboard box style.