After the cooking, the cleanup.

[NYCgrrl]

Re: After the cooking, the cleanup.

You are very brave. Kids do change a vacation in many ways. My daughter is all grown and married. But when she was a kid we took her camping when ever possible. Since I like to cook, she was my helper. I had not discovered Dutch Oven cooking back then or I would have used one. But my daughter and I made all kinds of things for meals. To this day she is still a scratch cook. She buys few prepared foods. Much of her love of cooking came from those trips cooking together. We still share recipes today. Maybe try including the kids in the process. Might burn off some energy and they always eat better when they helped make the meal. When she was young we did a lot of pie iron meals. Ever tried that with the kids?

Like you and your DD I'm pretty much a scratch cook as well.
At least one of the kiddos cooks with me at home since she lives here. In fact, she has pretty good knife skills.

The other children live elsewhere but I do know the oldest(16 ish) wants to make some dish while we are camping this year. Just don't recall what it is....think it's some kinda casserole dish. Kiddos take turns making salad daily and then of course we have Pizza Night on Fridays. They get to rummage thru the leftovers for toppings, shape the dough and then individualise 'em. I'm still giggling to self over the time they put roasted beet cubes on the pizza cause it looked pretty.

[bluestar99]

Re: After the cooking, the cleanup.

You sound like a great Mom. I did not realize the kids were older. They are a little more difficult to get interested if they never cooked as a child. While Beet cubes sound interesting, I don't think I will try that one. LOL

[NYCgrrl]

Re: After the cooking, the cleanup.

You sound like a great Mom. I did not realize the kids were older. They are a little more difficult to get interested if they never cooked as a child. While Beet cubes sound interesting, I don't think I will try that one. LOL

Hehehehe.....any of my children still reflecting on teen aged years would prolly disagree.....
I don't camp with those maniacs any more; one in the Armed Forces and the other in CO. I camp w/ my grand daughter ( who lives w/ me) 10 y/o, a niece, 16 ish, and grand nephew, 8 y/o?.

[bluestar99]

Re: After the cooking, the cleanup.

Still think it's cool you take a bunch of kids camping. They will always remember it.

[cunningman]

Re: After the cooking, the cleanup.

Speaking of clean up time....I bought two 8.5 litre foldable cloth water bowls that work well for my dishes. Some heated water and a spritz of camp soap gets it done, air dry.

[tplife]

Re: After the cooking, the cleanup.

Still think it's cool you take a bunch of kids camping. They will always remember it.

Always good advice. I made sure my kids made several trips each year camping out here in SoCal, and as young adults it's now "in their bones". I couldn't raise them in the wilderness like where I grew up, but I did make sure they're comfortable at night in the forest in a cloth house.

[jburke]

Re: After the cooking, the cleanup.

When I don't have an abundance of clean water around, I wash the pots and pans with whatever creek/lake water is around. THEN once they are "clean" I give them a good rinse with some drinking water and dry them well with a paper towel. If that isn't clean enough for you, you can also wipe them with a clorox wipe before rinsing with drinking water. I always use paper plates/cups no matter what, so I limit the amount of dishes I need to do. Who wants to clean when they are camping? Not this gal.