pudgy pie iron for every camping trip
View Cart

Home | Recipes | Shopping | Contact Us | Cooking Tips | Fire Safety | Shipping Policy | Resellers | Round Pudgy | Square Pie Iron | Double Pie Iron | Camping Bread Baker | Marshmallow Fork | Safety Fork | 2pc Fork | Folding Grill | Camping Tripod Copyright 2008 - PudgyPies.com - a Franks Marketing Group Company

1-800-371-9319
Home.Recipes.Shopping.Contact Us.

No matter how beautiful the weather, how breathtaking the scenery, or how much fun you have fishing and hiking, it seems that the best part of camping out is the food cooked over the campfire. Whether it be something as simple as roasted hot dogs or an entire meal, nothing seems to taste better than the flavor of wood-fired foods prepared in the great outdoors. This page offers campfire cooking tips pie iron cooking tips, and plenty of useful information on how to set up your camp's kitchen area.

 

Preparing And Setting Up Your Camp Kitchen

Seasoned campers know all too well the importance of having the right tools, cooking equipment, spices, work space, and everything else that is needed to be a successful camp cook. When you are out in the middle of nowhere in the middle of fixing dinner, it isn't a good time to realize that you should have brought certain items along to make the job easier. Just think about all of the stuff you use at home when preparing a meal to eat around the dining room table. It's no different in the woods, except for one thing....your kitchen cupboard could be a hundred miles away, and the nearest store might be too far to be worth the trip. Being prepared ahead of time takes the hassle out of camp cooking and ensures that everyone will enjoy great meals.

The first thing you should do is put together a "Chuck Box" (also known as a grub box or patrol box) that you keep all of your camp kitchen equipment in. The only requirement for a chuck box or grub box is that it store the items you need for your camp kitchen. This saves you from scrounging around your home kitchen for place settings, cooking utensils, spices, and everthing else you'll need every time you want to go camping. In the strictest sense a sturdy cardboard box could be used as a chuck box. Also nowadays there are many large, varied and inexpensive plastic containers that can serve the same function and have the added features of seal, easy stacking and they are water proof.

If you go camping much at all, you soon learn that it's not enough just to have everything. You also need work surfaces for cooking cleaning and food preparation. Camping table space is at a premium when you are doing outdoor cooking. Some hard-core campers prefer to build a chuck box from wood that can provide an actual portable kitchen with many features found in the home kitchen. A well made chuck box will setup to give you work surfaces and utility features for your camp kitchen.

What all this really means is that once you have a well outfitted chuck box, whether it be a simple box full of utensils, spices, & other necessities, or a more elaborate design, your once lengthy camping checklist turns into only a few items with the grub box being one of them, so the getting ready to go camping hassle is gone forever. And you won't forget any key items anymore because things are always there in your grub box just waiting for you. Once in the field you find the work surfaces and utility features are an absolute delight. So the real bottom line is you go camping more often!!!!

The Cooking Fire

When cooking in camp, it is always best to have a separate fire for cooking. That way you can control the way the heat flows best for cooking and the pyromaniacs in the camp can have their own fire to play with. To prepare a good cooking fire, get it started at least an hour or so before you want to actually start cooking so that the wood can burn down into a bed of nice coals. You can use a coal bucket and shovel to transfer more hot coals into the cooking fire from the larger fire.

The cooking fire can be built in a portable charcoal grill, a fire ring, or in a pit that is dug in the ground. Whichever method you choose, have a sturdy grill grate to support your cooking vessels, and be sure that you allow sufficient room to move things around from hot spots to cooler spots as needed. Some foods require lots of heat and others need to simmer or slow-cook, just as if you were cooking at home. If it is your first time cooking out in the wild, expect things to be a lot different and much more challenging. But don't worry...practice makes perfect, and soon you'll become quite good at it!

Camp Kitchen Checklist

When preparing your camp kitchen, there are many things you'll want to include. As you become more familiar with cooking in camp, you'll be able to adjust your gear to your personal needs. At first, you'll probably take along things that you'll never use, and forget things you wish you would have brought along. Have a pen and paper handy to jot down the items you don't use and those that you needed, and make your adjustments accordingly. Here is a checklist of items that most camp chefs will nearly always need: