What are your favorite, easy, elk camp meals?

My old man used to cook some fairly extravagent meals in camp, but personally I go out there to relax, and not spend an evening cooking. When it's practical, I'm more of a hotdog, bratwurst, or burger over the fire kind of guy.

But, for my upcomming elk camp, I'm trying to plan out some stick to your ribs, easy meals, and have come up with the following. Most will be prepared and frozen ahead of time.

Chili (obvious choice)

"Gunpowder Stew" a family recipe. Good, spicy, keep ya' warm!

Biscuits and Sausage Gravy. Gravy will be done ahead of time and frozen. Biscuits will be done fresh in the coleman oven.

Beef Stew, again, cooked ahead of time.

Also hoping for some nice fresh elk backstraps on the grill, oh, about day 4 or so would be nice. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smirk.gif" alt="" />

Breakfast should be oatmeal, toast and bacon (pre-cooked kind) sandwiches, or maybe some sausage biscuits that can be popped in the oven quickly in the morning.

Lunch will be sandwiches in the pack, a candy bar, or maybe a thermos of hot soup back at the truck if we make it there. Won't be doing much of anything back at camp until either well before sun up, or well after sun down. Sleeping or eating away hunting hours, even mid-day hours is not my thing.

Ideas?

If I have time, I always do fajitas at least once and liver, potatoes and onions once...

Some buddies take a grill and they have baked taters, and grilled chicken qu
ite a bit- good concept if you have room for a BBQ grill
I like a hunk of dry cotto salami and a bagel for lunch (if it's cold) or a pre-packaged tuna salad with crackers.

pastries & something hot for breakfast (coffee, hot cocoa etc)

Scrambled eggs with melted cheese on top. Cheeseburgers. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Fresh backstrap! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

JD338

Fast and easy.
Breakfast; eggs, sausage, hash, egg sanwich's
Supper; hamburger helper, steaks, stew

We do it up pretty good, meals premade and frozen mostly.

Beef stroganoff (premade)
Swiss steaks (premade)
Good beef steaks
Chili (premade)
Mashed potatotes and Hamburger gravy gravy premade, favorite)
canned veggies, hard bread rolls.

I know im forgetting some, but dad takes care of all that and we pitch in some $$$ and do the dishes/cleanup. I eat better at elk camp than I do at home...

Breakfast of instant oatmeal or bacon/eggs.

Sandwich lunch w/ piece of fruit.

Started doing similar thing for deer camp last year (dad didnt go). For dinners I had all the guys bring food for all for a couple nights each, preferably premade by their wives. We had waaaay too much food. Again steaks, burgers, dogs, sausage, spaghetti, were all pretty easy. Had a camper oven so did a lasagna too. That was good.

Nothing beats a nice steak and taters. ( we are talking store bought stuff here, not fresh backstrap ect)

For something a little less, I like red beans and rice.

Something no one mentioned was pre-cooking a small roast at home. Can be re-heated and served with bread and cooked potatoes and what ever sides you like.
Alternatively the roast can be sliced and used for great sandwiches at lunch time.
I usually have to go on a diet after coming back from hunt camps.

For breakfast I like yougert and a granola bar.

I put a bagle in the pocket for up the trail and predawn munchin.

Dinner for me is usually a grilled chicken breast in a tortilla.

I like to keep it simple quick and easy to leave all the extra room for sack time that I can....grins

Mark D

Nothing better then cooking chicken over a quakie fire. Egg Noodles with cheese. Breakfast is usually a couple pop tarts or something like that. We normally get up and go in the morning and save up for a good dinner. Depending on where I am hunting we sometimes come back to the truck for lunch and see what has been going on each others side of the mountain. If not a big chunk of Colby an apple and some jerky. We save the chili for the last night, in case you get the runs....We also do homemade spagetti, the sauce premade. We also usually do one night of breakfast for dinner, where we have ham steaks in a skillet, scrambled eggs and cheese. Burgers and steaks over a quakie fire too. Burgers are usually first night, since they usually thaw first.

Oops I almost forgot my beloved cinnamon roll instant oatmeal for breakfast.

Can't be for forgetting that!

