Outdoor Cooking Options

One of the fun things about camping is not being a slave to the stove and oven to prepare your meals. Outdoor cooking can be fun and exciting. Sometimes preparing meals that are routine at home can be a fun and stimulating adventure in camp. My wife and daughter-in-law were giddy as two school girls as they prepared breakfast on our trusty Coleman stove when we went tent camping a while back.  And they weren't experimenting with new dishes, just regular breakfast favorites.  But cooking outdoors, in camp, together, made it special.  There are many options for outdoor cooking, depending on where you are (open fires are prohibited in some places  and at some times) and how adventurous you want to be. Successfully making your favorite repast in the outdoors yields a special feeling of accomplishment. Heck, even being able to pull it off within the limitations of an RV rates a pat on the back. Outdoor cooking skills can be very useful in an emergency situation at home, such as an extended power outage or natural disaster. Ever think about what you will do if a disaster knocks out utilities in your neighborhood for a couple of weeks? If you have been using your camping trips to practice survival skills, you will at least be able to build a fire to warm you and your family, cook your meals, dry your clothing and bedding, and sterilize water for drinking and medical uses. You may purchase portable stoves for emergency use, but unless you've practiced using them, they are likely to be useless or even dangerous in a disaster situation. There is an old adage that I've found to be true:  If it hasn't been tested, it doesn't work!  Be sure you know how to use any emergency equipment you purchase and take time to practice using it. Also make sure you have proper fuel that is safely stored.

Campfire cooking. Of course cooking over an open campfire is the most basic form of outdoor cooking. Most all of us have roasted a few hot dogs and set a few marshmallows on fire this way (in my experience one seldom roasts marshmallows without turning them into torches).  One of the advantages to campfire cooking is that you don't need a lot of fancy equipment and, unless open fires are prohibited, you can build a campfire just about anywhere. Campfire cooking is also a good skill to develop for use following a disaster that may leave you without utilities at home. You may want to practice building a campfire and cooking in your own back yard until you're comfortable with the skills. Check out my previous post on Campfire Safety for more ideas on safely building and using campfires. As mentioned above, campfires are also sources of warmth and comfort and can help us dry out wet clothing and bedding. Having dry clothing and bedding could mean not only being more comfortable, but could literally mean the difference between life and death in a survival situation! It is possible to get hypothermia from wet clothing even in fairly mild weather.  The light and heat of a campfire not only warms the body, it warms the soul and lifts the spirits. As human beings, we find comfort in warmth and light and are often mesmerized by flames. Just sitting around a campfire can be entertaining and can lift depressed spirits enough to be functional again. Cooking over a campfire can be done by putting food on sticks (like hot dogs, chunks of meat, or even thick dough to make bread). For more conventional options, put a grid or grill over the fire and cook in regular pans. Lacking a grill you can position a couple of green logs over the coals or build a fire between them and rest your pans across them.  It is convenient to put the logs about 3" apart at one end and 8-10" apart at the other.  Then you can put your coffee pot or tea kettle on the narrow end and your frying pan on the wider portion.  Cast iron cookware can be used directly on the fire, lighter weight vessels may be damaged if place directly on the coals. I've seen light weight aluminum pans reduced to bubbling silver puddles by a hot campfire.  For best results, wait until the fire is reduced to a nice bed of glowing coals before cooking. It is safer and more effective than trying to cook over open flames. Even though you may have to wait longer for to coals to reach the right stage, things will cook faster and more evenly than they will over the flickering  flames.  And you can actually roast marshmallows to a nice golden brown without setting them on fire!  Campfires are sometimes prohibited in suburban neighborhoods, but cooking fires are usually allowed and during a significant disaster situation all rules are likely to be suspended or relaxed. If you do build a fire, do it correctly and safely so you don't add to the existing emergency.

