One of the best parts of camping is cooking over a campfire— and there is so much more to campsite cooking than the classic s’mores or hot dogs on a stick. Want to up your campfire meal game? Whether you are camping outside or in the living room, try out a few of our favorite campfire recipes. Each of these is sure to be a crowd-pleaser for wee palates, can be cooked over the campfire or over the kitchen stove, and are simple enough for kids to be a part of the preparation and cooking process.
The Guide
Bannock Bread
Originally made from moss, lichen, ground plant bulbs, nut meal, cornmeal and cattail pollen, bannock bread has been a staple campfire food among some Indigenous peoples of North America for centuries. There are accounts of Scottish fur traders also making a version of this food that resembles the version we were introduced to today.
It takes just a few ingredients and just a few minutes of prep before your camping trip. This delicious recipe can be enjoyed on its own, or sprinkled with cinnamon and/or sugar. Kids will enjoy helping with measuring, mixing and kneading the dough, too!
What you’ll need:
- 2.5 cups flour
- 2 tsp. baking powder
- ½ tsp. sugar
- ½ tsp. salt
- 3 tbsp. oil
- 1 cup water
- stick
Directions:
- Mix the dry ingredients ahead of time and store in a container or resealable bag.
- When ready to cook at your campsite, add the oil and a bit of water and mix together. Continue adding the water one bit at a time until it forms a dough that does not stick to the hands.
- Leave the dough to rest for 30 minutes.
- Divide the dough into 6 portions and use the palm of your hand to roll each portion out into a long worm or shape.
- Wrap the dough around a stick.
- Roast the dough over the fire, turning frequently, until the bannock is cooked through and brown. (If “camping out” at home, you can also cook the dough in a frying pan with a bit of oil or butter).
Campfire Pizza
We love this easy pizza recipe, because it uses pita bread instead of sticky dough, making it easy to transport to the campsite. Kids can enjoy the creative process of choosing their toppings and building their own pizza, too!
What you’ll need:
- 1 large pita bread
- ½ cup pizza sauce
- 1 cup shredded cheese
- Any toppings your family enjoys (e.g. pepperoni slices, sliced vegetables)
- Tin foil
Directions:
- Get your campfire hot with low flames.
- Spread pita bread with the pizza sauce and sprinkle cheese over each one.
- Add your toppings.
- Slide each pizza onto a foil base that has been folded three times.
- Cook on a campfire grill or directly on hot coals until the cheese is melted.
Campfire Muffins in Oranges
Offering kids a novel way to eat familiar food is a super way to garner excitement about cooking and eating. For an easy and creative twist to breakfast muffins, bake some muffin mix inside of oranges!
What you’ll need:
- 3 oranges
- 1 (7 ounce) packages blueberry muffin mix (or any flavor)
- Tin foil
Directions:
- Cut oranges in half.
- Scoop out the orange segments to eat alone as a snack.
- Prepare the muffin mix according to the package directions.
- Fill the orange peel cups half full of batter.
- Wrap each one loosely with heavy duty aluminum foil.
- Place in hot coals, making sure that the batter side stays up.
- Cook 6-10 minutes until muffins are done.
Banana Boat
Kids will get a kick out of this spin on s’mores, with all of the classic ingredients roasted inside bananas!
What you’ll need:
- Bananas
- Mini marshmallows (or marshmallows broken into smaller pieces)
- Crushed graham crackers
- Chocolate chips or pieces of a chocolate bar
- Tin foil
Directions:
- Keep bananas in their peel and slice them lengthwise down the middle.
- Open the slit and stuff in the marshmallows.
- Top with chocolate and graham cracker bits.
- Wrap in foil and cook over a grill on the fire or place on top of coals until the whole banana is black (you can also bake in the oven if enjoying a living room camp-out).
Egg in an Orange
Roasting food on a stick is great fun for kids! Try this easy way to create an egg roasting basket out of an orange peel.
What you’ll need:
- Orange
- Stick
- Egg
- (optional) salt and pepper
Directions:
- Cut a large orange in half and use a spoon to scoop out the fruit (and enjoy as a tasty snack).
- Cur an “x” on one orange half about a half inch below the rim.
- Cut an “x” on the opposite side of the orange, a half inch below the rim.
- Thread a stick through the two cuts to hang the orange like a basket.
- Crack an egg into the orange half.
- Roast over the campfire for about 10 minutes.
- (Optional) Add salt and pepper to taste.
Fruit Kabobs
This easy recipe is a super way to add a creative twist to fruit. Kids will enjoy arranging their colorful fruit on a stick and roasting over the fire. Kids can also taste test raw and roasted fruit to see how the heat changes the texture and flavor.
What you’ll need:
- Stick
- Sliced fruit (bananas, pineapple, peaches, strawberries)
Directions:
- Thread stick through fruit slices.
