Posts Tagged ‘camping stove’
Solutions for Outdoor Grilling
Purchasing one of those gas or electric barbecues can be quite expensive, and also a hassle to maintain. Luckily, there are a number of more affordable solutions to slake your hunger for delicious barbecue. For example, if you’re a fan of roasted hot dogs and sausages, a simple fire pit combined with a few metal pokers will allow you to cook an excellent summer meal and have fun while doing it. If you’re looking to grill hamburgers and steaks, you might consider a camping grill.
These items are great for the backyard, or for camping trips and outdoor excursions. You’ll have dozens of meal solutions at your disposal with any of these fun outdoor cooking utensils.
Cooking Fish for Dinner - One Way or the Other
Unfortunately, you can’t always haul in a prize-winning fish on the first night of a camping trip. Sometimes the fish just aren’t biting, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have a fun, relaxing day on the river with friends anyway. When it’s time to pack up the angling gear and pitch the tent, daylight might be dwindling. There’s barely any time to cook dinner; time is of the essence. Since you and your friends had your hearts set on fish, try the following Cajun tuna 
recipe on for size.
Ingredients:
2 cans chunky tuna fish
1 ½ cans kernel corn
2 Tsp. butter
1 red onion
½ of a green pepper
½ cup celery
1 Tsp. flour
2 tsp. seasoning salt
Directions:
1. Chop all raw vegetables, melt butter in a skillet and fry the onion, pepper and celery on your Optimus Nova stove until tender.
2. Add flour and blend together. Then add all other ingredients and mix.
3. Serve immediately over rice.
Essential Camping Equipment
When it comes to camping, there’s no more fun or enjoyable activity to be shared with family and friends. However, to have an enjoyable camping trip, you’ll want to be prepared with all the necessary gear and equipment. You won’t have a stovetop or an oven, so be sure to bring cooking equipment, at the minimum a canister stove is necessary for cooking hot meals. Having some kind of shelter is a no brainer, so be sure to bring a tent, but also be sure you have a rain fly (unless you’re camping in the desert!). It’s also important to bring emergency supplies in case of a real emergency; equipment like a first aid kit, flashlight, and even a GPS device are great to have in the outdoors.
In addition to all of the equipment essential to survival, it’s also important to remember that camping is about fun! For an enjoyable time consider sporting equipment including croquet sets, footballs, fishing poles, and binoculars (for bird and wildlife watching). Being prepared and planning some fun activities will ensure that your camping trip is one to remember.
Planning a Family Camping Trip
There’s nothing better than a family camping trip celebrating togetherness and family unity. The best time to plan a camping trip is in the summer or fall, and also while your kids are still young enough to appreciate the outdoors. For a successful family camping trip, you will need a few supplies. You will want to have a family tent, food and water (of course), camping supplies including a Brunton camping stove, shovel, and axe, as well as a medical kit, compass, and map. These are the bare essentials, and you can always include more in your camping repertoire depending on your family’s needs. Recreational equipment like balls, horseshoes, or a croquet set can also be quite enjoyable.
When choosing where to go camping, be sure to get the whole family involved. Kids will feel much better about camping if they get to partake in the choice of location. You should also strive to do activities they like. Even if you need to spend a day at an outlet shopping mall to satisfy them, it’s worth it in the long run. Just make sure to avoid televisions and computer games at the actual campsite!
Eating in the Outdoors
A lot of people who are averse to camping don’t like to venture out into the wilderness because they don’t like leaving the comforts of home. But even the most city-centric individual can receive a great, home cooked meal at a campsite if they have the right camping grill. While camp food used to be little more than a hotdog shoved on a stick and charred in the campfire, the evolution of camping stoves has made some pretty intense cuisine possible.
If you’re able to take a Primus camping stove along with you on your outdoor adventures, you’re suddenly able to enjoy all kinds of delectable foods. You can throw on everything from barbecued chicken to beef hamburger patties. Slow roasted over these grills, the food is sure to be done to perfection. And because you’re out in the wilderness with your friends or family, it won’t even feel like a chore to make dinner!
