How Now: 7 Simple Campfire Recipes

There's a certain self-sufficiency and freedom to camping. Just grab your camping gear, hiking boots, first-aid kit and toothbrush, and it's time for adventure. Whether you're hiking to multiple campsites or are pitching your tent in one spot, you don't want to be laden down with too many food items. But, given the alternative, you also don't have to subsist on tasteless, freeze-dried meal portions.

With some advance planning and a little ingenuity, it's actually possible to feast on quite a spread, both under the sun and stars. Check out this helpful Howcast video below for a full line-up of hearty and delicious campfire cuisine. Our personal favorites are bannock and breakfast in a bag. Alliteravely speaking, we simply say: Brilliant!

Step 1: Get permission to make a fire

Check ahead to make sure you're allowed to have a fire at the place you're planning to camp.

Step 2: Bring along a grill

Consider grabbing the grate out of your toaster oven or off your backyard barbecue and stashing it with your gear. When you get to your campsite, just balance it between two rocks and you have yourself an instant barbecue grill.

Step 3: Pack cooking essentials

Pack a few things that are essential to cooking over an open flame-heavy-duty aluminum foil, tongs, and potholders or camp gloves. Don't forget the seasonings!

Step 4: Prep some veggies/make veggie kabobs (recipe 1)

Before you leave, prep some veggies for kabobs. Cut them into chunks big enough to stick on a skewer, marinate them in salad dressing, and seal them in plastic bags. At the campsite, just stick them on wooden skewers (or braches you've cleaned) and hold them over the campfire.

Step 5: Cook bannock (recipe 2)

Make the classic campfire staple, bannock. Mix together a cup of flour, a teaspoon of baking powder, and 1/4 teaspoon of salt. When you're ready to cook it, slowly add water until you have about half a cup of firm, sticky dough. Roll out a rope-like shape and wrap it around a skewer or stick. Hold it over a flame until golden brown. Serves two.

Step 6: Make pigs in blankets (recipe 3)

Make pigs in blankets. Prepare biscuit mix, wrap some around a hot dog, put the dog on a stick, and hold it over the flame until cooked, about 15 minutes.

Step 7: Make breakfast in a bag (recipe 4)

Make a complete breakfast in a paper lunch bag. Line the bottom with bacon strips – the grease will help protect the bag from burning – and then crack an egg or two on top. Fold down the top of the bag until it's about three inches high, and skewer this folded part with a stick. Hold it about half a foot above the coals for 10 minutes.

Step 8: Toast some cheese sandwiches (recipe 5)

Toast some cheese sandwiches by finding two sticks sturdy enough to squeeze a sandwich between them like tongs as you hold it over the open flame.

Step 9: Make your own hot pockets (recipe 6)

Wrap just about anything in heavy-duty aluminum foil-veggies, hamburger meat, thinly-sliced potatoes-and stick them directly on hot embers.

Step 10: Turn a rock into a skillet (recipe 7)

Find a large, flat rock that you can heat at the edge of your campfire and use it as a skillet to fry a steak or an egg.

Step 11: Extinguish the fire

When you're done with the fire, put it out with water. Stir the embers into the dirt until they are completely extinguished.

[via Howcast]