Cooking at Camp with Lifetime
All that fresh air and sunshine can work up a mighty appetite!
Camp meals are one of the most memorable aspects of a camping adventure. If you enjoy camping and outdoor cooking, Lifetime offers some great equipment and helpful hints to make outdoor cooking a satisfying and enjoyable experience. As with any activity, especially one that takes you away from the convenience of home, careful preparation is the key. The following are some helpful hints and tips to ensure that your camp kitchen is a success.
Outdoor Camp Kitchen Cooking Station
An efficient cooking space is essential to an enjoyable camping experience! The Lifetime Camp Table provides that space. And because it’s portable, it’s easy to pack and store along with your camping equipment. The camp table is designed with a wire rack to accommodate a propane stove, an attached side table for food preparation, hooks for hanging your utensils, and last, but not least, that all-important paper towel holder. There’s a place for everything, so you can keep everything in its place. If it is not possible to set up your camp kitchen beneath some kind of bowery, I suggest erecting a canopy over your cooking station. This will provide shade on a hot day as well as some protection for your equipment on a rainy day.
Outdoor Camp Kitchen Cleaning Station
- Lifetime 4ft. utility table
- Two small plastic tubs
- Dish soap
- Dish drainer
- Dishcloth, dish towels
In addition to a cooking area, you will need a clean-up area. This is the area where you will set up your dishwashing station. The Lifetime 4ft. folding utility table is a great table for this purpose because it’s small, lightweight, and easy to clean. All you need is a couple of small plastic tubs—one for the soapy water and one for the rinse water. You may wish to bring along a small dish drainer as well to let your wet dishes air dry while you go do something more fun, like hiking or swimming!
Make A Permanent Grocery List
Make a list of the dry ingredients and a list of refrigerated ingredients on the front and back of a large index card. Keep this list in a safe place to use as an inventory check list prior to embarking on all your subsequent camping adventures. I suggest keeping it in your dry food storage chest, as well as laminating it or covering the card with strips of scotch tape to protect it. Now you will have a Permanent Grocery List so you won’t have to re-plan one every time you go camping.
Dry Food Storage:
Keeping a dry food storage chest always packed and ready to go will mean one less thing to worry about when the urge to head for the hills grabs you. Of course you can always purchase special treats or snacks for each camping trip, but with this basic food storage pre-packed, you will have the peace of mind knowing that you at least have the basics you need to eat well while you’re camping. Some suggestions are cereal, crackers, pasta, canned goods such as tomato sauce, olives, vegetables, canned meats, cocoa, and cookies. Remember to pack your cooking oil, salt, pepper, and other seasonings. Pack all your dry ingredients into a large storage chest. Make sure to label this chest so you can easily locate it in your garage, shed, or closet the next time you want to go camping. You may only have to pack this chest once every camping season. If you run out of anything, be sure to replace it before the next camping trip!
Cooler Foods:
With your dry foods already packed in storage, the cold foods are all you really need to worry about packing on the day of departure. For subsequent camping trips, your Permanent Grocery List will have already been written (and stored in a safe place where you can find it), so the menu planning has already been done. All you’ll need to do on subsequent trips is to make that trip to the grocery store. And don’t forget the ice!
Handy Tips:
For the sake of economic thriftiness as well as a space-saving technique, try to use recipes that share common ingredients but which can be prepared in a variety of ways (like restaurants do). For example, ingredients such as pasta, hamburger, tomatoes, onions, olives, cheese, & tomato sauce can be used for hamburgers, Sloppy Joes, omelets, goulash, spaghetti, taco salad, and sandwiches simply by adding one or two additional ingredients (such as eggs or corn chips, or cold cuts).
You should be able to get by with one large chest for all your dry ingredients, but you will most likely need a couple of coolers for your cold foods, especially if you plan to take a gallon of milk along. Remember, half of your cooler space will have to be used for ice. Some people break open the ice bag and fill up the cooler with loose ice chunks in an effort to squeeze more into the cooler. Others prefer to keep the ice intact inside the plastic bag to eliminate the very real possibility of getting water from the melted ice into food packages. Beware of eggs in cardboard cartons! Once the cardboard gets wet, it will fall apart. Use a Styrofoam carton or relocate your eggs into a sealed plastic container.