You can cook other things besides hot dogs and marshmallows on a stick over your campfire. Just about any kind of raw meat (except ground meats) can be hung on a stick for cooking. You can also bake breads by mixing the dough so it is thick and sticky and wrapping some around a stick. Called "twist sticks", they are a very tasty bread treat for camping. No matter what you are cooking this way, it is best to cook over a bed of glowing coals, not over open flames. Most of us don't have the patience to wait for the fire to reach the right status for cooking, which is one reason so many marshmallows light up the night, becoming more torch than treat. Cooking over coals provides even heat that, with a little practice, allows you to roast your feast to perfection without turning it into a flaming torch or burnt offering -- or have it burned on the outside and raw in the middle! Take time to build the right kind of fire and let it reach the right stage of coals for cooking. It will pay off. Another option for bread is ash cakes. To make them, prepare a thick dough and form it into biscuit-sized patties. Then drop it directly on glowing coals or hot rocks in the fire to bake it, flipping it over once to cook both sides if the tops don't cook fast enough. A little ash may cling to the biscuit when it is done, but usually not very much and you can just brush it off and enjoy great tasting hot bread fresh from the fire. They are especially good with butter and honey or jam.  You can even churn your own butter from whipping cream if you're feeling particularly adventurous.  Place some small pebbles (marble size or less) into a small container with a 1/4 to 1/2 cup whipping cream and shake until it forms butter.  Avoid using a glass container, but if you have to don't shake it too hard or the pebbles will break the glass!

Not exactly a stick, but a useful campfire cooker is a pie cooker. These long-handled clam shell cookers turn two pieces of bread and a couple of spoons of pie filling into a hot tasty pie. It surprised me how much the bread tasted like pie crust when we took them out.  There are many commercial forks made for cooking hot dogs and marshmallows but an ordinary wire coat hanger straightened out will work almost as well. Some of the commercial forks have have telescoping handles so you adjust them to cook the food and not your front.  I've seen some with the tines bent around so they point back at you.   Supposedly they reduce the risk of stabbing someone with them.

Of course, there are things you can't cook on a stick. Soups, stews, hot water for coffee, tea, hot chocolate, and purifying drinking water, medical purposes and washing dishes, requires a pot of some sort. If you plan to prepare these items often, a metal grate would be helpful. The grate from on old BBQ will work. You can also buy cooking grates most anywhere camping supplies are sold. Or just buy some sturdy metal grating like expanded metal from a hardware store or metal supply store. In an emergency or survival mode you may be able to use green sticks to support your frying pan or pots. Just keep an eye on them to make sure they don't catch fire and let your dinner drop into the fire! In an real emergency you might steal the racks out of your oven or refrigerator to use as cooking grids. Another technique is it bury a flat rock in the middle of your fire.  Make sure it isn't very porous.  Porous rocks often contain moisture and will explode when heated.  Then, after the rock has been heated by the fire, brush away the burned wood, set your pot or pan on the rock, and build the coals up around the pot on the rock or cook foods directly on the rock. This approach requires patience and planning ahead and cooking will probably take longer than cooking on a grid directly over the coals. You may also be able to carefully position rocks to support your pots and pans. If you have cast-iron cookware, you can even cook directly on the coals. DO NOT try this with light weight aluminum cookware unless you WANT to see it puddle in the coals while your dinner oozes and steams away! Lacking real cookware, you may be able to improvise temporary cooking containers using ordinary tin cans. They won't stand up to extended use, but you can usually heat up stew or chili in its original can and may be able to re-use the can several times before it begins to burn through. If you don't have any pots or pans at all you may be able to cook fish or pieces of meat on a "frying pan" made of green branches. Start with a forked flexible stick and form the ends of the two branches into an oval. The final shape should look kind of like a tennis racket. Then weave sticks up and down and across the oval. Attach your fish or meat by lacing extra branches over it and cook it to perfection. In a survival situation you may not have any pots or pans. You can make a bowl out of clay or even ordinary mud and fill it with water, soup or stew, then add small hot rocks one at a time until it reaches the desired temperature.

