5 Camping Foods To Make

Hi Foxy Friends! Happy Monday! Hope you are all having a great start to your week. This is another short week for me, so I'm happy about that (off Friday for me this week). Anyway, today on The Blended Blog, we are talking more summer things, but this time camping food. So Mr. and I have been camping a few times...the first few times we did the same things, and then this last time in Yosemite, we really stepped up our game. I'll break it down for you, before 2017 and after...

| ONE | Frozen Steak

This is also a good tip. I freeze a steak before we leave, so it acts like both a block of ice and then while we were driving and eating other stuff it would thaw out (we usually eat this on the second or third day). Add some

| TWO | Potato, Onion and Steak and/or Bean Burritos

Cook some potatoes in the microwave before you leave, and put in foil to bring with you. Then you can make a yummy potato breakfast (since you are just cutting and heating the potatoes, you don't have to wait for them to cook). We usually add in some onions and either do a bean/cheese and potato burrito or add some eggs and have a breakfast burrito. Sorry the picture quality is so poor, had to screen shoot from Costco website, I seem to have misplaced these photos...oops!

I can't remember what was mixed with this, bean or steak...but I can tell you it was delicious taco. we added some pico de gallo.

| THREE | Dutch Oven BBQ Chicken, Bacon and Potatoes

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Dutch oven cooking for camping...have you heard of it? When we went to Sequoia last year, we were on a bus with this other family that introduced us to dutch oven cooking in the fire pit...life changing I tell ya!

So here is what we bought, a large dutch oven I duh, I bought this one. And then I also realized, how are we going to get this hot thing out of the fire pit...so then I bought this. And for easy clean up, because you're camping, and doing dishes while camping sucks...so I bought these liners to go into our dutch oven, heck ya, they did tear a little bit, but that little bit of mess was WAY easier to clean up than if we didn't use them at all!

We followed this recipe...she has better pictures.

Dutch Oven / Dutch Oven Foil Liner / Dutch Oven Lid Lifter / Gloves

Bonus, you cook the hot dogs for the kids while you are making your fancy Dutch Oven recipes.

Hot off/in the fire pit.

And the finished product, it looks burnt, but tastes delicious!

There was none left over.

Some tips if you make this: rotate the pot in the fire pit, as one side is going to be closer to the fire than the rest...so you'll want to rotate it so that one side isn't burnt.

| FOUR | Dutch Oven Lasanga

I know sounds crazy right?! But it was so dang good! We followed this recipe. Of course she has better pictures then I took. But here is what it looks like in the fire, see how  one side is close to the fire? Don't forget to rotate.

This is what the large lid lifter looks like, makes it super easy to get out of the fire.

I think we had too many coals on the lid and it got too hot...next time  I would use less on the lid. All of our wonderful cheese on the top burnt...darn! Or maybe put a layer of foil in the top? Not sure how that would work.

But here's what it looked like under the layer of burnt stuff.

There was none of this left over either...

Tip 1: This take a while to cook, like 2 hours...about 45 minutes to get the coals hot enough another another 45 minutes or so cooking...so be prepared for that.

Tip 2: After you get your coals nice and hot, don't add more firewood to the fire pit...I know you'll want to, but I think it makes the fire way too hot, unless you have a big fire pit.

Tip 3: Don't be afraid to do this! Seriously, we were super nervous, but in the end it was so dang good, and I think worth the effort.  The people we went with said they usually do super easy dinners, but having a nice dinner like these, makes camping way more fun, and it's in one pot over the fire.

| FIVE | S'mores

Obviously, you have to make tons and tons of S'mores. We like to give the kids hersey's chocolate and then the adults step it up a notch with the fancy chocolate...

| Bonus |

I know our friends buy the kabobs from the meat section of the super market, and cook those up, that's always easy and delicious. What are some of your go to camping foods?

Head on over to The Blended Blog to link up your camping foods.

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Yosemite Trip: Day 1 and 2

Happy Tuesday Foxy Friends! I thought today I would do a quick recap of our Yosemite trip. This was our first time driving this far with the kids and our first camping trip. It was so much fun! The first 2 hours we were there, Baby Fox runs up to me and says, this is the best trip ever, let's stay for a week. Both kids loved, loved, loved it and wanted to stay longer. I started to write this and realized I had a lot more pictures to share, so I'm breaking it up into two posts...you're welcome.

We left on Thursday, and drove to Fresno, that's about 5.5 hours away, we thought we would break up the trip on the way there, the way home was a different story. Anyway, we left right on time, it was a miracle, to start off the trips, woo hoo! And we fit everything into our Camry...well we had given our friends our tent and our chairs to a friend to take with them...so that helped a lot.

We made a stop after the Grape Vine at In and Out, where else would we stop? Our friends were a bit behind us, so it worked out we ate and then fooled around for 10ish minutes to wait for them to catch up.

They got there and we had to take a selfie with the group right?

Usually when we go on long rides we let the kids have the ipads after lunch, typically drive for a few hours, get a break, get the ipads for the rest of the way. Sweet silence.

We got there about 5 and decided to let the kids blow of steam in the pool, let me tell you that indoor pool area was so hot, we were dying, but the kids were having fun, so that's a bonus.

Then we got take out, ate outside and called it a night. We woke up casually, and went down for the free breakfast, packed up the car and were on our way again. Next stop...Yosemite, Upper Pines camping ground. We got there and set up the tents and Mini Fox cleaned the table with some leaves.

Tent set up and ready to go. That's a screened in area we kept our shoes, as to try and keep the dust and dirt out of the main tent area, worked great.

Unpacked, lunch eaten and finally off on an adventure. We decided to take the bus to Lower Yosemite Falls.

Waiting for the bus.

I have no idea why he's holding her like that, weirdos.

It was a short walk from the bus, and this is the view, so pretty. Although, not good enough the boys wanted to get closer, against the Mom's wishes, but I trudged along with them.

Much better view and this was as far as was safe for the kids to go, the rocks started to get wet after this.

Cutest picture ever.

When we were in Sequoia, we rode the bus with a family that said they were doing Dutch oven cooking...of course I wanted to try it, and while I got made fun of for making camping fancy...everyone loved the food in the end, and nothing was left over. First night we made this BBQ chicken and potatoes. Starting the fire to get the coals hot.

Anything with bacon in it is going to be good right?

While we did that, the kids ate some hotdogs.

And then some S'mores

Our dinner, you put coals on the top and bottom and let cook for an 45-60 minutes or so...we should have cooked it less, as we also had a fire going next to it...so I think it cooked it more then it should have...but it was delicious.

This picture does not do it justice, so dang good!

BBQ chicken and potatoes with some bacon thrown in, heck ya! They were heckling me at the beginning but after tasting it, they said, totally worth the trouble!

We put the kids to bed, did some s'mores ourselves, talked for a bit then hit the hay around 10:30pm. Next week I'll have part 2 of our camping trip, and we did another dutch oven recipe for night 2 that was even more awesome, come back to find out! I know, cliff hanger...haha.

Linking up here