A Camping Explosion and a Gluten Free Real Food Menu Plan

I’ll start with the explosion and make you wait for the gluten free camping food. 

Here’s what happened to the Kimballs out in the woods when I tried to make breakfast using this new gluten-free camping meal plan instead of our old standard camping meal plan with lots of whole grains. All while still trying to keep camping budget friendly!

See Katie shake the jar of soaked pancakes to mix the leavening in. (I prepped a soaked gluten-free recipe much like I do our old favorite camping pancakes, so the batter had been soaking 24 hours.)

See Katie struggle to open the lid of the quart jar, knowing she should have looked harder for a clean half gallon jar. See the little plastic box ready to capture the volcanic overflow from mixing baking soda into the batter.

See Katie work harder to open the lid, getting worried about the pressure building up…

See what happens when you put too much pancake batter in a quart jar when you needed a half gallon. Oops.

See the boy who was smart enough to wear his T-shirt backwards. Problem solved.

Lesson: Do NOT put 3 cups of pancake batter in a 4-cup jar, then try to shake in baking soda.

The pancakes turned out fine, by the way – the ones left in the jar, that is.

Planning a trip and want S’more gluten-free ideas??

A Gluten-Free Camping Trip with Real Food

When I published The Family Camping Handbook, our family had not even dabbled in being gluten free or grain free. Now, most of the time, we are one or the other.

Often for special occasions, we throw gluten to the wind and eat whatever, and I thought about camping being one of those times.

I just can’t help accepting a challenge, though.

My husband says everything around here seems like an experiment (see explosion, above), and camping this year was as well, to an extent.

I’d had many gluten-free bloggers and readers ask about how much gluten is in the menu plans and recipes in the camping handbook, and unfortunately, there’s kind of a lot.

But there doesn’t have to be!

Here’s a two-night gluten-free, real food camping menu plan:

Lunch 1, packed (to eat upon arrival or on the road):

• Grain-free crepes (from Health, Home & Happiness grain-free meal planners) with nitrate-free lunchmeat, cheese, tomatoes, lettuce
• Potato salad
• Grapes
• Apples

Your kids can prep the potato salad! We’ll show you how.

Dinner, Day One

• Hamburgers on homemade gluten-free flatbread, toasted
• Foil packet potatoes & seasonal vegs
• Corn on the cob
• Lettuce Salad with veggies and homemade Caesar dressing and homemade ranch dressing
• Popcorn over the fire

Breakfast, Day Two

• Soaked gluten-free blender pancakes (whizzed the batter with half oats, half rice and flax replacers instead of eggs the morning we left, soaked, then added pre-measured leavening and more flax…should have used a bigger jar) NOTE: I’ve since discovered that our favorite whole wheat camping pancakes work great with gluten-free flours – get the recipe here!
• Bacon

Lunch, Day Two

• Bison brats on the grill and nitrate-free hot dogs on the fire
  • on a bed of grilled peppers/onions instead of a bun
• Baked beans (Eden Organic without BPA or refined sugar)
• Yogurt w/fruit
• Smores (the marshmallows were not “real food,” but we used dark chocolate and…sigh…#fail – I ran out of time to make these gluten-free graham crackers. If I did it again, this would be something I made ahead and froze.)

Dinner, Day Two

• Fajitas on the grill
• Chips and salsa (love this salsa recipe for canning)
• Homemade Guacamole
• Black bean dip (I need to share this easy yummy recipe someday!)
• Cut vegs to dip as well
• Ice cream ball

Breakfast, Day Three

Homemade grain-free granola (from Healthy Snacks to Go) and milk/yogurt/fruit

Paleovalley Meat Sticks

It can be hard to find healthy snacks that you can take with you on the go. When I want the convenience of a jerky stick, but want a healthy, protein packed snack option, I grab Paleovalley meat sticks. Paleovalley ingredients have these high standards that you can feel good about:

• 100% Grass Fed Beef & 100% Pasture Raised Turkey
• Never given antibiotics or hormones
• Gluten free, soy free, dairy free
• 0 grams of sugar*
• Contains no artificial nitrates or nitrites
• Non-GMO
• Naturally fermented and contain gut-friendly probiotics!

*With the exception of Teriyaki, which contains 2 grams of sugar from Organic Honey.

These beef sticks and turkey sticks taste delicious! My favorite is the Jalapeño but my kids love Summer Sausage.

Use this link to get 15% off your order at Paleovalley. Read my Paleovalley Review to learn more!

Lunch, packed for the beach

• Homemade beef jerky (also from HSTG)
• Cheese and grain-free crackers
• Carrots and homemade blender hummus
• Fruit
• Leftover potato salad
• Hard-boiled eggs

Snacks

• GNOWFGLINS almond flour muffins, from the amazing Traditional Cooking School eCourse
• these grain-free breakfast cookies
• crispy nuts
• dried strawberry fruit rolls

GLUTEN-FREE CAN BE CONFUSING BUT IT DOESN’T HAVE TO BE HARD!

I’m thrilled to share a FREE gluten-free cheat sheet mini eBook to help get you started! This is perfect if you’ve just been told you need a GF diet, if you have a friend or family member eating GF and you’d like to cook for them, or if you’re just curious what it’s all about!

Get The GF Cheat sheet

This menu plan is now one of the free printable add-ons to the The Family Camping Handbook!

(We go deep in the woods where there’s nothing but a firepit, by the way…)