Kid-Friendly Meals for Your Next Float Trip

Float trips are a great family experience with cooking over a campfire a big part of the event.  Camping with children revolves around food because most children are on regular meal schedules, requiring 3 meals a day despite the fact that you may be nowhere near a kitchen.  Cooking in an RV is not much different than it is at home.  But if you’re cooking under the open sky, food preparation can be tricky.  That’s why easy, simple-to-prepare meals are essential.  Here are a few ideas besides hot dogs.

Kids love to cook when they’re camping and foil cooking recipes make it easy.  Heavy duty aluminum foil and cooking spray is the only cooking gear you’ll need.  Many experienced campers cut up their ingredients at home before they leave and store them in Ziploc plastic bags for the trip.  All your little chefs need to do is spray the foil, empty the bag contents in the center and fold the foil into packets for the fire.

Even the pickiest of eaters can change their minds about vegetables when a campfire is involved.  Give your picky eater a bag of diced vegetables and foil and let them have fun.  Place the foil packet onto a campfire or camping stove for 30-45 minutes.  Campfire foil fries are the best.  Spray cut potatoes lightly and place in the center of a large piece of foil.  Sprinkle your favorite seasoning on Russet potatoes or add some cinnamon and butter slices to sweet potatoes.

Another foil recipe for the main course is the traditional family pot roast dinner.  Dice up your meat of choice at home like pork tenderloin, beef or chicken and store in a plastic bag.  Once your campfire is ready, combine the meat, roasting potatoes and mini carrots and toss with a packet of Lipton onion soup mix.  Close the packet and roast over a strong campfire or camping stove for 90 minutes.

If your little campers yearn for pizza, creating a memorable one is easy with prepared pizza crusts like Boboli.  Spread pizza sauce from a can over the crust before adding pepperoni or your favorite ingredients and shredded mozzarella cheese.  Place your pizza in heavy duty foil on the fire for about 20 minutes and you’ll have a delicious home-made pizza.

Make sure you leave room for dessert.  Just because you’re camping doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy apple cobbler.  Combine diced apples, granola, cinnamon, caramel or peanut butter chips in a sprayed aluminum foil packet and roast for 20-30 minutes.  Another delectable foil dessert is pear and chocolate bread.  Combine diced pears, chocolate chips and chunks of white Baguette or Italian bread in a sprayed aluminum foil packet and place on a campfire for 20-30 minutes.

And of course, s’mores are mandatory.  By the time a kid reaches the age of 8 he or she has the traditional marshmallow, graham crackers and Hershey bars s’mores recipe memorized.  But new s’mores variations should be enjoyed by all.  One variation is the white chocolate and banana s’mores.  Put half of a banana on a stick and hold over the campfire.  Then insert white chocolate chips and the banana between two vanilla wafers.  Another fun s’mores variety is accomplished by combining placing a Keebler Fudge Stripe cookie chocolate side up and ringing mini marshmallows around the circle of the cookie.  Place the second cookie chocolate side down on top and smoosh down.  Cook over a campfire until melted and messy.  Finally, assemble a chocolate chip cookie, roasted marshmallows and caramel-filled Ghirardelli chocolates for an indulgent s’mores variation.

Cooking aluminum foil pack recipes is fun and easy for all campers, big or small.  By pre-slicing your ingredients at home and storing them in Ziploc bags meal preparation is better organized and faster at the campsite.  Bon Appétit!