Cooler Tips

We try to turn our Cooler packing into an art form: ) I found some tips here at   Country Living  and will add our own tips and tricks when we pack our own up!

Even MORE Camping Food!

Chicken and Potato Foil Packets

http://www.lifewith4boys.com/2014/05/bbq-chicken-potato-foil-packet-camping.html?m=1

We are getting ready  for a camping trip in the Southern Alberta Rockies so I am collecting more food recipes to make camping meals fun and yummy! We are only going for three nights this time and will be camping again near the end of August, so I want to make up meals for our trip and cut down on time spent while we are enjoying our adventure. Daddy is taking us to a place he used to camp when he was a little boy and I have never been there so we are looking forward to it and will share tips and tricks once we have camped there in a couple of weeks. 

"Why didn't I think of this??" moment - fried egg foil cups from eggs.ca:"






I came across some more great camping foods at bigoven.com and want to share some MUST TRY recipes here (each image is linked to it's original recipe):

Campfire Hash Recipe #1:



This recipe looks great for popping a bunch of things in one pan or foil packet and cooking over the fire for breakfast, brunch, even supper! But I am going to make up the foil packet version for breakfast :) I like to wake up early and get a fire going and relax in the early morning and make breakfast for everyone, ready when they finally get up :)



Campfire Crescent Dogs:





I try to pack foods as tightly and efficiently as I can because we always camp in Bear Country and you cannot leave any food out at all, but that causes storage issues when packing buns and other breads. Bringing along some cans of refridgerator crescent rolls for the hot dogs is a brill idea! Why didn't I think of that before???


Campfire Apple Pie: 



Recipe using refridgerator biscuits :)


*** NOTE: I am thinking of bringing along stuff for a Campfire Pizza, either using a ready-baked crust, or why not try it with the fridge dough??

More Camping FOOD!

I personally love plain old burgers and hot dogs while camping :) Bacon cooking over the fire in the morning... yum yum! But I also like to pack a few 'different' meals to throw in some extra fun and excitement. Click on the photos to be taken to the original posts/recipes!

 Breakfast is important - getting your body ready for a day on the lake, hiking, fishing, etc. So Breakfast Burritos over the campfire is a great idea!

Or how about S'mores Granola. Granola = breakfast. The end :)

This always peaks my interest  - don't throw out the orange peels, use them to hold a cinnamon roll instead and bake/warm over the fire. OMG YUM! How easy to pack a bag of oranges and store a can of Pillsbury cinnamon rolls in your cooler? Two meals in one! Campfire Orange Cinnamon Rolls...

You could try this for breakfast with fruit instead of all the marshmallows. Or just marshmallows :) Okay, maybe some peanut butter should be added and make this a breakfast meal :) Or just use it for a snack but wow - delicious! Banana Boats!

This year...

This year we are not camping in the Rockies.... *sad face*... but we will still be camping high up where the weather can be interesting. The Cypress Hill Inter-Provincial Park hits around 7000 feet above sea level at it's highest point. We will be camping on the Alberta side (the other side is in Saskatchewan). This is also where I grew up as a child, as my father was a forest ranger/park ranger there! But I have not camped there since 1991 so I am excited to take 2 of my three kiddos out for four nights. I will post photos of the campground we chose and of the lake and area when we return. It's not the mountains, but if you are looking for somewhere new to camp, you have to check out the Cypress Hills!

From last year's camping tips and tricks ideas, I already have 3 baggies full of dryer lint, ready for starting up our campfires. It worked really great last year and was my favorite Pinterest find. And of course I am taking along the foam squares for the tent flooring - tied for my favourite Pinterest find :)

Takakkaw Falls, Yoho National Park

We hit the falls at 5pm and were lucky to be there for rainbow time!!! Stunning photos and so much fun. So try to hit Takakkaw Falls in the summer months around 5pm and see if you are lucky too. Here are some of our photos from July 2014. It was stunning (and WET. protect your camera!!)

 Ha Ha! Had to do it! (my bro)

 My family running away from the powerful waterfall spray :)

Kicking Horse Campground - Yoho National Park

Finally updating from our camping trip last summer. Kicking Horse Campground is in a perfect spot - right on the road to Takakkaw Falls, off the main highway but just a short drive to Field, BC and it is also only about 20 minutes from Lake Louise, AB so you can camp in a quiet area but still be close to everything. It is also close to Emerald Lake, another beautiful place to visit, along with the Natural Bridge. We went to all of the above during our 4 day trip.

