Real Family Camping: camping

Showing posts with label camping. Show all posts

Friday, November 13, 2020

The Real Family Camping Cookbook - The Inspiration Behind the Book

I'm excited to announce that The Real Family Camping Cookbook is now out in paperback! This book is my personal "bible" of go-to recipes and meal plans we use on our camping trips! I put it together over the years camping with my kids, and I'm really happy to be able to offer it in paper, and at the right size (6x9) to toss into a backpack or the car for outdoor getaways!

The funny thing is, I never went camping when I was little. My People didn't camp - they drank coffee and did crossword puzzles! (Not that you can't do both.) So the camping bug didn't bite me until high school. My high school had two (TWO!) mandatory camping trips every year (EVERY YEAR!) - one in the fall and one in the spring. By the time I’d muddled through a couple of these – with all the wrong gear - I knew how to pack light and overlook the misery of a wet sleeping bag. The bare essentials!

On these school camping trips, the teachers fed us exclusively on big hunks of Vermont cheddar, and hot, lumpy bowls of Wheatina (an aggressively bland hot cereal, if you've never had it). All washed down with murky stream water! A few microbes are good for you!

My revenge took the shape of marshmallows many years later when I took my own kids camping - I always made sure we had fun and delicious food on our trips! And The Real Family Camping Cookbook grew out of our hilarious food experiments on those family trips – I was constantly trying out new dishes on the kids and then writing them down for the next time. That way I would remember to pack for our favorites, like Monkey Bread and the eternally popular Paper Bag Eggs.

Paper Bag Eggs! It's a tradition!

So, that’s how this book was born – part Little House on the Prairie, part science experiment, and part adventure... and my sincere hope that readers and campers have as much fun around the fire as we do.

You can find the book on Amazon (also available as an ebook), and I would love to hear what you think! You can DM me on Instagram or Facebook, drop a comment here, or, if you're so moved, leave an honest review on Amazon. Thank you and happy camping! Maggie

When kids make their own foil packets - they eat veggies!

Thursday, August 31, 2017

Our Very First Group Camping Trip

photo credit: Nadine Wegner

By guest blogger Peter Valentine

Our kids’ class has a tradition of reserving a block of sites at a Campground in the Catskills for a start of summer multi-family camping trip. While we love camping, we were reluctant to open our quirky unit to a 24/7 togetherness campaign. Our messy, disorganized family of five can barely get to school on time (OK, we’re never on time) and running with the pack is often a challenge. But this year, we decided to give it a try.

We started out early (for us) and still managed to be the last family there. And as we tried to maneuver our food up to the now-waning community grill, and as our tent and gear still sat in a pile beside our car and as our kids’ requests for this and that grew more intense, all my fears were confirmed. This would be a prolonged display of the fact that our family was in a constant state of chaos management.

And then one Mom handed me a plastic cup of single malt whiskey. And another Mom and Dad fed our kids. And another Dad came over and helped pitch our tent.

Still, we were destined to be known as the weirdest family there. Apart from our ragtag pile of camping gear, we had all kinds of odd habits. For one thing, our teenager insisted on sleeping in the car. With my shame held at bay by the whiskey (it was good whiskey), I let slip to another couple that our older boy would not be sleeping in spacious comfort in our big army tent. Rather, he would be stuffed in the back of our aged station wagon that night, along with the coolers and the bag of oranges we would probably forget to eat.

The other couple immediately started cracking up laughing, but before I could think of a defense for this practice, the wife told us that her husband is terrified of the outdoors and has spent every night of every year of the class camping trip in their car. As night fell and we all laughed over our whiskeys he confessed, “I just hate tents. I don’t know what it is.”

So we all went to our tents that night soon after dark (as it goes with camping). And two campers went to their cars. And in the morning everyone was off running with the pack, getting sunburnt, eating other people’s food as we fed other peoples’ kids and we all gathered round at night for more whiskey.

I guess it does take a village after all, but the greater lesson I think that I learned is that every family has their quirks and you won’t ever know the joy of discovering them if you stay at home.

Peter Valentine writes a daily poem using words found in the New York Times crossword puzzle. Visit him on Facebook here.

You may also like:
Family Camping Packing Checklist
Camping recipe: Muffin Tin Eggs (great for groups!)

Download our popular e-cookbook: The Real Family Camping Cookbook

Wednesday, June 17, 2015

Retro Camping Recipe: Hobo Dinners

I hope you enjoy this retro recipe from Betty Crocker - nobody takes pictures of food like Betty, am I right? In fact we make something just like this on camping trips - Stew in a Can. It's fun to put all the ingredients in a can, cover it up and let it cook away on the grill - or right in the hot coals of the fire. Kids can put whatever they want in their own "hobo can" and check it as often as they like. So maybe this recipe isn't so retro - or maybe I'm the one who's retro. ;) Have fun! - Maggie

Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Homemade camping fire starters put to the test! (hint: the Girl Scouts win.)

Kettletown, CT State Park provided these handy little firestarters

We made two firestarters for our last camping trip, and the campground gave us one when we bought wood so we decided to do an in-the-field comparison of all three. We saved the scientific test for the last day, which was good because we got a lot of dew that morning and the kindling and newspaper was all damp and didn't want to catch!

Firestarter 1: Wood chips and wax
The campground gave us starters made out of woodchips and wax, housed in those tiny paper cups they give out medication in at mental institutions.

Results: The lip on the paper cup made a good wick, so the starters caught fire right away. They burned steadily and didn't go out. I did wish they made more of a blaze, though, since everything was so damp.

Firestarter 2: Toilet paper rolls and dryer lint

We used graph paper because we didn't have any newspaper

These firestarters were fun and easy to make. Simply save up your dryer lint and empty toilet paper rolls, stuff the lint into the rolls, wrap in newspaper and tuck in the ends.

Results: Maybe these would start faster if we had used newspaper and not graph paper (apparently we don't know what's going on in the world but what we do know we like to chart). But either way, I had the same conclusion as with the wood chip starters, which is that the lint didn't make much of a blaze, so I had to tease the flame with bits of this and that to get it going.

Firestarter 3: Egg cartons and crayons, or "Fire Kisses"

"Fire Kisses" in the making

Our friend Samantha turned us on to "Fire Kisses" - the firestarters she made in the Girl Scouts. These are egg cartons with saw dust and wax (or old, broken crayons) wrapped in wax paper. We did a version of these with scraps of paper and wax bits, and we stuck them in a very low oven to melt the wax.

Results: As Samantha predicted, these worked the best! You break them off one by one and use them as needed. The egg carton cardboard catches really fast and the combination of cardboard, paper and wax made a flame that was big enough to get our damp, morning fire going. Go, Girl Scouts! (And thanks to Samantha. )