The Gun Counter

My son, a friend, his two sons, and I will be venturing to deer camp for the black powder season. Temperatures should fall between 15 degF at night and 40 degF during the day. I'm in charge of lunch for the crew for 6 days.

The boys stink at clean up, and I don't find the intrinsic joy in it myself. Any suggestions for a menu that's:
- pretty easy to prepare in camp (advanced preparation at home is OK)
- relatively easy to clean up
- leaning toward being a bit fatty (to compensate for low temperatures and high-relief terrain)
- relatively interesting

The easy and obvious choice is sandwiches (where I splurge a bit on the meats and cheeses) along with some fruits and chips. I'm not opposed to that, but something more fun would be... more fun.

Any thoughts?

I'm a big fan of 1-2 pot cooking at camp.

Several days prior to the trip, make and freeze containers of homemade soup, stew, red beans & sausage(or ham), gumbo, etc. Take them with you as your "frozen packs" on the way. Cook a pot of rice in camp. Crackers, corn bread, garlic bread, etc finish the meal off. You can pick up pre-bagged salads for "green-stuff" if you like.


It works for me.

That's a great idea, but I should have mentioned that my friend is already doing that for dinners. I'd like to provide a bit of variety.

Mountain House freeze dried stuff is good if you want minimal work.

rightisright wrote:Mountain House freeze dried stuff is good if you want minimal work.

I was going to say that. When I'm out by myself, instead of with somebody who wants a "cooked" meal, I generally eat the freeze dried stuff. The paper plates go right into the fire, so there's hardly any clean up required.

Hot dogs and hamburgers can be cooked directly on a grill. Grill cheese sandwiches require only one griddle or frying pan. Regular sandwiches as you suggested. Maybe a big pot of chili to go with the grill cheese. What kind of cooling/storage doyou have for your food?

"Hunter Stew"

This is an easy camp recipe my father taught me, using mostly canned food and one pot.

2 or 3 pounds of hamburger
4 cans whole kernel corn
4 cans sliced carrots
2 cans peas
diced onion if desired
mushrooms if desired
Lowry's season all
Worcestershire sauce
2 or 3 cans of Pillsbury biscuits for dumplings

In a large soup pot, brown the hamburger and break it up. Add worcestershire sauce to taste while browning
Drain meat when done. Add all canned veggies including water to pot. There should be just enough
water to cover the stew. Add Lowry's seasoning salt, or regular salt and pepper to taste. Bring to a boil. Once stew is boiling, place biscuits on top of stew close together so that they will expand into each other. Cover and let simmer for 20 minutes to cook biscuits. Stew is ready when biscuits are cooked through. Serve and eat.

This recipe is easy to modify to your own taste. I like adding a little molasses or KC BBQ sauce for a touch of sweetness. Choose your favorite spices and go to town. It tastes good, is an easy cleanup, and is even better on the second day. If you prepare it at home, then fill a large ziploc bag and freeze it, the flavors will have more time to blend. This always taste better the second day.

My experience is that a hunting lunch can be pretty much anything, provided it's nourishing. Hunger is good sauce!

I rather like meat and cheese sandwiches myself*, especially if accompanied by something warm. Hot soup in a thermos flask is nice - good beef consommé with a generous shot of brandy / vodka / sherry is a classic shooting lunch item, followed by something sweet (fruitcake?). You can probably bring a jar of beef consommé concentrate to camp - just add the boiling water, stiffener and flasks. Thick pea or potato soup with bacon bits or slices of bockwurst are also classics, but you'll need wide-mouthed flasks and spoons for those .

Sugary non-carbonated drinks are good. We have plastic pouches of fruit flavoured sugar water that you pierce with a straw. called CapriSun. You can probably find something similar.

*For me, the key to tasty sandwiches is to put some kind of spread in with the meat & cheese - mayonnaise, cranberry sauce, piccalilli, Branston pickle, gerkins, horseradish, even ketchup. Be inventive.

Can you get something like terrine or pate in a pastry crust? That also makes a very nice lunch item - it's fatty, so full of energy, and a bit out of the ordinary run of sandwiches.

Roast chicken drumsticks.

Hard boiled eggs in the shell - just bring some little salt sachets. Pieces of hard cheese (cheddar, parmesan, etc.).

Air-dried smoked salami-type sausages (Jagerwurst - literally hunters' sausage) are nice, and very portable / pocketable. Jerky.

Fillers-in / snacks - a few Werther's Original butterscotch candies to suck. Chocolate. Apples. Bananas. Mandarin oranges. Nuts, or fruit and nut mix (do you call this trail mix?).

For cooking ideas, look to PawPaw and Junior's site for inspiration. PawPaw's Mulligan stew sounds delicious.

You trip sounds like fun. I'm jealous. Have fun!!

Our office just received one of those sausage and cheese gift boxes, so that route is looming high with me right now.

Sausage and cheese gift boxes are great for snack, but a hearty, filling fare will be well received.

If you want a quick meal with lots of calories from fat, there's always Mulligan Stew. Hearty fare to warm the tummy and fill the emptiness. It can be ready in about an hour, and you don't have to worry about leftovers. There are never any leftovers in my camp.

Or, there's dirty rice. That's always well received.

Or, you could go to the Castbullet cooking page. Lots of good recipes there. I'm particularly fond of beans on a rope, it's something you can put on in the morning and eat a lunchtime.
'

Baking potatoes wrapped in foil, couple of pats of butter, split them beforehand and put bacon or other meat in. Have cheese along to add. Actually, if you have the bacon in there, you don't really need the butter.