Mark D

Rueben sandwiches, enchiladas, steak and veggies, eggs /hash browns/ham for breakfeast

breakfast - egg sandwitch
lunch - a can of peaches
At night - we cook one meal each, I do a DO Deer or Antelope roast, or Halibut.

I had a couple of wild turkeys smoked and took them with last time. We ate them room temp one night when everyone was too tired to cook. Made sandwiches out of them for a couple days afterwards.

Geez, I grab a granola bar and drink a Slimfast on the drive up. For lunch, whatever I can stuff in my pack. Cannot imagine getting up even earlier to cook, since I am already walking in the dark.

Breakfast - SPAM & Eggs.

Lunch - SPAM sandwich (in daypack)

Dinner - SPAM & fried taters.

Simple and easy. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />

L.W.

Fresh Backstrap, liver and heart with some fried taters.

Here is a good one.
1 large skillet
filled with sliced potatoes
2 or 3 eggs per person
a good portion of sausage for each person (I like home made summer sausage)
cook until done
topped of with Mrs Renfro's Habanero salsa

Fresh tenderloin off the elk we just shot

We you my outfitter in '02 <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

Grill chicken breasts, ceasar salad mix, and corn niblets.

We usually take a little BBQ with us to save cooking in the tent on the campstove. Adds some variety to what you can cook up.


SS

fresh Elk liver and onions, fried potatoes and a couple Bud's..

You yogurt and granola bar types remind me of the time I went elk hunting with a friend who agreed to bring the food. His idea of breakfast was hard black bread and cheese - think Russian army issue. Since then I make sure I know what's on the menu, and like as not bring my own "survival food".

Paul

We always had a tradition of frog legs in beer batter for 1 one night. Of course the frog legs had to be pre-caught summer before. Now that is a good one. Can't get enough fried taters with onions.

All that you have said is OK for the "elk campsite," but for my moose campsite this is what have:

BREAKFAST
Hot oatmeal cooked in milk, and a piece of bread
Or sugarless wheat Cheerios with milk
Or an egg omelet as follows: Fried in olive oil chopped celery and onions, plus a few small pieces of sausage. Also, dehydrated garlic, and some Mrs. dash.
Or, blueberry pancakes from blueberries picked around the campsite, plus some sausage, and some maple or other tasty syrup.

LUNCH OR DINNER (one of these)
1. Steaks placed on a large piece of aluminum foil (steaks on olive oil), topped with chopped onions, celery, Mrs. Dash, and dehydrated garlic. We have a clothes washer's drum in the middle of the campsite, and lots of firewood, cut to fit in the drum. We burn enough wood to have a good-size charcoal bed, and then place a heavy iron grill on top, followed by the steaks on the aluminum foil. We serve the steaks with toasted "freedom" bread. We just place the bread slices on the grill to toast it.

2. We boil chunks of potatoes, and while these cook we fry the following ingredients in a large frying pan: olive oil, chopped onions, chopped celery, small chunks of sausage, lots of Mrs. Dash, dehydrated garlic, and cut black olives. We fry these ingredients on high heat, uncovered to allow the moisture to scape, and when done we pour-in vinegar and let it fry a little longer. By then the potatoes are done, so we drain the water from the potatoes, and pour over them the "fried" mixture. Try this recipe outside with your kids, and let us know how they like it. WARNING: be prepared to try the recipe numerous times, because kids and not so kids love it. The recipe is best with your favorite sausage.

Fast meals on the go: dehydrated foods, and MRE's.

When do you gents get time to cook all that stuff? After takeing care of the stock, cooking hamburger helper and doing dishes there is only four to five hours of sleep to get before breakfast!

Had a bachlor outfitter in New Mexico a few years back that had a fabulous menu:

Breakfast: Lunch meat ham and cheese burro

Lunch: Lunch meat ham and cheese burro

Supper: Fried lunch meat ham and cheese burro

Sure was glad to see the McDonald's when hitting Silver City!

A buddy of mine showed up for a week long elk hunt one time with a box of Ritz crackers, a can of spray cheese, a big bag of black licorice, and a truck load of beer...

