planning future menus

Wow. No, I don't think I have room in my freezer for doing things like that. My husband's sister-in-law is very organized with her camping meals, the one time I camped with her, she had some yummy stuff that she obviously worked on at home before freezing and taking. She and my husband's brother do a lot more camping than we do. I have, on some occasions where we were staying where I could cook my own meals, brought food from home to do so. Some of those times though, my husband has either decided he didn't like what I planned to cook that night, or was so hungry he didn't want to wait that long. Last time it happened he ended up discovering my favorite pizza restaurant from my childhood is his new all-time favorite pizza restaurant, so can't complain.

Depends on the kind of camping we'll be doing.

If it's a base camp, where we won't be moving, then we often pre-make meals and store them in boiling bags. Makes meals a lot easier after a long day of outdoor activities. We freeze the meals, and they contribute to keeping the coolers cold. The pre-made meals are interspersed with actual cooking on site.

When camping as part of an historical reenactment we cook everything from scratch, using period methods and recipes. Under those conditions, of course, cooking is an activity of its own.

If we are car camping, then anything you can bring and keep cool is fair game.  I do a "guys' camping weekend" with college and law school friends in late April every year, and over the 30+ years we've been doing this, I notice that we do drink a bit less and the food has gotten a lot better.  Started out with brats and burgers.  No we have grilled lamb tacos, creme brulee (we brought a torch), thai shrimp curry, seared ahi poke, etc.  There's no power or running water (or any facilities of any kind for that matter), but we have it down at this point.  If we are going canoe camping or back packing, then the first day meal may be something frozen, but after that it is all freeze dried stuff, rice, noodles, etc.  No point in carrying any more than you have to over the portages.  You want to do them in one carry if you can, so we travel really light.

I don't make much in advance as I quite like cooking over a wood fire (or bbq or camping gaz bottle).

It's dark here by 18:00, so plenty time for cooking and eating!

On the last day of a camp, I've made boiled omelets in a zip-locking bag. Don't use the bags with the actual sliding zippers though. They're not water tight.

Crack the eggs into the bag, season, add any fillings and mix.  Squeeze out as much air and seal. You can also mix by squeezing from outside the bag, but it's not as efficient. Drop in the pot of boiling water and cook.  Eat it right out of the bag with easy clean up.

It's a little slow to cook, but that gives me some time to break down camp some and I have a pot of clean hot water for cleaning up and degreasing  my stove before packing it all in the truck.

My precooking tends to run to soups and perhaps a long cooking sauce like a ragu.

Usually, when I go camping, I keep it simple.  I usually take a cast iron skillet and a camp toaster, and make eggs sometimes fried, and sometimes scrambled or omelettes), bacon and toaster for breakfast.  For lunch, we usually roast hot dogs.  For dinner, I typically will put together a spit and roaster a beef pot roast, or maybe a chicken over the fire, and wrap some potatoes in foil and cook them in the coals.  When I am camping somewhere with a lake, I sometimes catch fish and cook them too.