After all, it creates a shopping list and keeps my recipes organized, so I don't have to go find all of the camping recipes or rewrite my list every time. The prep list is also handy for camping. I like to get as much prep work done as possible before we leave. It's so much easier to do at home and allows us to enjoy our trip more. The prep list gives an easy reference for all the food that needs be chopped, diced or sliced before we go. The multiplier feature is also useful since we sometimes go camping with just our small immediate family and other times we go with larger groups where the cooking responsibilities are shared. All I have to do is change the multiplier and the program will do the multiplying for me.
Download the new spreadsheet here.
After utilizing the features I have already built into the macro, I realized that a packing checklist would also be handy to have, so I created one. The new 'Packing List' tab creates three checklists: the meals that are planned, the perishable items for the cooler and the non-perishable items.
I have only entered a few camping recipes so far. They are in columns BV through CD. But, you can add your own recipes. To have the recipe you enter show up in the "Meals" checklist, you will need to enter "Camping" in row 3, the meal designation, of the recipe you enter.
For any ingredients you want to have in the other packing checklists, enter "Pack" as the prep for that ingredient. You can also indicate the prep required for an item and that it should be packed by entering the prep followed by one space and then "Pack". For example, I have some cheese in my recipes that need to be shredded before we go and then packed. For the prep for the cheese I enter "Shred Pack" It will be entered in the shredding prep list and the packing checklist. Read more about entering recipes here.
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| Indicates that the corresponding ingredients in the list should be packed. |
I am by no means an expert in outdoor cooking. In fact it looks like I need to relearn everything I knew about it now that we've moved from Colorado to the south. We are used to mountain camping where it is cold in the morning year round and the first thing you do every morning while camping is build a fire. I didn't want to wash dishes while camping, so I planned all foil meals to be cooked on the fire. It turns out that if you are camping in Florida, you DO NOT want a fire first thing in the morning.
I suppose if I had thought about this I would have realized that a fire is unpleasant on a Florida morning, but it didn't even occur to me to second guess my plans for a fire. As a result, every morning we built a fire. When it was ready we would run over and throw the breakfast on it, retreating to a safe distance and only approaching the fire to check on the food. So, while we probably won't use these particular recipes for hot weather camping, here is what we did and how they turned out:
Blueberry Foil Breakfast (Column BV) - This was so delicious! It's like a blueberry French toast or bread pudding. The only change I made was eliminating the mixing bowl. The recipe says to mix all the ingredients in a bowl and then divide the mixture between the foil packets. I didn't want to have to mess with the bowl, so I divided the bread and blueberries between the foil packets at home. You need to close the packets loosely as you will be opening and closing them again. The morning you want to cook them, open the packets, divide the pre-mixed liquid ingredients evenly between the packets, pouring over the bread and blueberries. Close the foil packets tightly and cook in indirect heat from the fire.
Egg in a Bowl (Column BW) - This was tasty and easy. I hollowed out the bread bowls before we left and then assembled these the rest of the way the morning that we ate them. As a bonus, you can use the bread you remove from these as part of the bread for the Blueberry Foil Breakfasts above. These were pretty tasty and easy. Ours burnt pretty badly on the bottom, so you'll need to be careful about that.
Hashbrown Packets (Column BX) - I have made this breakfast casserole many times at home, and it is always delicious. I thought it could make a good foil breakfast. I still think that, but it needs some work. I mixed all the ingredients except the eggs together and placed in two foil packets for two mornings. In the morning I beat the eggs and poured over the hashbrown mixture and cooked over the fire. It turned out okay but had a few problems. It took a long time to cook, I think, due to the fact that I left the hashbrowns frozen to help keep the cooler chilled. Not only were the hashbrowns very cold, but as they heated they released a lot of moisture, which slowed the cooking time as well. Also frozen hashbrowns aren't pre-cooked, so the potatoes were still underdone when the eggs were finished. Next time I do this I will bake potatoes in the microwave, dice them and use in place of the frozen hashbrowns. I think that will improve the cooking time and resolve the undercooked potatoes and moisture issues.
Hot Dogs (Column BY) - A camping classic that requires no recipe and no prep work. This column is really just a list of items to buy and then pack.
Sweet Potato Chicken Foil Packets (Column BZ) - I didn't actually make these. I planned to and added them to the recipes database. Then we decided to go out to eat one night instead. Maybe we'll try them sometime in the future.
Beef Foil Dinners (Column CA) - I partially cooked the potatoes in the microwave so they wouldn't brown and then preassembled these before we left.
S'mores (Column CB) - No camping trip is complete without these. This is another one that is just a shopping/packing list of items. This is a handy way to use the macro, so you don't have to create a new list of all the random items you take every time you go. You could even make a list of all your favorite camping snacks.
Camp Cones (Column CC) - These were tasty and fun. We skipped the peanut butter chips. I think strawberries would be very tasty in them although we didn't try it this time.
Taco Pasta Salad (Columns CD) - This was the big winner of this trip. I made it for us to have as lunch at the beach, and it was perfect. It was easy to cook and take along, cool and refreshing. We will definitely be having it again for hot weather camping or picnics. I made this up at home and left out the avocado and the cheese. I divided the salad into portion size containers so a person could just grab a single serving out of the cooler and eat directly from the container. We took along avocados with a plastic knife and a small bag of shredded cheese. Then we added them to the individual containers as needed.
Of course, you don't only have to do foil meals when camping. Regular freezer meals can also be useful for camping. Really anything that you can cook on the stove top will work for camping, so soups and stews or any of the freezer to pan meals. Since we probably we won't be doing as much cooking on the fire in the near future, we will most likely use those types of freezer meals, so there's not much cooking and everyone can relax a little more while on vacation.
Freezer meals are handy for other travel too. Read more about freezer meals and travel.
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