Recipe Spotlight

Campfire Cuisine: Keep It Simple & Savory

- Trent Rowe

EVERY DAY is a camping day in Central Florida … unless there is a hurricane. Or influx of mosquitoes, in which case you have to tote your shotgun as well as your cast iron frying pan … with a lid. Your landing net will do double duty to pull fish out of a lake and skeeters out of the air.

Someone who could come up with a recipe for skeeters could probably make a fortune, but the little buggers would still be a pain to clean.

A little preparation makes camping easier. Figure out what doesn’t need to go in a cooler. Do your measuring at home, and have meals and mixes ready to go. Small containers for liquids save time and trouble but take cooler space.

Since you have to keep eggs chilled anyway, crack them into a jar or bottle to be stored in a cooler.

A block of ice cools longer than cubes. Make your own blocks in a plastic bottle or two.

A lidded plastic storage box hold the basics that you can’t do without: basic spices, matches, lighters, cooking utensils, knives, a small jar of oil, foil, can opener, kitchen towel, potholder, hand sanitizer, and a small flashlight.

Salads can be nice on a hot day, but cutting and chopping is not fun in the heat.

Do it at home. Fix your greens and stuff them into one bag.

Slice and dice the peppers, onions, mushrooms, zucchini, yellow squash, radishes, and whatever else you like. Put them in another bag.

Grape tomatoes don’t need cutting. They go in a separate bag so they don’t get squished.

Your dressing goes in a container that won’t leak and should be near the bottom of the cooler. Fluffy stuff goes higher up.