Kicking Horse Campground is first come - first served. The information online can be a little confusing because it states you can book in in the afternoon but then also says to arrive early because sites fill up fast. You start to wonder if you should bother arriving at noon, if you cannot book in until hours later. But each time we have camped, we have tried to be there just before noon (as check out is 11am), and we got a site right away. We picked a site ourselves after the one the gate agent gave us would not fit our truck and tent (???) but they were totally fine with us driving around and picking THE perfect spot. In my opinion it was the best site in the whole campground. Large, near the bathrooms, near the walking trails, etc. In fact, it was a huge site. Our usual site washed away in the flooding in 2013 so we were disappointed, but after finding our new spot we were thrilled. It's a nice quiet campground but there is a lot to do for nature lovers. We awoke to two female elk and their calves having breakfast 30 feet from our site one morning. Lovely :) We camped in the second week of July and had a great time. Here are some photos from our summer 2014 trip to Kicking Horse Campground:

 Kicking Horse River - runs alongside the campground

 Glacial Silt "beach"

 Mountain above the river

 View from the river toward the back of the campground

 Campground playground

 Playground and group use cooking hut (large)

 View from my firepit

 Our campsite (wider than you can see here because trees are in the way)

Campsite

Camping Tips

After cruising the net, I found so many camping tips that are just GREAT IDEAS. Here are some of my favorites:

Tackle Box First Aid Kit

Self-explanatory. Great way to store everything you may need including sunblock, bug spray, bug bite gel, headache tablets, and the usual first aid items. GREAT idea. Easy to carry and store, and easy to find everything at a glance. Or if you don't want to lug around this big thing, customize to any size, pick up a smaller tackle box (I found a small one at the dollar store with 5 compartments on one level and a sturdy latch), or if you are planning a hike, why not throw a couple of these into your backpack --- reuse old prescription bottles (clean thoroughly first of course):

Dryer Lint for fire tinder

We saved up dryer lint for a month and stuffed it in a baggie and will use chunks of it to see how it works. The weather has been very wet and damp and who knows what it will be like in a few more weeks so a little extra help with the fire might come in handy! UPDATE: We did this and it was an excellent fire starter. It burned much longer than paper (I assume from fire retardant material clothing is made from), and I started every fire successfully with it. Yay me!! Will def keep doing this!

You can also store the lint in toilet rolls or brown paper like this:

 

Organize! 

 We packed a ton of things in giant baggies. I bought a box of 30 from Target for about $2 and it makes things easier to pack (stack'em) and see. We will be camping in bear country so we have to make sure anything that smells delicious (food and toiletries) are always packed up. If we pack it all in these bags, we can easily see if we have accidentally left out some scrumptious spices that Bobo and cubs may want to snack on. I want to see wildlife, but not rolling around in food right outside my tent, thank you very much! I left a pack of crackers out on the picnic table once when I was a young child and I woke in the night to a bear sniffing around the canvas tent right beside my face! When my dad got up to chase it away (yay Dad!), there was a tell-tale trail of cracker crumbs leading away from our site, and the empty bag laying halfway down the path. The bear had a snack in the woods and then decided to come back and look for more. Oops!! Now I will make sure the kids don't leave anything out on THIS trip! My dad was allowed to pack his rifle back in those days, ya know. Somehow I don't want to test out pepper spray on a bear :)

Pancake Mix, ready to go!

Put pancake mix already measured out into a jar, plastic shaker bottle, etc and just add water and an egg when you are ready to make them. I am going to put my mix into two mason jars I have been saving, pre-measured for enough pancakes each morning I plan to cook them, and we will be ready to go. We are bringing along a carton of eggs and cases of water to surprise the kids with pancakes over the fire. YUM. I haven't decided yet if I will use the recipe from this link or use store bought mix, but it all goes in the jar :)

(Note from experience: if you are bringing eggs, grab ones in a styrofoam or plastic carton so it doesn't get wet and mushy in the cooler. Even if you keep it in the top, it can get damp. I have seen several blogs that show people cracked eggs into jars and kept those in their cooler but the egg safety sites do not recommend that so we are bringing a carton)

Camp Coffee

We are going to try something like this:

Awning Clips

I thought this was a great idea.... name badge clips for awning clips.

Snacks!

Next month we will be nestled into our campsite in Yoho so I better get going on listing our tips and tricks so I don't forget any of them!!

