A lot of times when people go camping they transition into "easy-mode" for meals.

This may consist of simply roasting hotdogs over an open fire and throwing it on the table with a bag of chips.

Now don't get me wrong, I don't think there is anything better in the world than a Koegel Vienna roasted over an open fire. In fact if they don't have that in heaven, I am not sure I want to go.

Truthfully, that has come to be a regular late night snack for me while we are sitting around the fire at night.

For our main meals though, my wife and I prefer to cook like we would normally eat at home. This may include grilled chicken and cheesy garlic orzo, or fajitas and Mexican rice.

Many of our camping meals start as you see above. I have a little Weber Smokey Joe grill that can handle just about anything I throw at it while camping.

I know many purists may scoff at the fact that we don't do all of our cooking over the fire. Trust me, I struggle with that fact internally myself. In my years of camping though I have watched too many other campers lose their whole meal in the fire due to an unstable setup.

I've also seen many other campers end up with severely overcooked or undercooked food because they can't control the temperature consistently.

One day I do hope to get a firepit cooking rig and master the skill of using it. Until then, I will stick to my grill.

A lot of the cooking I do on the grill is usually indirect. This two zone setup gives me lots of flexibility for how much direct flame whatever I am cooking gets.

Typically if I am cooking chicken breasts, steaks, or burgers I will start them on the side with the charcoal. I leave them there to get a good sear then flip them over so the other side can get a sear as well.

Then I move them over to the other side of the grill and let them "bake"(flipping occasionally) until they reach the desired "doneness".

This method has worked really well for me. If you haven't started using a two zone grilling system yet, I encourage you to do so. On a larger grill you can even expand it to three zones and "feather" out the coals to give you a kind of middle area.

I like to cook my brats indirectly. I have posted about this in the past. Many people prefer to boil their brats in beer and pre-cook them before they put them on the grill.

My preference is to put the brats on the grill raw and "smoke" them until they are done. I feel this leaves them juicier on the inside without getting mushy and still maintains the crisp snap of the casing.

In the picture below the brats have been on the grill for about 15 minutes and I am getting ready to flip them for the first time.

After another 15 minutes or so, I opened the grill to flip the brats again. You can see that below.

Finally, after another fifteen minutes or so, the brats were ready to pull off the grill. I actually think I let them go a little too long. They started to split and lose some of their juices. Additionally, I should have pulled the chicken brat on the left a little farther from the coals.

My wife had a chicken garlic Parmesan brat and I had a bacon cheddar brat that was made with pork.

We paired the brats with one of my favorite summer salads. The picture here shows my taco salad before I mixed it up.

It basically consists of ground turkey(or chicken) cooked with onions, cumin, chili powder, garlic powder, and oregano.

The meat is then mixed with lettuce, black olives, tomatoes, cheese, Doritos, red onions, and Catalina dressing.

To me, the end result is nothing short of amazing. I could seriously eat this stuff every single meal and not get sick of it.

Check out the post-mix version:

This was our dinner on the first night of our camping trip and it was devoured completely with no mercy shown!

Another tool we have found invaluable while camping is our electric frying pan. I know, I know, those purists are frowning at me again for not cooking on the open fire... Here is my reasoning though:

The other nights we camped, it was raining. Being able to cook something up quickly in one pan without dirtying a bunch of dishes is so nice.

Meal number two consisted of Buffalo Chicken Sloppy Joes with coleslaw.

This recipe is so simple. It starts with ground chicken or turkey again (my wife doesn't like beef so we eat a lot of this). To the ground chicken you add chopped celery, onion, and carrots. Once you get the meat cooked through and the vegetables softened, you add a small can of tomato sauce and a good pour of buffalo wing sauce(as much or little as you like).

That's it, you are halfway done!

This is the coleslaw my wife made, we cheat and use the bagged mix that you can buy in the store. She added the mayonnaise, vinegar, and pepper (possibly sugar too) in the perfect ratio to make it awesome though. Unfortunately, I can't give you those ratios because she just kind of eyeballs it.

Finally, grab a bun and some cheese, and put it all together:

We prefer to split the bun and do it as an open faced sandwich as opposed to a true sloppy-joe. Trust me, it is fantastic no matter which way you eat it!

All photos and food were taken and eaten by me unless otherwise noted.

See you next trip campers!

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