Trying New Things in the Great Outdoors
I keep telling myself it’s just a phase, but I’m really beginning to wonder. You see, my children are two of the pickiest eaters on the face of the earth. Their finicky tastes make dinnertime a real chore around our household, and my wife has given up entirely on getting them to branch out. I’m not so quick to fold, however. I’ve got a plan to enhance their palates on our upcoming camping trip.
The kids love to dine of traditional camping fare, which for them consists of franks and beans and marshmallows. But these basic foodstuffs only provide so much nutrition. I bought a 2 burner propane stove online that will allow me to fry up a freshly caught fish even as I stir fry some vegetables. And if the kids don’t like these unfamiliar dishes, I’ll have a spare burner to heat up some canned beans.
Hearty Meal for Active Campers
I don’t know about you, but when I go on a camping trip I like to stay active. Whether I’m fishing for trout in a crystal-clear mountain stream or taking a kayak out on an all-day excursion, I require plenty of energy. At the end of the day, I’m hungry enough to eat a bear or practically any other creature living in the nearby wilderness. Instead of giving into these primal urges, I take the civilized route and prepare a hearty meal of beef stew. The following recipe should make enough to feed an entire crew of hungry campers.
Ingredients:
4 pounds cubed beef
2 cans tomatoes
4 Tsp. olive oil
2 cloves garlic, diced
4 cups hot water
4 red onions
pepper, to taste
salt, to taste
6 Tsp. granulated sugar
A dozen carrots, cut into small pieces
10 potatoes, cut into quarters
cloves
2 cans peas
Directions:
1. Over an Optimus stove, use a skillet to brown the beef in oil. Then transfer it to a Dutch oven and add the garlic. Dump water, tomatoes, onions, lemon, sugar, salt and pepper into the mix and allow to simmer for 2 hours.
2. Combine carrots, potatoes and cloves into the mixture and place a cover over the top. Add peas once the other vegetables are tender. If the end result is too runny, you can use flour to thicken it.
Butane vs Propane
Although derived from different sources, they are alike in many ways. When burning cleanly they release water & CO2, but if you see some soot produced while burning check the air flow to burner because they can release carbon monoxide, which can be dangerous in confined areas.
Propane is the more abundant fuel in the US, and used for heating , cooking, or powering vehicles.
Butane is also a popular fuel, used in lighters, or for heating and cooking. It has a slight edge by volume for being more efficient, by about 12%. Which many backpackers consider enough to make it the fuel of choice when weight is the prime consideration.
Butane has a problem dealing with frigid temperatures. Below freezing you will find Propane a better choice due to it’s lower boiling point, and higher operating pressure, so they claim. Also, some areas may not carry what you need, so carry plenty with you.
Above is an example of a butane stove w/piezo ignition made by Stansport.
Compact Essentials are Key
If your family is like mine, once you have the tent, sleeping bags, food, clothes, toys, hiking gear, cookware, and even more food packed into the car for a camping trip, there’s hardly any room for the kids, let alone a stove or grill! It’s easy to pack your whole life for a camping trip – after all, who wants to be without their creature comforts in the wilderness? – but you do need to have plenty of room for your essentials. If you absolutely have to bring everything, look into compact-sized essentials, or things that pack up very small so they’re easy to transport. You can easily find compact sleeping bags, tents and chairs, but other compact essentials might not cross your mind.
One of the biggest space-savers you can get is a foldable stove or grill. You don’t have to sacrifice hot meals to make room in your car – just get one of these compact stoves and save tons of space. Some foldable stoves even have collapsible burner heads for maximum portability. They make ideal companions for backpacking trips, too!
Diversify Your Camp Cooking Repertoire
Every family has its own camping traditions, but some habits are universal. One of them, roasting hotdogs over an open fire, is practically as old as time. Few experiences put us in touch with nature in a more profound way. After a day or two in the woods, it’s best to add a little variety to camp cooking – and that doesn’t mean throwing a marshmallow or two into the mix.
Camping grills might be simple in their design, but they make up for it by facilitating a complex array of dishes. It’s even possible to cook main dishes and sides simultaneously on the expansive grilling surface. As dawn breaks through the pine trees, grills become useful for heating up water for coffee or tea. Wake up the children with the savory smell of biscuits and gravy simmering in a frying pan. All of a sudden, hotdogs seem a little plain by comparison.