Food Preparation Time

Some trips arrive at the put-in with deep-frozen meals they have bought or prepared at home. This can be very useful even if it is just for the first night when everyone is extra tired or only one person really knows their way around the kitchen. Good re-heatable food that can be cooked in a dutch oven includes lasagna, chile rellenos or almost any casserole dish. If it's in a round aluminum foil cook tray it can go as is into a dutch oven. A quicker approach is to take a big stock pot and put in a vegetable steamer. Put in water keeping it below the steamer and bring it to a boil. Then food can be placed (in aluminum foil if it does not have a container) on top of the vegetable steamer. The stock pot can be filled to the top and and covered so a lot of food can be heated up this way without burning or scorching. Just remember to get frozen meals out of the cooler at lunch time or mid-afternoon to defrost in time. In summer this will probably not work for the whole trip.

If you prefer to cook all dinners from scratch, make sure your schedule doesn't require a late arrival into camp each night. Doing dishes in the dark doesn't suit everyone, especially on cold nights.

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