- (Optional) Brush the fruit with melted butter, honey or orange juice.
- Roast over the fire for about 5 minutes.
- Enjoy as is or dip fruit into yogurt.
Why is this activity great for kids?
Cooking with kids is a super way to share in family rituals and transitions while teaching kids practical life skills. Every sense—even taste (hurrah!)—get stimulated and engaged, turning on kids’ brains! Kids also have a chance to explore science concepts as they measure, mix and cook their food as well as seeing food appearance, texture and taste transform when it’s heated. Finding fun and creative ways to cook meals together while camping is a great way to connect as a family and build memories in the outdoors together.
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Creativity
Category: Thinking Skills
What is Creativity?
By creativity, we mean the ability to bothimagineoriginal ideas or solutions to problems andactually dowhat needs to be done to make them happen. So, to help kids develop creativity, we parents need to nurture kids' imaginations and give them lots of chances to design, test, redesign and implement their ideas.
Why does it matter?
We could not agree more withSir Ken Robinsonthat,
"Creativity is as important now in education as literacy, and we should treat it with the same status.”
Why, you ask? For one, it is through being creative that a person is able to get senses, sensibility and spirit working together. Simply put, without creativity, we don't think our kids will live a full life.
On a more practical level, it's also the means by which humans of all ages make an impact on the world and other people around them. A lot of heavy stuff is going to go down in our kids' lifetime, and their generation will need to imagine and implement solutions to big and very complicated problems. Although our kids are still far from public office or the boardroom, today'spolitical and business leaders worldwideare already pointing to creativity as the most important leadership quality for the future.
Although years from the art studio or design lab, little kids can learn to think and act creatively if you give them time and the right practice.
Sensory
Category: Body Skills
What is Sensory Development?
Although some scientists classify as many as 20 senses, when childhood educators talk about "developing the senses," we typically mean developing the five standard senses: sight, hearing, touch, smell and taste. In addition to honing these senses, educators care about sensory integration, which is the ability to take in, sort out, process and make use of information gathered from the world around us via the senses.
Why does it matter?
The better kids are able to tune and integrate their senses, the more they can learn. First, if their senses are sharper, the information kids can gather should be of greater quantity and quality, making their understanding of the world more sophisticated. Further, until the lower levels of the brain can efficiently and accurately sort out information gathered through the senses, the higher levels cannot begin to develop thinking and organization skills kids need to succeed. Senses also have a powerful connection to memory. Children (and adults) often retain new learning when the senses are an active part of the learning.So, if kids have more sensory experiences, they will learn more, retain better and be better able to think at a higher level. Makes the days they get all wet and dirty in the sandbox seem better, doesn't it?
Teamwork
Category: Social Skills
What is Teamwork?
Teamwork is the ability to be both an individual contributor and a supportive member of a group. Not easy for little ones, but never too early to start learning how. Although the notion of teamwork seems rather self explanatory, the combination of skills that are required for kids to effectively work on a team is rather complex. People can work effectively in a group when they have a sense of their own strengths and needs, the ability to understand the needs and motivations of others, the ability to agree and focus on a common goal, and the capacity to adjust their personal needs for the good of the group. Needless to say, young kids are too young to master these skills, but they can make tremendous progress if we give them genuine experience with teamwork and help them develop the foundations that underlie this more complex set of skills.On a most basic level, kids start to build teamwork skills as they learn to negotiate and share limited resources. Anyone who has kids know that these skills do not come naturally, but are developed with age and practice. Kids who have experience sharing and working in groups without the dominant management of parent or authority figure (e.g. the good old pick-up game of kick-the-can that was managed only by the kids in the neighborhood) get much more opportunity to develop the self awareness and skills needed for effective collaboration. The more chances we give kids to feel the pleasure in sharing and giving, the more quickly they become effective at sharing. In addition, when we model how to set a goal and allow kids to practice working towards that goal, we model the behavior they will eventually adopt as their won. Finally, when they experience success as a member of a team, they develop a lasting sense of the power of teamwork and the motivation to start to value a team over themselves.
Why does it matter?
Collaboration makes the cut on nearly every list of top 21st-century skills—and it has become not just a goal but a requirement for most jobs. Technology increasingly enables people to work together with people who differ by geography, culture and mindset, and businesses and institutions worldwide expect employees to work effectively in both face-to-face and in virtual teams. Those who collaborate effectively will not only be effective workers but will be poised to help find solutions to the increasingly complicated challenges this young generation will face.Further, in most schools from elementary level up, kids get more out of the curriculum if they know how to work well in groups, and this trend of increased peer-to peer-teaching and learning is only gaining ground in older school years. Research even shows that how well young children solve simple problems in groups predicts how they will transition to and fare in formal schooling.
Science
Category: School Skills
