Camp food

Our camping background is a little different from what we experienced on the coast a few weeks back. I have only been backpacking, except for the one night that Jackie and I spent sleeping on the side of the Grand Canyon and the one night we slept out in New Mexico and then the one night we slept in the van in a rest stop along the highway heading west for our new home. Oh, and the night Jackie and I were in West Virginia and we tried to cook corn-on-the-cob in a fire pit, and we tried to cook whole, raw potatoes in a fire pit and all we ended up with was a single Jiffy Pop of popcorn. There may be a few others like that as well, but moving on...

When backpacking, I nearly always survived on lots of water and gatorade, trailmix, hot cocoa, honey nut cheerios, and instant chicken noodle soup (just add water). But, that was just for me, and I certainly didn't have the luxury of a cooler in my pack. Even the girls would bore of that diet quickly.

When Charley was a young pup (before the girls), Andy and I decided to take her camping - just to see if she would do well, so we picked a site on the Salmon Creek Trail that we could hike to, but also quickly get to the car should she be crazy. This one night trip is when Andy introduced me to "foil packs". A hamburger, some sliced potatoes, onions, mushrooms, and peppers and seasoning is wrapped in foil. To cook, you literally just put it on the fire - the hotter the better. It really works, and it was delicious, especially in reference to my sketchy camp food background. I always considered this to be an Olson original, having never heard of it before. So, yesterday when I came across this article - this one - well, I was a bit surprised! It has all the ingredients and it even includes Andy's favorite seasoning - Tony Chachere's.

Needless to say, our first meal at the campsite was a dinner made of foil packs. Just like the one's described above. Then, since our only campstove was intended for backpacking and not for cooking for a whole family, we made everything else on a stick. The girls had hot dogs, s'mores, even breakfast sausage the next morning. It was fun enough, and low maintenance (there was very little for us to clean) - but I think we need to do better next time. So, we are borrowing our neighbor's fancy grill with burner and intend for everyone to eat more than one great meal (obviously, the foil pack on our last trip).