Camping Food

Preparing for camping is one of my favorite things to do. When I'm packing away our supplies, I get the very same feeling I used to get when playing house on the front porch, weaving together baskets out of monkey grass to store away the berries and acorns I'd gathered from the neighborhood. Only now I'm old enough to actually identify and eat the berries I find.

Camping involves the ultimate combination of planning (including list-making) and food: Two of my favorite things. I keep a camping supply list on my computer so that I'll never forget to pack something. And about 2 weeks ago I started planning what food we'd pack.

Did I mention we're only camping for 3 days and 2 nights?

Yeah, I know I make it a bigger deal than I need to...But that's part of the fun!
And when camping with 2 hungry and very energetic 8 year old boys, you need some serious food. Plus, when your family is eating organic, local (or fair trade), gluten-free, and mostly homemade, it takes some time to make all this!



Here's what we're packing:
2 jars of homemake TVP and kidney bean chili (For "frito" pie!)
1 jar of homemade mexican style black beans
1 jar of homemade, local salsa
2 bags of chips (local org. tortilla chips and organic "fritos")
a triple-batch of homemade tofu jerky
4 ears of local org. corn
1.5 pounds Door County dark cherries
1 pound local org. green beans
3 Larabars
1/2 pound instant hummus
1 can org. tomato sauce
bulk polenta
1 pound org. local hemp granola
Org. local popcorn kernels
Org. graham crackers
2 boxes of gluten-free crachers
Fair trade chocolate
Vegan marshmallows
Org. peanuts in the shell
4 batches of homemade cookies
12 homemade mulberry/cherry/maple sodas

I was worried about not having enough food. Now I'm worried about having too much junk and not enough veggies. But really, isn't camping is all about eating junk food? Or maybe that's just my idea of camping?