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Freezer Cooking and Camping

© Angela Higgs

We've recently completed a one week camping trip and are getting ready for a two week trip. Both times, I've found that my freezer is a great asset to planning our camping menus. Several years ago, we bought a popup tent camper and at that time we bought a dorm sized refrigerator. I also discovered the joy of crockpot cooking while camping and have combined freezer cooking and crockpot cooking for our trips.

For the first trip, we were only going to be gone for a week and I packed 4 meals from my freezer. The first meal was chicken marinated in teriyaki sauce. This is an easy meal for me to prepare. I buy the frozen chicken breasts and just pop 3 of those in a ziplock baggie, add the marinade (bought in a bottle) and then put in the freezer. The meat marinates while it thaws. We cooked this on the grill the first night.

The third day we had planned to pack a picnic lunch and hike around the park, so I packed my Piñata Soup packet. I put this in the crockpot and added water. We hiked and picnicked and came back to camp to a cooked meal.

The next day we did an all day outing to a local historic site. Dinner that night was Salisbury steaks. I had prepared the patties and frozen them to take with us. That morning, I browned the patties on the camp stove and put them in the crockpot with a can of gravy. They were ready to eat when we got back to camp that afternoon.

The final freezer meal was beef stew. I took the frozen packet with the stew beef and seasonings, added that to the crockpot along with a can of ginger ale and veggies.

Recipes:

Piñata Soup:

Makes 6 servings

1 pound ground beef onion and garlic to taste 30 ounces diced tomatoes 16 ounces whole corn 16 ounces tomato sauce 2 teaspoons chili powder

Brown the ground beef with onion and garlic, season to taste. Add the diced tomatoes, corn, tomato sauce and chili powder. Freeze in freezer bags, divide if desired.

To serve: Thaw, put in large sauce pan and add 1/4 cup water per serving, bring to boil, simmer 15 minutes. Note: Can be prepared in crockpot.

Salisbury Steaks

Makes 4 servings

1 pound ground beef 1/3 cup chopped onion 1/3 cup saltine cracker crumbs 1 egg 2 T milk 1 T horseradish sauce 1/4 t salt 1/8 t pepper

Combine all ingredients and mix well. Shape into 4 patties. Flash freeze and store in ziplock baggies. On cooking day, thaw, brown, cover with 12 ounce jar of mushroom gray, simmer until meat is cooked. Note: can be cooked in the crockpot.