Like many toddlers who came before him, West is a picky eater… or at least, he’s in a picky phase. Occasionally, we make some breakthroughs and he will start to eat something wild and delicious like saag paneer, but mostly we get stuck on pasta, quesadillas, pizza, fruit, cheese, and crackers. And more cheese.
This can make packing food for camping slightly more tricky, as your options can feel even more limited than what you cook at home.
The only rule I abide by when camping is I want the prep to be simple at camp.
That doesn’t mean the meals can’t be delicious and interesting – I want them to be. It means I try to plan meals where I can front load the work at home and quickly put it together when hunger strikes at camp.
Below you will find a sample menu plan for a two night camp with a three year old. We rely on our MSR PocketRocket or Eureka SPRK Camp Grill for all our cooking.
Snacks
- Applesauce pouches
- Annie’s Cheddar Bunnies
- Barbara’s Baked Cheese Puffs
- Goodie Girl Chocolate Creme cookies
- Annie’s gummies
- Fruit – some travels better than others!
- Potato chips in a hard plastic container
- Trail mix
- Cereal bars
- S’mores fixings
Breakfast
- Pre-baked muffins or quick bread.
- Breakfast burritos warmed on the grill. You can pre-make breakfast burritos at home, but we are partial to Burrito Kitchen.
Lunch
- Cheese and crackers
- PB&Js
Dinner
- Red pepper pesto pasta-I blend up this sauce recipe from Half Baked Harvest at home, boil noodles at camp, and add some burrata. Always burrata. I love this dish because it’s darn tasty and the pesto includes nuts and veggies (we often add spinach) so it’s more substantial than just a red sauce pasta. The sauce could also be used over ravioli.
- Annie’s mac and cheese-Simple and yummy
- Alternative: grilled veggie quesadillas– Just chop the veggies at home, throw them on the grill, and pile onto a tortilla with ample cheese.
- Alternative: peanut noodles with veggies-I also use this Half Baked Harvest recipe for the peanut sauce. In this case, I just mix up the sauce at home, cook the rice noodles at camp, and stir in the veggies I cut at home.
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