Hiking, climbing, sight-seeing, etc can really wear the kids (and mom and dad) out so camping snacks are a MUST! We will be bringing along granola bars and some fruit but it's fun to try some snacks that are just right for the campfire. Smore's are a given.... but we like to bring along some Jiffy Pop popcorn. Here is a way to make your own Campfire Popcorn with aluminum foil, popcorn kernels, and vegetable oil:

As I mentioned earlier, Smore's are a hit for camping. Marshmallows, chocolate, and graham wafers.. Yum! But there are many different versions you can try for mixing it up a little. Like:

Smores'adillas

Marshmallows, chocolate chips, and Golden Grahams cereal melted into two tortillas... oh my!

Or you can try some of these variations:

'Nana and Nutella Smore's

Peanut Butter Cup Smore's

Thin Mint Smore's

And some of you may have never heard of Smore's... what's the big deal? You HAVE to try it to find out! Here are some how-to's for making Smore's indoors or out for Honeymaid Graham Crackers (click photo):

The Tent (and an awning tip!)

 Our Tent

We decided to look for an SUV tent for this year and managed to snag one off Kijiji for $100! Brand new these tents run about $240-$300 depending on size and dealer, so I took a chance and posted my first-ever Kijiji want ad and a family answered right away! What luck! It pays to take a look around. We ended up with the tent in perfect condition, and some bonus pieces that the family added in like extra tent pegs and some pieces of rebar that confused us at first but the 'tent guy' (as I named him) gave us a great tip!

Mark off where your tent awning poles will go and instead of just standing them there and tying up the guide lines for everyone to trip over 50 times, hammer the pieces of rebar into the ground and slide the awning poles over them. TADA. Awning stays up nicely with no extra lines creating a dark night hazzard :) So, thanks Tent Guy!

Anyway, back to the tent... these are made in various sizes to attach to the back of a smaller vehicle such as a hatchback car or larger SUVs. Our's fit on our 94 Yukon easily. We met Tent Guy at a parking lot and hooked it up before purchase to make sure all was well and it fit just right. Yay! It's very tall in the middle. My husband is 6'1 and can move into the tent easily and stand straight up inside. There is plenty of room for all of us to sleep in the tent itself, but we are going to have the kiddos sleep inside the cab of the truck so we have more room in the tent for ourselves. It's also handy for parents to stay up later and not have to climb over children when it's our bed time :) The tent does not have to be hooked up to a vehicle so you can use it anyway you like. The awning is a great addition because it is about 6 feet long and most tents I have seen do not come with this feature. You can also upgrade to one that has a full screen house/tent attachment. Cool!

Huge windows on every side, and there are some in the top as well so if the weather is nice, you don't have to cover the top with the fly. Just star gaze as you are falling asleep :)

Camping Tips and Tricks - Breakfast

The best part about camping? The food of course! We tend to like the fire-grilled steak, burgers, and hot dogs but I have been collecting some awesome camping food ideas for this trip! These are the BREAKFAST ideas I have found that look great from various sites

(Click Images for MAIN site page, click individual recipe titles for direct links to the recipes)

Sausage Egg and Potato Breakfast Hash 

(You can buy ready-diced potatoes such as McCain Breakfast Potatoes)

Campfire Monkey Bread

(this is to-die-for, cooked at home in the oven, so can't wait to try it while camping as a breakfast surprise)

Orange-Baked Rolls

(bake Pillsbury refridgerated dough rolls inside hollowed out oranges - eat the oranges too, of course)

Breakfast Burritos

(if you really want to prepare, make ahead some burritos, roll in foil and store in your cooler - throw them on the fire in the morning!)

Bacon and Eggs in a Bag

(something I've never seen before - cooking bacon and eggs in a paper bag over a low fire/heat from the embers)

 Cheater Skillet Monkey bread 
 (similar to one above but even easier for camping)

 Campfire Breakfast Potatoes 

Grilled Waffles -

 bring a box or two along in your cooler and toss in whatever you like with it (sweeter the better!)

Campfire Beer Pancakes

(okay this is prob more for mom and dad, but an idea to steal from this is to bring along a freezer bag filled with a pre-measured amount of Bisquick or your own base baking mix and other ingredients to make fresh pancakes right over the fire - YUM)

Lumberjack Breakfast Packets

(yum!! sounds great - layer sausages or bacon along bottom of foil pack and layer with whatever you want really- can use more of those diced potatoes or bring along a bag of hashbrowns too)

Campfire French Toast

Muffin Tin Eggs - this is my Fave Idea of all!

(I have a 6-tin muffin pan which is perfect for the 5 of us that should be going. Throw those in an english muffin, perhaps, for your own 'breakfast burger', as my 6 yr old calls them)

Campfire Bacon on a skewer

(my MOST Fave Idea of all - and so easy to find a spot to cook it if you have eggs in the frying pan)