Good base camp meal ideas?

bbrown

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Getting ready to head out for a long weekend chasing turkeys and we will be using my pop up camper - I know... lame but comfy.
Anyway looking for new ideas for good base camp meal ideas when not rocking a jet boil. My buddy and I are always trying to one up each other and making dinner is no different. He owns the outfitting company that I work for and we are always looking for new ideas for meals to impress.
So what you got? Thanks
 

Becca

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On trips where we can afford the weight, it's awesome to enjoy some good camp food. For us, this is typically limited to hunting or camping via atv or from a boat...anytime I can bring the Coleman two burner stove along instead of just the soto-JetBoil cup setup we use for backpacking season. I like to do most of the cooking ahead, so all I have to do at night is heat things up. I often vacuum seal the meals before freezing, then just drop the bags into a pot of boiling water to reheat. Easy and no mess! Cooking from scratch in the camp kitchen can be fun too, but requires remembering to bring more ingredients and a lot more clean up....

Some of my favorite make ahead meals to freeze at home and reheat in the field are:
Game meat chili and cornbread
Steak fajitas (I make the filling ahead of time and freeze it, then rewarm in the field and serve in tortillas)
Jambalaya
Spaghetti with meat sauce (cook the noodles in the field, make the sauce ahead and reheat)
Sloppy joes (just bring buns, reheat the filling and top with cheese)
Curry (cook ahead and serve over boil in the bag rice)
Stroganoff
Bow tie pasta with salmon cream sauce
Almost any kind of soup, served with crusty bread
 
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Pack some chicken breast, some bow-tie pasta, and a jar of Alfrado sauce.
You can brown cubed chicken & boil water right? Fav of mine.

I also like to do fajita's (duck in my case), quick simple one pan affair.
Brown the meat w/ fajita spice, med rare & set aside.
Slice a couple sweet peppers ( I like orange & red) & an onion, stir fry in HOT pan.
Slightly char on one side for flavor, add meat, season to taste.
Trowel into warmed flour totillas and top with a splash of Tapitia sauce. Yum!

I also pressure can bear meat, so bear stew or bearitto's & spanish rice is pretty easy to do.
For Bear stew; I add a can or two of beef broth to pot, open jar of bear meat & drain off liqiuid to pot.
Put the heat to it & bring to boil. Add chunked carrots, potatos, celery & onion in that order.
Reduce to simmer, and season to taste. When carrots & taters are fork tender I add the meat.
Soon as meat is hot it's done. 30min max. Enough food for 3days. (wink)

Anyway, some of the quick meals I do in my camper.
Hunt'nFish


PS: Becca, if you guys like curry, try making Vindaloo. Its basically a curry stew over rice.
carrots onion taters and a pint of heavy cream to sweeten & mellow it.
This is another one of my canned duck recipes... along w/ duck chili.
 
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Becca

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PS: Becca, if you guys like curry, try making Vindaloo. Its basically a curry stew over rice.
carrots onion taters and a pint of heavy cream to sweeten & mellow it.
This is another one of my canned duck recipes... along w/ duck chili.

That sounds incredible! Vindaloo is an Indian curry dish, correct? Do you have a recipe?
 
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bbrown

bbrown

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Thanks for the ideas.
We have done a bunch of different dishes but some favorites are chicken parm, enchilada casserole, chili rellenos and this one:

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Fresh elk back straps with a layer of fresh roasted green chilies and wrapped in bacon. Threw it on my smoker for a couple hours and served with skillet potatoes and some other veggies - damn was it good.

Another favorite is tortellini stew - add a couple cans of rotel (or stew tomatoes), 2-3 cups beef broth, can of tomato sauce, a couple pounds of Italian sausage (browned and crumbled) in a stock pot with some Italian seasonings and simmer 1- 2 hours. Meanwhile slice and half some zucchinis For the last 45 min of cook time add 1-2 boxes of dry tortellini (that you buy in a box in the pasta isle) and zucchinis.
Once tortellini are done serve with grilled Italian bread with fresh garlic butter.
 

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Ray

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When car/boat camping I like to keep things simple which keeps cooking time down and cleanup easy.

My favorite breakfast is caribou/pork breakfast sausage and then add in hash browns, bell peppers, and then mix in egg whites from a carton. Seeing a post on the "no mountain house" thread where a similar breakfast is cooked and then dehydrated, I started over in concept. I now use grated sweet potatoes and slivers of sweet/bell peppers and sweet onions. Whether its dehydrated or not its a great hot breakfast. I plan on making a few of these prior to a few truck trips this fall to thaw and heat up. The dehydrated ones are all ready made for the sheep hunt, but I need a second batch.

The cool part of making all this in one pan is that the potatoes absorb the grease and flavor from whatever meat is in the pan. A really good hash.

