It is a little shocking that I have maintained this blog for over two years and this is the first time I have posted on food. Food is so integral to our camping experience and I maintain dozens of Pinterest boards, Excel spreadsheets, and recipe folders on the subject.

It is hard to begin to organize my thoughts on food and menu planning because it has become so automatic. But generally our meals fall into one of five categories.

1. Necessity food. This is for those times we are more concerned with refilling our bellies after a long day of exploring. When we were tent camping, we did these over our camp stove. Now we may use the stove top or microwave (the horror!) inside our trailer. Some of our favorite quick and easy meals include:
   • Frozen homemade chili/soups/spaghetti sauce
   • Hamburger helper meals
   • Grilled cheese
   • Cowboy caviar chicken quesadillas
   • Reubens
   • Tacos
   • Roll ups
   • Macaroni and cheese
2. Meals out. For us, one of the highlights of traveling is sampling some of the local cuisine. And while we enjoy a four star meal when out on the town, there is nothing better than some backwoods grub when camping. One of the reasons we frequent the Red River Gorge is for the amazing burgers at the Red River Rockhouse. And among our all-time favorite restaurants is the a BBQ place we found on Yelp near Cumberland Gap that was a literal shack.
   

   

   

   And no trip to Maine would be complete without a visit to a lobster pound. In Mount Desert Island, we got dinner to-go and enjoyed it outside our trailer.

3. Campfire gourmet. This is our growing group of recipes. In our younger and more active days, we were always too hungry to wait for a fire to get sufficiently hot for cooking. Now our hikes are often shorter, and we are back in plenty of time to get glowing hot coals.
   • Hot dogs
   • Sausages
   • BBQ chicken
   • Joe Steak
   • Dutch oven meals
   • Foil Packs
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4. Hiking snacks. This is probably a post for another day. But many of the calories we consume during a typical camping weekend come from treats we carry with us on the trail.

   

5. Breakfast Our breakfasts while camping are pretty identical to our breakfasts at home. If anything, we may make an extra effort to include extra protein to sustain a long day of being outdoors.