Building the right kind of campfire is critical to successful cooking.  As always, you don't want a bigger fire than you need.  Trying to cook on a raging bonfire is not fun at all.  Any minimal success is likely be tainted by food that is charred on the outside and raw in the middle.  And you're likely to roast your own skin about as much as you do the meal you're trying to prepare.  A really good fire for cooking is a Daktoa Fire Pit. This is one of the most efficient cooking fires ever. Some tricks for cooking on a regular campfire include laying two green logs across the coals.  Place them so they're not quite parallel, but have one end about 3" apart and the other end about 7" apart.  Place your coffee pot or tea kettle on the narrow end and cook in larger pats and frying pants on the wider end.  You can also use rocks to support your pans and, sometimes, you can cook directly on the heated rocks if you need to slow cook something.  Heated rocks are a good spot for baking bread.

Dutch oven cooking is popular among many camping enthusiasts. It can be done over a campfire, but is usually done using charcoal briquettes for better temperature control and more even heat. Dutch ovens are the old fashioned version of today's "crock pot" cookers. You can cook just about any thing in a dutch oven: main courses, breads, even cakes and other tasty deserts. Traditional dutch ovens are made of cast iron and are nearly indestructible. Today there are modern aluminum versions which are lighter to carry, but most campers still prefer the venerable cast iron ovens. You can fill them with goodies and let them simmer just about all day for a tender and tasty evening repast. Cast iron dutch ovens need to be "seasoned" before they can be used. This puts a coating of what is essentially burned cooking oil on the surface. This prevents rust, helps keep foods from sticking, and adds a unique flavor to meals. Cleaning a dutch oven mostly consists of scraping away the residual foods with a plastic scraper and wiping it down with paper towels or crumpled newspaper. NEVER use soap or detergent to clean a dutch oven. It will destroy the seasoning and leave a residue that may contaminate your food and give it an awful taste and possibly give you a case of the runs! There are many good web sites that give dutch oven cooking tips and recipes. If someone washes your dutch oven with soap, rinse it thoroughly and re-season it before using it again.

Emergency pots. If you find yourself without anything to cook in, you may still be able to boil water using hot rocks. Form a kind of bowl out of leaves or mud or hollow out a piece of wood -- or use a canvas bag -- anything that will hold water. Fill it with water. Place several small rocks (up to golf ball size) in your fire until they are hot. Then drop them into the water. Keep adding rocks (you may have to remove some of the cooler rocks so your bowl doesn't overflow) until the water reaches the desired temperature. If you have any canned goods, you can usually heat them in their original cans (be sure to open the can or at least punch some holes in the top before putting it in the fire. Otherwise, it might explode! Empty cans can be used for boiling water or preparing other foods. They can also come in handy for collecting water and capturing fish and game for food. You might yank the metal headlight "pan" off an disabled OHV and use it for a cooking pot.  I've even seen demonstrations of boiling water in a paper cup!  As long as there's water in the cup it keeps the paper from reaching its ignition point, but trying to use it over an open flame may cause the paper to overheat and ignite anyway.

In a survival situation you probably won't have any cooking pots.  You might be able to carve a bowl out of wood or make one of clay or even ordinary mud.  Then you can drop hot rocks into the water or other liquids in the bowl to heat them.

