Camping Menu

All Packed up

So, we just spent the weekend camping with families from our Royal Ranger Outpost 95.  It was a mixed group of 43 men, women and children (8 children 5 or under) and I was in charge of the meals. I came up with the following menu which can easily be scaled up or down to suit your needs.

3-Day Camping Menu

So, I start with a grid to fill-in the meals. I tried to choose things that I could easily do all the prep work while at home, that way I was not dealing with raw meat and a lot of cooking at the campsite.  If it was just for my family, maybe, but 43 people? I needed to get food on the table quickly. Then I move on to creating my shopping list.  Once that is done, it's on to shopping and prep work.  I've created an Excel Spreadsheet (I love a spreadsheet) to help me organize, you can get it here . . . Family Camp.

We typically leave for camping on Friday afternoon.  I spend Thursday shopping and prepping, leaving Friday for packing the family and any last minute details. After doing this a couple times, I've also come up with some helpful hints:

• Pre-make and prep as much as possible.
• Re-package items to make them more packable - ZipLock bags are your friend. On a side note, I'm all for using generic and saving money, but my personal experience has been that ZipLock brand is the best for complete sealing.  This is especially important if you are packing items that may end up sitting in water at the bottom of your cooler and you do not want them to get soggy. And label, label, label.
• Start packing your cooler from your last day camping up.  This way, the items you need first will be on top and will limit digging through the coolers and loosing all that cold air.
• Write up where the food is located so you don't have to search through bags and coolers.  Simply go to the list to know what is where.

Now, go out and enjoy nature!

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