Campfire Cooking Basics From Setup To Cleanup

Before summer camping season winds down, try a new type of cooking experience that's fun for the whole family. If firing up your gas or charcoal grill at home is your ultimate cooking experience, you haven't tried cooking over a campfire yet!  Cooking over a true open flame is similar to grilling out, but more authentic and thrilling.  Imagine roasting marshmallows and making S'mores as the fire roars. Then, as the flame slows down and forms glowing embers, it's time to throw your meal on. The smoke and flavor from the wood you use acts like a giant hug to whatever food you are about to enjoy. You can almost taste it already, can't you?

Campfire (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

But, before you get started, there are a few basic things you need to know about how to cook over an open campfire. Once you learn the basics you'll be ready to throw a feast of delectable campfire delights together in no time.

Fire Up, Burn Down

In order to have a great campfire cooking experience, it is important to let your wood or coals get as hot as possible before you try to cook on them. The importance of waiting for the fire to burn down and the embers to start glowing is all of the kindling and starter have burned away.  This means you don't get the nasty newspaper smoke or pine needles smoke on your food while cooking.  If you want to eat sooner, use less material or cleaner kindling to get your fire going initially. The sooner it burns off, the sooner you can begin cooking.

Methods of Cooking

There are a few different methods to cooking over an open fire. Let's take a look at four of the most common ways:

1. Direct heat and aluminum foil - Wrap food such as meat and vegetables in a double layer of heavy-duty aluminum foil. Place the foil package on a bed of slow embers or coals. You can surround the package with a few more embers for more even cooking.  Allow to cook for 15 to 20 minutes, more or less depending on the food in the packages, and you have a delicious meal in a pouch.

2. Direct heat and long skewers - Place food such as hot dogs on skewers or prongs and roast them over the fire. This can work well with kebabs as long as the pieces are cut in appropriate sizes so they all cook at the same time.  Meat would have to be smaller than a piece of pineapple, for instance.

3. Metal grate - Place a metal grate, such as you have on your grill at home, over the campfire and cook as you would over your grill.  Adjust the height of the grate and the distance from the embers by arranging large rocks or logs to hold the grate up. Then the embers are glowing underneath the grate so you can perfectly cook that dinner.

4. Hanging racks - Construct, or buy, a tripod or rack and put it over the fire. Now you can hang pots from it or even hang a grate.  Many are adjustable so you can arrange the food to cook at the time and temperature you desire.

 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Cleanup

When cooking on a campfire in the great outdoors, the option of leaving the dishes go until the morning is just not available.  Bears and other predators can smell food and will come exploring to find it.  In order to keep your campsite safe, it is important to keep your fire and food at least fifty yards from your tent and to keep your cookware and dishes clean.  You can clean cookware by placing a grate over the fire and filling two metal pots with water. When one is warm, remove it from the fire, add soap and wash dishes. When the other pot of water is hot, place soapy dishes in a mesh bag and dip into the hot water several times. Dry with towels, paper towels, or hang to air dry.  Put ALL the food into closed containers and store safely away from your tents.  Save your dishwashing water for the next step.

When you are ready to turn in for the night, don't just kick a little dirt on the fire and go to bed.  Instead, take your dishwashing water and extinguish the fire with it when you are through. Stir the fire around and add more water if necessary, until you see every ember go out.  Now, shovel dirt over the top and stir again.  Remember:  “Only YOU can prevent forest fires.” - Smokey The Bear.

With a little preparation and the right tools, you can have a wonderful cookout at your campsite while enjoying the great outdoors!

An Old-Fashioned Picnic - Enjoy Foods from Days Gone By!

Summer's ending always seems to trigger nostalgia. Before we head into the chill of fall, why not take advantage of the remaining warm days and have an old-fashioned summer picnic? Remembering days long past brings back memories of fabulous foods and outdoor picnics on a blanket on the grass. Picnic dishes were often family recipes we grew up with, passed down from Grandmother to Mother, Grandfather to Father.

Back in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, school picnics, potluck picnics, 4th of July picnics, and Labor Day picnics were times when the mothers and fathers would present their favorite salads, desserts, baked beans, or grilled masterpieces.  Just recalling these old favorites is enough to take you back, enjoying the memory of every tasty morsel.  Here are a few dishes that, I hope, will evoke memories for you, and maybe even some ideas for your next picnic:

Old Main Dishes Made New
Ah, for the days when low fat and cholesterol were still a figment of someone's imagination.  At every picnic, piles of chicken with crispy skin, hamburgers, hotdogs, and bratwursts or sausages took center stage.  There was no such thing as boneless, skinless chicken breasts or turkey burgers.  Back then, we cooked our chicken with the skin on, bones in, and everybody ate it all.  There was one brand of hotdogs, all bratwursts and sausages were pork, and hamburgers were made with 'hamburger' and not lean ground beef (aka "pink slime"), or any variation.