The Famous R2D2. An alternative to open campfires that is sometimes permitted even when open fires are prohibited is what our family calls "R2D2". R2D2 is an old washing machine tub we sometimes use for a fire pit. We've even had forest rangers borrow our R2D2 on windy nights. A tub from a dryer might work too.  They're usually larger, letting you build a bigger fire but making them more difficult to transport.  The perforations in either tub (not all dry tubs are perforated) allow plenty of ventilation yet restrict the wind from scattering embers the way it can from an open fire.  The porcelain coating stands up to the heat and prevents rust. Most washer tubs have a center tube where the agitator mounts.  While that may get in the way of loading firewood, it does serve some useful purposes in camp.  For example, I use the tube to put a "foot" on the tub to get it up off the ground.  I mount mine on a stand so it is a few inches above the ground. This serves two purposes. One, you can get your toes right under it to get them warm on cold nights, and two, it brings the top of the unit up to a comfortable cooking height.  The stand consists of a cut down RV table leg that fits inside the bottom of the agitator tube and the outdoor tripod designed to let you use your RV table outside.  I mounted a round grate from an old back yard BBQ on a piece of pipe that fits in the center tube at the top of the washing machine tub, giving me a perfect cooking surface for burgers, hotdogs, corn on the cob, baked potatoes, etc, and for pots for heating water or cooking other things. Contact me (desertrat@desertrat.org) if you are interested in more information about acquiring the materials and building your own R2D2. I can't take credit for the idea -- or the name. In fact, we usually refer to ours as "R2D2 Me Too" since the original R2D2 belongs to a dirt-biking buddy from California. By the way the name is derived from the round, squat shape and the way the fire blinks through the perforations like the lights on Star Wars robot R2D2.  When we are done with our fire for the night, I put a metal garbage can lid over the top, held down by a rock, to prevent any embers from escaping. All the left-over wood burns down to a fine ash by morning, without the danger of spreading hot embers in the wind. Then it can be dumped out and packed up for the trip home. The metal lid might also be used to protect the fire from rain that might otherwise put it out before you're ready to shut down.  When it is on its stand, the bottom is a few inches off the ground. This brings the cooking surface up to a more comfortable height and allows us to get our toes underneath to warm them up on cold nights.

The venerable Coleman stove. The camp stove, in white gas or propane versions, has been a staple of camp cooking for generations. These are fairly inexpensive, light weight and easy to transport, and allow you to prepare food outdoors about the same way you would cook on the stove at home or in your RV. You have nearly the same control over them as  you do your gas range at home or in an RV. Camp stoves are excellent resources to have in your emergency preparedness supplies. Just make sure you have the right fuel.   There are some stoves that are made for "dual fuel" operation.  They will run on either white  gas/Coleman fuel or regular unleaded gasoline.  There are light weight, single-burner back-packer stoves that run on butane. They are very small and light weight so they are easy to store and to carry. The fuel canister is about the size of a can of shaving cream. These are great for short back-packing trips but fuel could be a problem in any kind of extended survival situation. White gas and propane are usually much less expensive, but the larger stoves and fuel containers are not suitable for all situations (like back-packing). The little butane stoves often have built-in flint-and-steel or piezio-electric lighters. The larger Coleman style stoves usually have to be lit with a match or lighter or can be equipped with an add-on flint lighter. Make sure you place the stove on a solid, level, non-flammable surface. Cooking on either of these types of stoves is much the same as using a gas range at home. Make sure you have sufficient overhead and lateral clearance so that you don't set the trees or bushes or your tent or RV on fire. You may need to provide some kind of wind break in breezy conditions. Sometimes the breeze can be strong enough to blow out the flame but even when it isn't that strong, it tends to blow the heat away before it can do its job cooking your meal. Some gasoline powered stoves are built to run on either white gas (Coleman fuel) or ordinary unleaded gasoline. Ordinary unleaded gas is less expensive and will probably be more available in a disaster situation, so having a dual-fuel or unleaded gas stove has its advantages. DO NOT use your Coleman stove in a tent or structure that isn't made for cooking. Stoves require appropriate ventilation to function properly and to prevent you from suffocating as they consume oxygen and give off toxic fumes. Using a stove inside a tent also presents MANY fire hazards. In addition, cooking fumes will damage tent materials, reducing performance and longevity, and creating unpleasant odors that will be difficult if not impossible to get out. Most Coleman and similar style camp stoves have built-in wind protection. Open the lid and swing out the side panels and you've wind guards on 3 sides of your stove. Face the back of the stove into the prevailing winds and you'll probably be able to successfully prepare your meals in all but the very windiest conditions.

