Best vacation grill food

see my post regarding camping!

you'd be very surprised what you can whip up though....I didn't do anything "special" but I had some "idears"

That's a pretty open ended question. Do you have access to, or can you bring a saute pan and/or pot? Can you bring a cooler or 2? Access to utensils other than a spatula for flipping burgers? If you can then really the only limit is your creativity. When we are out camping I tend to make a lot of "one-pot" meals such as quick "stews" (is that a contradiction in terms?!) such as curries or fish stews, but there are lots of other things you can do. For breakfasts, we have done everything from traditional eggs and bacon to oatmeal loaded with dried fruits and nuts, and have even done Eggs Benedict, with Hollandaise made over the campfire.

Yes, grills are very versatile.

The bigger question is what grill will you have?

over a fire pit and heavily rusted? You have to do a lot of bending over in the heat and smoke to use those and probably don't want to put food directly on the grill. I usually won't use those. Too gunked up and I have no idea what's been put on that grill

There are frequently upright charcoal grills at campsites and usually in better shape than fire pit grills. I've used these on occasion.

If you can find a decent portable charcoal or gas grill, you have a lot more control and comfort. Flavor might drop a bit though.

And a grill pan on a camp stove isn't all bad. Not all good either.

Grilled asparagus with lemon butter; grilled steak, served with grilled hot vegetable salad and grilled, buttered corn; grilled sliced (canned) pinapple or fresh peaches with creme anglaise (chilled, melted French vanilla ice cream). Cold beer. Bottle of very good rum.

Urrrp. Excuse me.
BDL

It's been implied, but perhaps needs to be said outright, Abe.

A grill is nothing more nor less than an live-fuel heat source. For some reason, though, we think of it differently from a cooktop run on gas or electricity.

Sure, grilling, per se, is great. But the fact is, you can cook anything on a grill you can on your cooktop at home. And, with a little judicious jiggery pockery, you can even sort of bake on them.

The downsides:

1. Possible discomfort if the grill height is wrong. Phil went into that, so there's no need to repeat it.

2. Mess. Charcoal, like most live fuels, produces soot; which settles on your cookware. To ease clean-up, coat the bottoms of your pots and pans with soap before cooking. They'll wash up much easier that way.

3. Heat control. This is just a matter of feel and experience. Tip: Most people use far more charcoal then they need. And don't neglect indirect heat.

If you look at the grill in my camping post, It actually worked well....was it a weber kettle? no.....but it did the job.....








....was 20$ from target, carry/folded and packed well....

used maybe 2-3 bottles of 2.99 propane....

and started with a click. I had briquets in it to keep head consistency over the whole surface but still noticed some "cool" spots.....but in the middle of the wilderness, who's bickering.

while packing the cooler, I just brought mainly the usual "grill" items...hamburgers, hotdogs, beans, chili, etc. but as I was cooking, about 1000 more "ideas" came to me. you really can cook anything on/with it...and because you McGuyvered it...it naturally tastes better!

"....and because you McGuyvered it..."

Uh, ummm, what does that mean???

Sorry my spelling was wrong..
MacGyver - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

TV show character who could take out a building with a paperclip, and some bubblegum.

Or cook a steak with a quarter and some pocket lint.

Are you familiar with the Macgyver TV show?

MacGyver would solve problems with various common items, many of which were impossible in actual fact.

So I suppose here it means that because you figured out how to make do and solve some problems creatively, you have a higher investment in the result that adds to your enjoyment of the result.

Phil

I agree

In the end its all about enjoying the end result. Half the fun of is ruffing it and figuring out how to get around problems. Its like when you do some patio cooking for the family. Maybe its a lot of work but its so worth it when u see everyone enjoying it.

We just spent Thurs evening through Sunday evening camping in Michigan for the Nascar race. We had a small camper refrigerator and a mini fridge but actually used those Coleman 5 day coolers to hold most of the meats and other items that needed refrigeration. Psst.....they're on end of season sale now at a lot of locations that carry them. Ours is the 75 gallon capacity and we got it for $30 at Walmart.

Friday morning we had sausage gravy and biscuits. They were both cooked on the grill.
Lunch was chili cooked on a grate over the fire.
Dinner was pulled pork smoked at 250 from 7 am until around 4 pm....foiled at 170 and then back on the smoker to reach 200. We also threw the baked beans on the smoker and had potato salad brought from home....could have easily been made on site.

Saturday breakfast was hash browns with smoked sausage, onions, peppers, and cheese cooked on the grate over the fire.
Lunch was pork burgers cooked over the grate.
Dinner was grilled bbq chicken (threw the whole chickens in the cooler frozen before we left home and it thawed slowly in there and some parts were still frozen a bit.....probably would have been a lot better if they'd been cut up fresh but I forgot until it was too late), jalapeno peppers stuffed with cream cheese, pineapple, chives, and cheddar cheese, and wrapped in bacon then grilled, and green beans with new potatoes cooked over the fire.

Sunday morningpre-race was more of a brunch with leftovers from the other meals and hamburgers.

Sunday evening post-race was brats cooked over the fire.

We took a cargo trailer to haul all of our stuff so also drug our smoker, grill, and prep table along to use. Everything except the pulled pork could just as easily been cooked on the grate over the fire instead of using the grill.

If you have the money, check into a Graber Grill. They're made in Shipshewana, IN and are really awesome. Google it and you'll find the website to order.

I love grilling. That is how I got interested in cooking in the first place. My biggest challenge in cooking was learning to cook inside. :lol:
One of my better recipes is grill tacos. Grill some boneless skinless chicken breasts, along with some bell pepper and onion. Take these and chop them up individually. In a large tortilla lightly coated with EVOO, 10 inch or so, assemble these on one side along with shredded cheese. Return to a hot grill and cook each side for about a minute. Top with hot sauce or guacamole or what ever you like. The tortilla is nice and crisp. Here is a pic I did for another website, I'm not sure if I can give a link, but anyways here is the food.
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ABTs with pineapple? That's something I've not heard of before. Hmmm...

mjb.

I just use canned chunk pineapple, drain as much of the juice out as possible (kids love to drink it) and then put it in a colander over the sink to drain even more. I put the cream cheese, drained pineapple, cheddar cheese, chives or onions (rough chop)...whichever I'm using that day, in the food processor and mix it all together well. We've also added imitation crab meat to them but we like them better without it.