Sausages with salad and potato salad (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Nowadays, you can grill some of the old time favorites, but feel free to tweak them to your taste, and of course, for best health, choose organic, sustainably raised and pasture-fed meats.

Put a whole chicken on the grill, either by removing the backbone and “butterflying” the chicken, flattening it out to cook evenly, or putting it on the rotisserie (or try beer can chicken for a special taste treat).  The fat cooks off better than deep frying it, and a whole chicken stays more moist than a cut-up chicken. Another option is to slide your seasonings underneath the skin before grilling.  Perfect “have your cake and eat it too” solution – the flavor is ON the meat and not the skin.

There are more choices now for hotdogs, sausages, and bratwursts.  You can find many varieties using leaner choices like turkey, chicken, or even vegetarian, that have fabulous flavor.  It's amazing how many vegetarian hotdogs are available that taste almost identical to other hotdogs once they've been on the grill.  Don't shy away from these new varieties of your favorite summer grill staples.

Simple grilled beef steak maintains the legacy of the 40s, 50s, and 60s quite well.  Include the classic cast iron skillet of mushrooms and onions and you have a grilled steak dinner identical to the best dinners from decades past.

Chicken salad, tuna salad, and other cold main dish salads and sandwiches are the mainstays of Mom's picnic dishes from decades past.  Ground ham or bologna sandwiches are still seen, but have been updated for a more health conscience picnic goer.  Processed meats are often avoided when picnic meals are planned today, however, the flavors of these long-ago sandwiches are still a much desired picnic basket favorite. Choose a lean slice of ham, chop it up or grind it, and mix it with light mayonnaise, olive oil mayonnaise, or just mix in cooked egg yolk and sour cream as a nice alternative.  Don't forget the pickle relish!  This makes a nice old-fashioned sandwich that's delicious and more health conscious.

Here's where we add a note about breads when serving sandwiches.  The days of piles of sandwiches in white bread are gone.  Replacing white bread with multi-grain bread bumps sandwiches up a notch into the 21st Century.  For instance, the classic “picnic spread” of ground or chopped ham that we just modernized can be made even healthier.  Spread it on a hearty seven grain bread, and you turn an old fashioned picnic favorite into a new, healthier classic - and with more flavor too.

Old-Fashioned Sides With a Few Twists

Salads had less greens and more mayonnaise back in the old days.  Pasta salads, potato salads, egg salad, deviled eggs, seven layer salads, Jello salads, and lots of other sides were often based on mayonnaise dressings.  Now, many of these sides have embraced vinaigrette dressings, light herb dressings, and other lower fat alternatives to regular mayonnaise.

Potato salad (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Classics like three bean salads have changed from sugar and vinegar based dressing to honey or other light dressing.  Potato salads now include lighter varieties for the dressing, like olive oil, vinegar, and lots of herbs, while still including the classic egg yolk for the flavor we all love.  You'll also find many creamy dressings are now being made with yogurt instead of mayonnaise.  Or, folks are making their own mayonnaise using healthy fat alternatives.

Deviled eggs are another side that we loved back in the old days.  Every picnic had a tray or two or three of these classics, often in clever little carrying devices.  How can you improve or update deviled eggs? Add capers or anchovies for more flavor and you have an updated version of this wonderful favorite.  Chop up cilantro, add a dash of hot sauce, and you've got deviled eggs that are uniquely yours.

And, yes, we mentioned Jello salads.  There was a time when Jello salads were vehicles for vegetables as well as fruit.  Those days are long gone.  However, the reason is not because they weren't tasty, the reason is because many of these vegetable Jello dishes featured mayonnaise.  Lime Jello with shredded carrots topped with sour cream and mayonnaise was not uncommon.  No, you probably don't want to duplicate that in your “revisit the good old days” picnic.  However, there are ways to bring back the old, yet maintain the new.  Simple Jello salads featuring vegetables is actually quite tasty.  Choose simple combinations like a lime Jello with shaved celery and carrots, topped with a dollop of Greek yogurt.  This is a tasty, light combination that appeals to many picnic goers who are watching their diet.

