Meal planning for a family camping trip
We are off camping this Sunday for 5 nights. We haven’t been camping for at least 2 years now … possibly nearly 3 years! We are super excited. We are off to Motutapu Island and will be getting there via a water taxi service from Waiheke Island – much simpler than dealing with ferries.
With 3 children in tow (8, 6 and 4 years) the list of gear we need to pack seems enormous even though we are very good at only taking essentials. I guess that is the reality of 5 people camping. One thing I need to pay close attention to is the food we take. I need to make sure kids have food they like, that we have lots of healthy food and that we don’t carry too much excess over with us. I confess I meal plan much better for a camping trip than I do for a normal week at home!
We will be taking a small camp fridge (runs on gas), a travel BBQ and a single gas burner to boil water on and make coffee in the morning.
At the moment my meal planning looks like this:
Breakfast x 5
Rice bubbles
Weetbix
Lunch x 4
1 loaf wheatmeal
2 min noodles
Saladas
Wraps
Salami
cans of tuna
Hard boiled eggs ?
Brie
Block cheddar cheese
Squeezer yoghurts – freeze
Peanut Butter
Dinner x 5
- 2 cooked chicken – hot, breadrolls and veg
- Sausages & veg
- France pasta (left over chicken)
- Sausages & veg
- spag bog (take over frozen)
Fruit and veg
Cucumber
Carrot
Broccoli
Zucchini
Tomato
Mushrooms
Baby Spinach packet
Apples (lots)
Stoned fruit
Strawberries
Snacks – LOTS
Muesli bars – choc chip. Choc oat
Ginger nuts
Jatz
Chips
Cranberries
Nuts
Water crackers
Smoked Mussels
Canned peaches?
Hiking treats – barley sugars, jelly snakes
Drinks
Tetra pack juice
Tetra pack milk
3L fresh milk?
Coffee and sugar
Large container of drinking water
Wine
Small container of Ribena
Other items
Margarine
Oil
Spray oil
Tomato sauce
2 packets pasta
UHT cream
Parmesan cheese
**** make a few 1L ice bottles … drinking water … help with fridge on way over ***
Do you go camping with kids? What other food/meal ideas can you share with me? I have that nagging feeling like I am forgetting something! Once we are there we can’t get any other supplies …
We never leave home without the squeezy vegemite (might not be available in NZ!!). I also make good use of the par-boiled rices (eg Uncle Bens Tomato one) – add some chicken or tuna, some dehydrated peas or other greens and call it Chicken Cacciatore . If we are car camping Chicken and Corn soup is an easy one – tinned creamed corn, tinned asian veg, some stock, slice up some frozen chicken and some noodles. Switch the creamed corn for coconut milk and add some mild Laksa paste and call it Laksa :). One pot hyrdating wonders. We also take “Weetbix-On-the-Go” breakfast bars as backup if the weather is not so good for dealing with bowls and milk etc. Hope you’ve had fun. I never quite feel like its been a holiday after a camping trip but it is getting easier each time, although summer camping has the trick of not going to sleep till dark and waking up with the birds 🙂