For me, nothing says summertime like a good old fashioned camping trip and, with the 49th Annual Philadelphia Folk Festival right around the corner, I can't think of a better reason to spend a weekend in the great outdoors. In honor of the Folk Festival, this month's Venu Menu is more of a DIY guide to some "must-have" camping meals. So, whether you're a seasoned outdoors enthusiast or you've yet to make your first trek into the wonderful style="padding-left:50px;" world of outhouses, roll-outs, and DEET, here are a few treats that are sure to make your weekend in the wild a memorable one.
Ask anyone to name a campfire food and chances are baked beans will be at the top of many people's lists, but try adding the following ingredients to spice up your beans and make your fellow campers' mouths water.
(NOTE: Corn on the cob and baked potatoes take a while to cook, especially the potatoes, so make sure you start these before your trip takes a page from the Donner party's book.)
The key to successful style="padding-left:50px;"ly cooking corn on the cob and potatoes with a campfire is the coals. You want the fire to have been burning long enough to have made a bed of red hot embers at the base. Once you have that hot bed of coals, individually wrap the corn and potatoes in the aluminum foil and using the tongs shove them into the ember bed. It's not essential to completely cover the corn and potatoes-the embers will be hot enough to cook them if they are partially covered.
The potatoes can take a while to cook all the way through depending on their size, up to 45 minutes for big potatoes. It's best to periodically pul style="padding-left:50px;"l one out and careful style="padding-left:50px;"ly check it with a fork. If the fork goes in easily, your potato is ready. If it seems hard, wrap it back up and toss it back in the coal bed. The corn shoul style="padding-left:50px;"d take no more than 20 minutes. Since I am a firm believer that butter makes everything taste better, I like to put half a stick in a mess kit pan and melt it so I can drown my baked potato in a sea of salty goodness, but that's just me.
No campfire meal woul style="padding-left:50px;"d be complete without S'mores. Using the ingredients below, you can mix and match to create variations of the classic graham cracker-marshmallow-chocolate sandwich the Girl Scouts made famous.
The list could go on and on, but you all know the drill. Heat the marshmallow on a stick over the campfire-how gooey you like the mallow is up to you-add toasted mallow to the cookies and chocolate and voila! You have a messy, delicious campfire treat that will satisfy even the most intense sugar craving.
Happy Trails!
