If you’re reading this post, my little family is successfully camping in the middle of NOwhere.  The forecast for Sunday was a low of 42 degrees.  Monday’s high is 65.  Sunny, at least!  We did pack winter hats and mittens for the kids…come to think of it, I’d better grab mine too!  It just goes to show that in Michigan, we really do have all four seasons…sometimes in the same week.

My boys last year on our hike to the beach at Lake Michigan. The beauty is just awe-inspiring, and the walk is just per-spiring!

I was planning to start this post by telling you all not to tell the Kitchen Kop on me for my naughty, unhealthy camping trip meals, but by the time I made a few changes and decided to make some of the breads from scratch, this is turning out to be a fairly healthy meal plan for three days in the woods.  We can always “cheat” a little, especially when we’re going to be working hard outside and getting tons of exercise walking up and down hills (that are about straight up) to get to the beach!  This is our “20%” of the time that we’re unhealthy, and we can do the “80%” when we get back home!  My cheater items are mostly the cured meats, oh, nitrates, nitrates...May the Lord bless the food anyway and protect our health!  (Do you Trust in the Promise of your Meal Blessing?)

Dinner Sunday:

• Hamburgers (grass-fed, on 100% whole wheat homemade buns from the Happy Housewife.  I added some whey instead of water and soaked the flour overnight, putting the egg in with the salt and yeast the next day and letting my bread machine do the work!  They baked up beautifully on my stoneware.)
• Baked beans (put the can right in the fire!)
• Corn on the cob (on the grill)
• Watermelon

Breakfast Monday:

• Soaked pancakes (I’m using a variation on The Nourishing Gourmet’s recipe – the refined coconut oil is working just great, by the way.  I soaked the flour in a mason jar Sunday morning before we left, and I plan to add the other ingredients Monday morning “in the field”.  If anyone wants to try this and needs to know if/how it worked, just ask in the comments and I’ll update later this week!  We make them on a tailgating grill with a griddle option, but we could do them on a griddle over the fire.) UPDATE: Here’s the post with the recipe. It worked great!
• Bacon (definitely a “20%” portion of the day!)
• Syrup/Butter

One lunch:

• Egg salad sandwiches (pastured eggs with homemade mayo and a bit of mustard.  I used the refined coconut oil from here this time, and it’s really thick but delicious!  I think I’ll use 1 tsp sugar next time instead of two though.)
• Cold spelt salad (idea from GNOWFGLINS)
• Homemade Yogurt and applesauce/fruit

Dinner Monday:

• Foil packet dinner: polish sausage, potatoes, mushrooms, carrots, onions, garlic, salt and pepper, butter
• Salad with homemade dressing and lots of Farmer’s Market veggies

Foil Packet Dinner Instructions: Lay out a large sheet of aluminum foil (heavy duty) for each person.  fold up the side a little to keep everything in.  Pour a little olive oil (EVOO or not?  I went not.) on the bottom.

Cut up potatoes, carrots, onions and mushrooms and place in the foil.  Add fresh crushed garlic (why not garlic powder?), salt, pepper, and pats of butter.  Put polish sausage (yep, this was standard grocery store stuff, Hillshire Farm.  It’s all about the taste on that part!) on top, sliced in tw0-inch chunks or bite-sized pieces, which is especially nice for children.  (No cutting meat with a plastic knife on a paper plate is great!)

Fold the foil around the food and fold over to seal the top.  Store in plastic bags in the cooler.  Cook at the edge of the coals on a campfire until done, usually about 30 minutes for the potatoes to get soft.

Am I squeamish about the ton of aluminum foil I’m using (and going to throw away) here?  Yes.  But this meal was THE BEST last year.  It could have been because we were so tired and starving at that point, but we had to have it again. Plus it’s a super camping meal, because everything is done for you except making the fire. It’s nice to relax during meal prep a little bit, while we eat our salads.

Breakfast Tuesday:

Breakfast Sandwiches:

• Fried Eggs
• Smoky links cooked over the fire
• Cheese
• Homemade English muffins (from the Happy Housewife again.  I pushed the whole wheat flour to 3/4 the recipe, and it worked wonderfully!)

Lunch two:

• Brats and Homemade buns (I had to make the buns gigantic so the low-and-no nitrate brats from my birthday gift certificate will fit, along with grilled peppers and onions from the Farmer’s Market)
• Potato salad (with the homemade mayo, a little yogurt to thin it out, mustard and these pickles)
• Veggies and dip (I made a dip with blended cottage cheese, sour cream, fresh garlic, dill, chives, black pepper and onion powder)

Snacks/desserts:

• S’mores
• Hobo pies
• Chips/pretzels
• Granola bars
• Crispy nuts and raisins
• Dried fruit roll
• Chocolate Zucchini Bread (w/ whole wheat flour)
• Soaked Spelt Biscuits (these are so good, you can eat them cold w/o any toppings and never miss it!)
• Milk
• Apples
• Bananas
• Frozen Peas for Lovey Girl
• And I have to pack my deodorant in the cooler, of course!

This was my “to-do” list that I’ve been busy with the past few days:

• Make mayo
• Hamburg patties
• Wash lettuce/salad too
• Slice tomatoes
• Cut watermelon
• Make yogurt
• Make pancake batter/additions
• Boil eggs x 2
• Make egg salad
• Bake potatoes
• Make potato salad
• Soak/cook spelt
• Make spelt salad
• Make yogurt ind’l cups
• Make foil packet dinners
• Make English muffins
• Bake buns x 2
• Cut veggies
• Make veggie dip
• Slice peppers and onions
• Fill water bottles and jugs of water…we go waaaay out in the woods with nothing but a campfire pit at our disposal!

I managed to bake the potatoes with the zucchini bread, and I baked the biscuits with our dinner for Friday night, this amazing roasted tomato soup.  I love conserving energy with my stove!

If you’ve ever gone camping, you’ll know that everything tastes better over the fire.  Even boring stuff like spaghetti is amazing when you’re outside, cooking it yourself over a real fire.  I don’t even get it.  Food is one of the BEST parts of camping, to be sure!  What do you pack when you camp/travel?

View our trip here and here and my ultimate fav camping supply here.

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If you missed the last Monday Mission, click here.

Kitchen Stewardship is dedicated to balancing God’s gifts of time, health, earth and money.  If you feel called to such a mission, read more at Mission, Method, and Mary and Martha Moments.

Other Interesting Posts:

• The Fate of Returned Food in Grocery Stores
• Praying in the Kitchen
• Two Paradigms of Healthy Eating

Find more meal plans at Organizing Junkie and other recipes at Tempt My Tummy Tuesday at Blessed With Grace, and Tasty Tuesday at Balancing Beauty and Bedlam.