Food Friday: Camping Cookout - Hobo Dinner!

Today would be a beautiful day to go camping. My family often did this during the summer weekends when I was growing up. My mom would lug us kids down to the popular camp ground to get a site and my dad would come after work in time to help set up the tent and start supper.

Camping is such an inexpensive way to do family vacation. Enjoying the outdoors at its best can also be a valuable family outing as well.

All that fresh summer air too makes one hungry for some home cooking. Perhaps my favorite recipe when my family went camping together was when mom rustled up some hobo dinners. This simple dinner satisfied the hunger the outdoors created for my family.

Hobo Ingredients and Supplies

Ground beef
Potatoes
Carrots
Onions
Salt
Pepper
Seasoning
Cooking Spray
Heavy duty tin foil


Hobo Cooking Directions

Remove your thawing ground beef from the cooler of ice. Dice up potatoes and onion. Carrots can already be prepared sliced ahead of time. Take heavy duty tin foil rectangles and spray inside with cooking oil. Divide chunks of beef, diced potato wedges, onion, and pre-cut carrots to the tin foil rectangles. Season with salt and pepper and any other meat seasoning. Wrap up tin foil packs for each family member and put among gray fire coals and ashes to cook. Cook until vegetables are soft and meat is brown. To make extra juicy, add a sliver of butter or olive oil. Each individual wrap is one serving.

Food Friday: Camping Cookout - Tuna and Noodle Casserole!

Several years ago my husband and I went on a big road trip out west on our first summer married. For three weeks we put 6,000 plus miles on our Ford Escape traveling to the California coast, through Nevada dust, Utah cayons, and Colorado mountains. Needless to say, when we arrived home our vehicle was full of bugs, dirt, and dust.

To save money we camped out at several state parks across the country. We reserved our spots ahead of time roughly for the days we were going to drive through. We packed our hitch rack behind the Escape full of all our camping gear, food supplies, and our Cast Iron Stove.

Since I had taken that year off from work (mainly because I had worked campaigns for five years in a row), I had some time to prepare food and research camping recipes to use on the trip. We had some pretty good meals out there at Lake Tahoe and in Utah Dead Horse State Park under the stars.

Of course, at some points we hit the dry season and could not even build a fire. And yet we warmed some coals in the charcoal grill provided to cook. We also had to store our food in bear boxes overnight. Somehow we still survived on some good home cooking away from home and thankfully no bears came to visit. We did desperately need to shower though.

One of the recipes that we enjoyed very much was Tuna and Noodle Casserole. That is right, try making that on your camping trip. But I had loaded up the packaged ingredients, took out some tin foil, and mixed it together. Good thing too as it was getting dark.

Ingredients

Precooked Noodles (Ramen Noodles)
Can of tuna
Cream of chicken herb soup
Can of peas, drained, are optional


Directions

Mix canned and packaged ingredients well together. Using heavy duty tin foil, rip off a square piece, spray the foil, and spoon enough mixture for one serving. Wrap up the tin foil into a entirely sealed packet. Make as many wraps as camping buddies. Once the coals turn turn from red hot to a warm gray, lay the wraps among the coals of the fire, adding some on top. Cook until warm or you hear sizzling. Do not burn yourself or your supper. Recommend that you cook supper before dark.

Camping can be a fun family outing and a relatively inexpensive vacation. Add some home cooking that is easy to make after being outside in the fresh air and you have a little piece of summer heaven. By the way, the parks we visited were absolutely breathtaking, like diamonds in the rough.