As a kid one of the best dinners/lunches we had out in the wild was to just cook strips of steak over a sage brush fire. Mortens Natures Seasoning and a willow stick made it all fantastic. We ate slower and enjoyed the meal more. We usually had a side of some kind of pasta or potatoe salad to go with it brought from home.
 

Ray

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I am not much a curry eater since I have cut way back on carbs with the paleo lifestyle. However, that Vindaloo stuff sounds like it would be a great meal

Vindaloo from a Curry cooking site.
 
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Not much of a recipe; meat of choice, taters, onion, carrots, curry masala, pint of cream, a little water if needed. Quick boil and then simmer until carrots are done. Serve over rice. Very hearty & high cal.
Goes well with a nice IPA, Dark Amber...... or in your case up there Moose Drool.

The duck meat I prepare two ways; canned & freezer pack.
Canned, I just mix a curry masala broth and raw pack the meat, w/ pearl onion or two, topping off w/ the broth. Can per raw pack directions. ~90min at 10lbs

Freezer pack, I cook the chunked meat in curry masala & a splash of water (no cream) til med rare.
Let cool, and move to fridge & let rest for 2 days to let flavor meld into meat. (ie. kill duck taste)
Packgage in ziplock bags and freezer wrap as normal. Make sure met is covered w/ broth and squeeze out air.
The Duck Fajita meat I prepare for freezer the same way.
The key to duck is to let it rest in fridge after cooking.
Hunt'nFish

(click to enlarge)
 
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bbrown,
DAMN that looks good. (drool) I have a couple bear backstraps I've been saving .
I think we have a winner with that!

Ray,
I too am a big morning hash guy. Only a trick I do, is make it up at home and roll up in 12" flour tortilla's using grated cheese as a glue and then freeze in sandwich baggies.
Preprepared Breaffast Burrito's; brown in skillet until hot flipping often.
A lot of time when I do up a big skillet at home for the family Saturday morn'n there is left overs. I just use it to make up a burrito or two and add to my stack in the freezer. Some folks like to wrap them in heavy alum foil instead of sandwhich baggies, but I reserve the right to pop one in the microwave at home. (wink)
Hunt'nFish
 
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Team4LongGun

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I know-old thread. I'm looking for some new and hearty basecamp meal ideas. Easy if possible as well....
 
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We pre-cook and partion all our meals for hunting from a truck before we go, make them, partion them, then vacuum seal them. Heat up the vacuum seal bag in hot boiling water for 5 minutes and you have a great home cooked meal. We do quite a few different kinds, meat loaf, chicken pot pie, just last night I made 6 meals of venison sausage, scrambled eggs and green beans
 

Steve O

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Base camp guys boiling pre frozen meals...I’m doing this for the first time this year. Do you need to put anything in the bottom of the pot to keep the bag from touching and melting? Or they just float around in the water and don’t sink?
 

2ski

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I was reading along and read the post from Becca. I was like whoa! Is she posting again? Then I looked and saw the date.

Campfire pizza.
Skillet of some sort.
Brush with oil one side of a tortilla.
Put pizza sauce on the other side.
Put shredded mozzarella cheese on top of the pizza sauce on half of that side of the tortilla.
Put any pizza toppings you want onto the cheese. If you want hearty I would do pepperoni and Canadian bacon. Olives. Artichoke hearts. You could do chicken and white sauce instead of pizza sauce.
Put cheese on top of the toppings.
Fold the tortilla over the top of all that.
Put in the skillet and fry that sucker up on both sides.

I've never had anyone complain anytime I've made them.
 

Whisky

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Base camp guys boiling pre frozen meals...I’m doing this for the first time this year. Do you need to put anything in the bottom of the pot to keep the bag from touching and melting? Or they just float around in the water and don’t sink?

The bags are fine touching the pot, as long as there is water in it, and keep flipping them.
Don't do what I did this year, and boil all your water out. Then you'll have a mess.
 

Steve O

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Awesome. I plan to heat up my breakfast burrito in the water I’m boiling for coffee in the morning. Dinner will have chili, lasagna, chicken enchiladas, and pot roast supplementing burgers, brats, steaks, and various tenderloins that come in fresh from the field.
 

Bearsears

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I always pre make a cajun gumbo in a crock pot at home with whatever veggies you want, andouliee sausage, and chicken. Then I bring frozen shrimp and instant rice. Every year I make it for the boys hunt, Im asked "youre bringing gumbo right?
 

Rokbar

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Also look up a recipe for corn pones. My son and I made them after frying the potatoes. We just put half an inch of oil and got real hot. Mixed yellow corn meal with water and black pepper. Dropped a scoop in hot grease. For what it was they were pretty dang good. I bet if you just use maybe an eighth of inch of grease, mixed diced onions in corn meal and fry until crispy, you guys would fight over them.
 
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