Spice Up Your Camp Cooking
Full Recipes:Potato Boat Dinner & Grilled Banana Boat Dessert
Discovered in: My “Camping Recipes” Trap
About the blog: The Stir’s “Yum!” blog was a great find, compiling posts from a multitude of female authors with unique tastes and writing styles. From grilling techniques, to refreshing cocktails, to an endless array of baked goods, Yum! is jam-packed with culinary inspiration for all skill levels.
Reason we picked it: We have finally reached this year’s camping season and I am sick and tired of the same old ho-hum routine, bringing along a package of bland hot dogs to be skewered and roasted over an open flame. I came across a blog post that provided 8 delicious (yet rather simple) camping recipes, two of which I intend on debuting when I escape off the grid next weekend. I loved how both “boat” style recipes encouraged creativity, insisting on stuffing in whatever ingredients necessary to suit the needs of your inspired taste buds. I found myself scanning every aisle in the grocery store in search of the perfect boat combination. Here is what I came up with:
What you’ll need:
The Potato Boat:
- large baked potatoes, with 5-6 even cut slits across top
- bacon
- spicy italian sausage
- green onions, diced
- sour cream
- cheddar cheese
- artichoke hearts
- sweet pickled red peppers
The Grilled Banana Boat
- bananas, peel on, sliced down the middle
- Snickers candy bar, chopped
- Reese’s peanut butter chips
- almond roca, smashed
- mini Marshmallows
For the dinner concept, I decided to remix the ingredients a little bit, sticking to the cheesy pork theme, yet rearranging the ham-bacon-cheese combination seen in the example recipe. Instead of ham, I implemented some skillet-cooked spicy italian sausage matched with some sweet, pickled red peppers, which turned out to be quite the flavorful duo. Adding in artichoke hearts felt like overkill during the process, but hey—if there is room for more stuffing, I say go for it!
When cooking the potatoes over a campfire, the key is patience. You’ll want to find a safe spot to place them with just the right amount heat, far enough away from any direct flame that will overly char the potato’s skin (the wait will be worth it!). Monitor the firmness, as you’ll need to make sure the potato’s interior won’t be too soft and mushy when it comes time to slice the slits to stuff ingredients inside. Anticipate roughly 20-30 extra minutes of continued cooking after completing the stuffing. When your boat is ready, garnish with green onions and drizzle on sour cream!
After indulging, if your stomach still has a little room, move on to dessert for boat number two. I prefer this style of camping sweets over traditional S’mores, simple because of the frustration that comes after taking your first bite, as the hard graham cracker inevitably breaks into multiple pieces. The banana peel serves as a nice dish to avoid sticky-finger messiness, and provides enough room to stuff inside whatever your sweet tooth desires. Atop the warmed banana, the combination of melted Reese’s peanut butter chips, slightly-toasted mini marshmallows, crumbled snickers and almond roca dust was absolutely mouthwatering. The peel serves as a nice buffer to prevent the final product from the risk of burning. This basic recipe will blow minds at your next camping trip, that is a guarantee!
To check out the Yum! blog’s tasty boat recipes, as well as the other six camping recipe recommendations, click here! Also, I recommend creating a “camping recipes” Trap yourself—you really never know what you may discover inside!
Cheers!
-Geoff