Camping Tinfoil Dinner

Lake superior at Park Point

I was camping the past several days with a few friends - we decided to not social distance and spend some days in the woods together. Or in our case, in various bodies of water, with some other time in the woods. I have not car camped in so many years, maybe in 2004? It was a luxury to have a cooler for fresh veggies, chocolate that didn't melt, and real cream. The best meal of the week was the tinfoil dinner, a relic of family camping trips and summer-camp overnights. My mom tells the story of bringing my sisters and I camping one year, and feeling exhausted from coordinating such an effort and driving up north. She says she was floored when we sent her to nap in the tent, saying that we would take care of dinner. This is the meal we made.

The tinfoil dinner allows every person to make their own packet, putting in whatever they want. On this trip, ours featured some standard fare (potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, celery, beef) along with some stellar add-ons: homemade mustard, cheese and spices all wrapped in collard/kohlrabi leaves before the final foil layer. Sauerkraut would have also been great on these, but we didn't think of that til after. Other options might be: steak, sausage, green beans, zucchini, zataar spice, corn, peppers...really the possibilities are endless. I sadly did not take a photo of camping foil dinner, but I just searched some images and found all kinds of inspirations. People find these dinners so good, they make them in the oven at home?! I might just do that in my fire pit some night - they really are so tasty. And it's really fun to open your very own packet - I don't know why. It's like the best version of tv dinner. In lieu of a photo of the meal - here is a picture of our smiling faces.

Reading some Tove Jansson while waiting for dinner

The number one thing with this dinner is that you need coals - meaning you need to have a fire going prior to when you want to eat. So start that first, and as the fire is going, prep your ingredients and foil packets.

Foil Dinner (for 4)
2 potatoes, diced
2 sweet potatoes, diced
2 celery stalks, diced
2 carrots, diced
1 lb beef, formed into 1/2" balls
8-12 collard/cabbage/kohlrabi leaves
mustard
Spices/herbs/salt/pepper
(opt) Cheese, mini cubes or shredded for serving
Tinfoil

Tear a large piece of tinfoil (1-2 feet length) and lay flat. Place 1-2 pieces of collard/cabbage leaves on the center, and pile your selected toppings in the middle. Sprinkle with spices/salt/pepper and mustard. Place another cabbage/collard leaf on top, and wrap the whole thing in the foil. Use a 2nd foil piece to seal in all the juices. Be sure to shape your foil packet with some character to identify your particular packet as yours - as a kid we used to love to make swans.

Once you have some coals in your fire pit, pull them aside and place your foil packet down in the ashes, then cover and surround with coals. We found our packets were done after 20 minutes, but depending on your coals and size of veggie dice, you may need a little more/less. You can pull one packet out to test things to give you some idea.

Top with more mustard, cheese, kraut or whatever else you want and eat!

This was actually from the curry dinner night - but fire making in action.