Camp Chef is another good brand for outdoor cooking options. Their products are usually bigger, stronger, and hotter than ordinary camp stoves. The Camp Chef stove we bought is a two-burner model with removable legs that lets it fold up into a compact package for transport and storage. Options include a BBQ box and very nice grill/griddle combinations that add a lot of flexibility to this stove. A 6" high wind guard is also available and helps a lot in windy conditions. A Camp Chef stove will easily accommodate large frying pants and stock pots for preparing meals for larger groups of people.  Available accessories worth considering include grill/griddles,  a BBQ box, and a sturdy canvas carrying case.

Portable propane BBQs. There are a number of portable propane BBQs on the market that are good choices for camping and picnicing. They use the small 1 lb. propane cylinders so they are easy to transport, set up, and use. They provide pretty much the same features as cooking on your gas BBQ at home, but in a smaller package. You can fuel these directly from the propane tank on your RV using an "Extend-a-flow" system that connects from the RV gas line to the stove. You will also want to protect these against wind. On more than one occasion it was windy enough that I gave up grilling hamburgers outside and had to fry them in a pan on the RV range. Again, DO NOT use BBQs or hibatchis inside a tent or RV and avoid using them under an RV awning, a dining fly, or other fabric canopy.

Charcoal. Many people like cooking with charcoal. It is a fairly efficient method and, depending on the type of wood the charcoal is made from, can lend a pleasant taste to burgers and steaks grilled directly over the coals. Charcoal is also a good fuel for Dutch oven cooking. One draw-back is that it takes some time to get the charcoal going, so make sure you plan ahead and give yourself enough lead time. If you use charcoal lighter fluid to start your charcoal, you'll want to allow time enough for all the lighter fluid to burn away before cooking anything directly over the coals. Charcoal lighter fluid is not at the top of anyone's list of favorite condiments! Small table-top charcoal grills and Hibachis are popular choices for camping and picnicing. Personally I prefer the convenience of gas-fired grills. They light easily and heat up more quickly, fuel is cleaner to transport, and I don't have to worry about disposing of hot coals when I'm done.

Disposable charcoal grills can be useful when transport space is limited.  These are usually intended to be used once and thrown away.  They have lightweight pans that don't stand up to repeated use.  They usually come with the charcoal already loaded in the pan.  Just unwrap the whole works, light the charcoal, and you're in business.

Solar cooking. Now we get into some of the more adventurous and experimental techniques. Solar cooking is excellent in survival or disaster situations and is a clean and economic method anytime. You can find numerous plans for solar stoves and solar ovens on the Internet. While specific designs vary, they mostly use the same commonly available materials: cardboard and aluminum foil. The idea is to form reflectors that concentrate the sun's rays on the container you wish to heat. An efficient solar stove can boil water fairly quickly. Solar stoves are light weight, inexpensive to build, cost nothing to operate and can be used anywhere you have sunlight. A solar cooker would be an excellent thing to have in your emergency supply kit. In a survival situation you might make one using only aluminum foil.  You can buy ready made solar cookers too, but to my mind they seem to be a little pricey.

Cooking for a large group? Cooking for a large group obviously takes some special preparations. It is difficult to get everything ready for a lot of people all at the same time. I used to have two 2-burner Coleman stoves and one 3-burner stove I used for scout outings and larger family gatherings. Those were usually more than enough for extended family groups and even some Boy Scout and Church outings. I picked up a larger Camp Chef stove a few years ago. It has two very large burners and there are tons of accessories available for it, including a BBQ box and grill/griddle combination. It has its own adjustable legs so it can be set up level on uneven ground and I don't have to worry about finding a non-combustible surface to set it on. It runs off a portable propane tank like the one you use for your home BBQ or can be hooked to your RV propane tank via an Extend-a-Flow kit. I have found it very versatile for outdoor cooking. The grill/griddle is GREAT for steaks and pancakes. It is a bit large and a bit heavy compared to Coleman stoves. You would not want to take it hiking, but it is great for RV and car camping trips.

