Camping meals

Dustin and I love to camp. It's our preferred vacation when factoring cost, proximity to home, peace and quiet, and a little challenge. (Sometimes a little too much challenge...)

This past Labour Day weekend, we made our second trip to Massasauga Provincial Park.  The Massasagua is where we go when we have limited time to hike or canoe deep into the back country. From Pete's Place access point, a short 20 minute paddle gets you to some decent interior camp sites.  There are still motor boats that frequent the area, but in general, the sites are quite isolated and the lack of portages allows us to bring more equipment with us despite the two-person trip (Mackenzie has yet to prove useful in anything other than squirrel/chipmunk chasing.)

One of the (many) things Dustin and I look forward to is camping food. It gives us the excuse to be a little junky, indulging in all those "convenience foods" justifying that while camping, we just don't have the space to bring raw ingredients, spices, and cooking tools. We have one camping stove, a small pot set, a swiss army knife, and usually a spatula.

Planning camping meals is always a little tricky -- that is, if you don't resort to the dehydrated packaged food from the outdoor stores.  Any meat that we bring starts off completely frozen, then over the course of the camping trip, the bacon, ground meat, or spaghetti sauce slowly melts.  When picking foods, we pick things that are dense or flat so we don't have to worry about squashing it.  Things like bagels, tortilla wraps, rye bread or pasta work really well. (And crunchy cheetos...) Our favourite lunch and dinner meals include spaghetti, shepherd's pie, fajitas, or BLTs.

Our first lunch meal, grilled cheese. Made with Kraft Singles. Two slices each. Mmmmmm.



One of our dinners was a beef fajita made with stir fried beef that we froze with the marinade. As the beef defrosts, it soaks up the delicious marinade and helps make a little bit of a sauce. A little ziplock bag of premixed sour cream and salsa adds a little fajita tang.



Breakfasts are always a little easier. Bacon keeps well, and the fat doubles as cooking oil (don't judge. We're being resourceful here.) Oatmeal packages take up next to no space in the pack. Pancake mix (the just-add-water kind) is ever so easy.  If you don't want to risk bringing maple syrup (no one likes sticky leaks) we add chocolate chips to the pancake mix. If you're extra lucky and have some Ah Caramels leftover from snacktime, throw that on top of the pancakes. Double mmmmm.



This year's Labour Day weekend boasted rain, wind, and plenty of cloud cover. There were short breaks of sunshine where we did a little fishing off the rocks and out in the canoe.

No fish for us, but nothing beats that peaceful whir of each cast (if I don't tangle my hook on nearby vegetation.)








The Massasauga has a knack for giving us troublesome camping trips. Our first trip 4 years ago included an encounter with a bear and a small incident with a nest of wasps. This year, Mackenzie cut open her foot and the wind and rain gave us a scary paddle back to the access point. Like I said, a little peace and quiet with a dash of challenge.