Think twice before you plan your sides and salads and you'll find many alternatives with today's nod to health conscious choices, and a touch of modern flavor. 

Decades Old Desserts

Chocolate desserts were always a big hit at picnics of the 40s, 50s, and 60s.  From chocolate puddings, cakes, cookies, and even cream pies, knowing then that everybody loves chocolate was a pretty safe bet, just as it is today.  Some favorites of those decades was Black Forest Cake and German Chocolate Cake.  As ingredients like coconut, baking chocolate, and canned cherries became more available, these favorites became the norm instead of the exception at just about every occasion.  Because both of these cakes freeze especially well, they are the perfect choice for today's picnic celebration.  Transport in a cooler and they will thaw in time for dessert.

A cranberry jello salad made in a ring mold. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Now, we come to Jello once again.  Believe it or not, during the 40s and 50s, the Jello folks were pushing hard to get housewives to implement Jello as a vegetable.  Then, in the 60s the emphasis turned to Jello as a dessert.  One classic from those days was the whipped Jello and ice cream dessert. Throwing your Jello in a mixing bowl and whipping in fruit and ice cream got kids to eat Jello for dessert, long forgetting the vegetable focus.  Jello desserts began to fill picnic and potluck tables like never before.  When hosting a picnic featuring your favorite dishes from long ago, you can't forget the Jello.  There are low-sugar varieties now and many creative recipes to serve Jello in new ways.

Yes, times have changed, but every once in awhile, don't you just long to indulge in the picnic foods you remember from long ago?   If so, dig around in the recipes from the past.  Choose your favorites and have fun making them exactly as you like – either the way you remember, or with a few tweaks to make them more "you".  Plan your next picnic with all those favorites from the 1940s, 50s, and 60s and rediscover the flavors of days gone by.

Be sure to check back later this week for some tasty picnic-friendly recipes!

Memorial Day Picnic - Fun Grilling Ideas

Think of warm weather, summertime, and outdoor activities, and you'll soon be thinking of planning a picnic.  There's nothing like sharing food in the great outdoors to give you plenty of reasons to smile.

Italian sausage. A typical method of cooking is grilling, as depicted here. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Firing up the grill for a picnic usually brings on thoughts of hamburgers, hot dogs, and barbecued chicken. That's all dandy and certainly delicious, but wouldn't you like your grilled food to stand out a little from the rest?  Perhaps there are ways to present old favorites on the grill in new ways, or even try something completely different.  Here are a few thoughts about new ways to grill up some summertime dishes this Memorial Day (or just any warm summer day when you want to do something a bit special):

Rethink the Sauce
One popular ingredient in many grilled main dishes is barbeque sauces and other types of glazes and marinades. There are hundreds if not thousands of recipes to add more flavor to whatever you're cooking. If you have been grilling for many years, you've probably made your own sauces or have found a few favorites. But, maybe it's time to rethink those sauces.

Begin by experimenting with a whole range of ingredients.  Don't limit yourself to the ingredients you've been using.  We know you automatically pull out the mustard, ketchup, brown sugar, vinegar, and honey, but what else is there to make a sauce for the grill?

Take a look first in the fruit bin. Consider the lemons, limes, oranges, apples, and yes, even the watermelon, strawberries, blueberries, and kiwis.  Now, pull open the vegetable bin and grab the fresh tomatoes, cucumber, bell peppers, celery, onion, and even avocados.  Turn to your pantry and take out the apple jelly, orange marmalade, maple syrup, raisins, dried cranberries, red wine vinegar, tarragon vinegar, and all the dressings, including Ranch, French, Thousand Island, and Green Goddess.  And, don't forget the spice rack.  There is basically nothing off limits – grab it all.

Don't be afraid to grate, smash, or simmer ingredients together that you might never have used in the same sauce before. Combine contrasting flavors – savory with sweet, tangy with smooth, creamy with crunchy – until you have a unique sauce that you can call your own.

Now, marinade, glaze, or brush the sauce onto whatever you are grilling.  Try a fruity white sauce on meat; a tomato-based hot sauce on fish; or a savory herbed sauce on fruit.  Put it on the grill and see what happens.  You'll have completely new dishes that will perk up and surprise the taste buds.  And, isn't that what grilling is all about?

Rethink the Main Dish
If you're used to throwing a steak on the grill, but want to experiment with other cuts, try grilling full roasts.  With the right preparation and setup, you can put a big beef roast or pork roast on the grill, either in a rack or on a rotisserie and surprise your family and guests with a tender and juicy roast that didn't require heating up the house with hours in the oven.

Grilling chả. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Instead of your usual cut up chicken pieces, wings, or legs, try grilling a whole chicken.  The juices stay in a little better when the chicken is whole.  Not sure you have time for a whole chicken?  You can also “butterfly” a chicken by cutting out just the backbone and pushing it down flat, keeping the chicken whole but providing a flattened version that cooks up in no time.

Fish is another grilling favorite at picnics.  Use fish that is firm and solid so it grills well and doesn't fall apart or become dry.  Oily fish like salmon is perfect on the grill, but there are many other types of fish that work equally well.  Fish grills best when you don't have to flip it with a spatula, that's why you want to invest in a grilling basket which encloses the fish and you flip the basket over easily with the fish inside it.

Other seafood that's perfect picnic food for the grill includes shrimp, scallops, and lobster.  Shrimp can be grilled unpeeled to help keep them from overcooking.  Lobster can be grilled in the shell, as well.  Use a tray made for the grill with smaller slots to keep smaller seafood, like shrimp and scallops, from falling through.  Marinate the seafood in a variety of flavors for a different flavor each time you have a grilling picnic.

You say your taste for a juicy grilled burger is too powerful to ignore?  You've still got lots of choices for variety at your picnic. You can dress up your burgers inside-and-out with many different flavors.  Remember; beef isn't the only burger in town!  Ground turkey, pork, or chicken are great substitutes for those who want a different kind of burger at this year's picnic.  But, don't stop there.  Salmon and crab meat make great grilled patties, too. And of course there's my favorite - venison.

Besides what goes into the actual patty, think beyond conventional recipes and marinate your ground meat or fish with anything from red wine to a mixture of Worcestershire, soy sauce, or steak sauce, lemon juice, or balsamic vinegar.  Add to the inside of the burger, or as condiments, a variety of flavorful cheeses, hot or mild peppers, nuts, and salsa.  Instead of throwing a raw onion on top, caramelize some onions in a cast iron skillet on top of the grill over low heat.  The incredible sweetness will surprise and delight you and your guests.  These are no longer your grandpa's burgers!

Brussels Grill: Mixed vegetables (Photo credit: batigolix)

Sometimes, you need to rethink the way you prepare your main dishes at a grilling picnic to make serving simple. Think shish-kabobs and you hardly even need to bring plates!  These bite-size pieces are a great way to cook, serve, and eat your favorite foods easily at a grilling picnic.  Alternate cut up meat, meat balls, poultry, or seafood with grape tomatoes, chunks of sweet onions, peppers, zucchini, yellow squash, or mushrooms.  Some foods lend themselves very well to a tropical taste, too.  Include pineapple chunks or citrus with chicken or seafood for a taste of the islands.

Rethink the Dessert

Sure, you can serve popsicles and watermelon, but the grill is right there, all fired up.  Isn't there something you can do to put it to work creating delightful desserts?  You can start with the old stand-by and toast marshmallows, but don't stop there.  Keep going and put together 'S'mores' using the classic ingredients of toasted marshmallows, graham crackers, and a chocolate bar.  Or, you can create unique varieties using toasted marshmallows with things like oatmeal cookies, peanut butter cups, white chocolate, and flaked coconut as possible ingredients. You'll have lots of fun coming up with your own distinct creations here.

Expanding on the dessert theme is easier than you might think with a grill.  For instance, go ahead and cut up that watermelon you brought... but wait.  How about grilling it before serving?  Yes, you can grill watermelon, too.  Cut it off the rind, into about one inch thick pieces.  Grill quickly on both sides until grill marks show.  Put it on a plate and drizzle a tiny bit of balsamic vinaigrette over each piece.  The tangy saltiness of the vinaigrette compliments the sweetness of the watermelon in an unbelievable way.  Now THAT'S a grilled picnic delight!

You can also choose dessert classics that can be grilled, like pound cake with fruit compote or simple berries tossed together in a grilling basket until just lightly charred.  You can make banana boats in foil filled with mini marshmallows and chocolate chips, or perhaps your tastes lean toward grilled apple slices topped with a syrup of brown sugar and raisins.  Grilled pineapple rings is another classic.  Serve these simply on a plate as they are or use them to top slices of angel food cake or pound cake with a drizzle of chocolate.

As you can see, you can grill just about anything you want to serve at your picnic.  Even if you choose to serve sandwiches, why not grill them?  When you fire up your grill for your picnic, don't limit the menu to hotdogs and hamburgers.  Use your imagination.  If you can cook it, you can grill it!


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