A friend of mine in California built the ultimate camp kitchen. He got hold of some surplus cook stove components from an old forest service camp kitchen that was being renovated. He bought a little trailer frame, like one of the kits you put a sheet of plywood on to make a 4x8 flatbed trailer. He built a steel framework to mount the stoves. He had a large (at least 3'x3') grill/griddle, a grate about the same size for cooking hamburgers and large cuts of meat, and a couple of big burners for heating pots of water. He enclosed the sides of the trailer and added a top with fold-out legs so, when lifted off the trailer, the top provided a large table for food preparation and serving. He added a tall lantern hook like a shepherd's crook for a Coleman lantern, and powered the whole thing off a huge propane tank like those used for mobile homes. It provided a truly professional cooking environment and was actually fun cooking for huge groups using his setup. The grill/griddle did dozens of hamburgers at a time and we could cook breakfast for 50 people or so (eggs, bacon, sausage, and pancakes) all at once so everyone could eat together. The extra burners heated water while we were cooking for hot beverages and for clean-up. If you come across some used restaurant equipment and want to make your own portable camp kitchen, keep in mind that the orifices used for propane and natural gas are different sizes and you may have to change them if the unit you purchase was rigged for natural gas.

Microwave ovens are more likely to be used in an RV than on a picnic table when tent camping, but if you're in a campground with power or have brought a portable generator along, you might use a microwave outdoors.  One of the advantages of cooking outdoors is that it keeps the heat and fumes out of your RV.   Serving a piping hot pizza or some Hot Pockets right from the microwave on the picnic table can be rather convenient.  And  you can't beat the speed at which microwave ovens prepare things for  you.  For example, you can whip up a cup of coffee, tea, or hot chocolate in 1 minute.

Emergency meals. If you find yourself using your camp cooking skills in a post-disaster situation, knowing how to prepare simple meals with minimal resources will be advantageous. Be sure to try out some during normal camping trips so you'll know how to do it when disaster strikes. Foil dinners, also known as "hobo stew" are simple and can be cooked in a campfire or on a stove or BBQ. Simply wrap some meat, potatoes and vegetables (seasoned to taste) in aluminum foil and heat until the meat is cooked and the potatoes are no longer crunchy. If you are without pots and pans you can sometimes make do cooking on stones. Put some dry, flat, non-porous stones in the bottom of your fire for about an hour. When the fire burns down enough, sweep the ashes off with a handful of long green (not dry) grass, then cook meat, fish, eggs, etc right on the hot stones. MREs (Meals Ready to Eat) have pretty much replaced the old-time C-rations for military applications and are now available to civilians at most outdoor supply stores. They are pretty easy to transport and have a long shelf life but they tend to be a little pricey. Be aware that even though they come in sealed foil pouches, they are still susceptible to being chewed into by rodents.  Old-time C-rations make good emergency meals if you can get your hands on some. They still occasionally show up at military surplus stores. Sometimes they are released from Civil Defense Emergency centers when the facilities are retired or renovated. Even though the expiration date may have passed, they are probably still viable unless the cans are bulging or corroded. You may be able to heat canned food like chili, stew, soup or canned meat by placing the can on the exhaust manifold of your vehicle, either while it is running or while it is still hot shortly after parking it. Make sure you have a way to remove it without burning your hands! Wear gloves or use pliers to pick it up -- or use a stick to knock it off the manifold.  This was a favorite way to heat up C-rations when I was in the Army more years ago than I like to count.

I have recently come across emergency meals that include their own heat packs.  They come a dozen in a box and are completely self-contained meals, except for drinks.  Having their own heat packs eliminates the need for stoves or fires making them very attractive options for dealing with an emergency situation,

Bon appetite!