Something wrong with that? <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" /> I mean aside from the black licorice? <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Oatmeal, maybe changing to couscous. Snacks for lunch, logan bread, etc.... Mountain house for supper. Can't carry more weight than that in our packs. And don't really want that camp by the truck issue of getting up at 2 am to climb 3 hours or getting back 2-3 hours after dark. That doesn't fly just too long, unless ya'll can tell me where to find elk that rummage around in the middle of the day only and not early and late!!!

The good meals come compliments of a restaurant on the way to and from the hunt.

Jeff

Agreed....but....

Usually the night of the first kill we like to slice up the heart and fry it with some taters and scrambled eggs.

Breakfast is instant oatmeal and an orange.

Lunch is a squished ham and cheese samich and an apple.

Supper is usually something pre-made that can withstand the pack in, or another samich.

Snickers and gorilla bars 'tween meals.

I get-up around 6:00 AM, and it only takes me a few minutes to make a hot oatmeal breakfast. I just grab a small Zip-Lock bag the contains one ration of oatmeal with raisins from a large container. This oatmeal rations are put in the bag by my wife long before moose season. I just boil some milk in a small propane stove outside my tent, pour-in the oatmeal/raisin mix, and let it boil for a few seconds. After I eat my breakfast, I grab a very small section of a 3M green sanding pad, and use this pad to scrub the pot where I cooked the oatmeal.

Sometimes I just stay out hunting and have a dehydrated meal for lunch. This meal I warm with a little propane backpack stove I keep on my ATV. But often times my hunting partners and I return to the campsite during lunch time, and prepare one of those meals I mentioned above. Now, we do prepare such meals at the end of the day when too dark to hunt. We keep a couple of ice chests full of steaks and other perishable foods on the cool ground by the trees nearby.

Also, everybody does his own dishes (all at the same time) since we have to boil water using the stove before going to bed. It's usually cold, and the oil sticks to the dishes pretty fast. We usually go to bed around 11:00 PM. I get up at 6:00, but my hunting partners get up around 11:00 and hunt until 8:00 or so.

God Love ya' man!

Blackened Spam Burritos with home made chili beans and pepper jack cheese and home made salsa washed down with hot black coffee.

SPAM....wonderment of wonderments! Where would we be without Spam!

And to the guy saving his chili untill the last night in case of "The Runs", I think I'll pass on your night to cook.. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/crazy.gif" alt="" />

2Crow

If I go, i'tl be MRE's <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

thanks Violator....

My usual schedule for camp hunting.
Rise at 04, cook eggs, reheat meat, (pre cooked the night before) eat, throw the dishes in the tub to soak or wash'em if there is time, pack a lunch, saddle up and ride.

Get back to camp after dark, start the wood stove in the tent, unsaddle, water and brush down the mules, start supper, eat, do dishes, chop wood and wash up. BS for a bit, pass a little gas and turn in around 23.

The only change of fare, like mentioned by some above when game is hanging in the trees. I have found that Hamburger Helper and chubs of burger is light/compact to pack and cooks up quick with out much effort.
Nathanial

Base camp: Bacon ,eggs, ham,oj,coffie, toast,and hash browns. Lunch :Sandwiches, dried soup,candy bar or gorp, coffie heated with with back pack stove carried in saddle bags. Eve : Home made beef stew with biscuts. Some of the food is cooked at home, frozen keep in a good ice box. Also use canned food and freez dry food.

Some of you guys, if you'll just post your location I'll try to get by about dinner time. Others....well, maybe next year.
t

Ours is something I started making when I was single and lived in MN in a house with about 6� of countertop � its an �all-in-one� type of meal, protein, green and yellow, red and white veggies, and anything else that sounds good. We try to use last year�s game meat, ground, but when that isn�t available beef works just fine! This stuff is like potato salad � it tastes better after sitting in the refrigerator for a day or so.

I call it �Slop� but my wife doesn�t like the name. She prefers �Slumgullion�, which literally translated means �sludge from the cesspool�. I�ll stick with �Slop�.

We freeze it into blocks and use the blocks as giant ice cubes in the coolers. When it thaws its time to heat it up and eat! Goes well with sourdough bread!

Here�s the recipe:

1-2 pounds of ground meat
2 cans Three Bean Salad AND the juice (the kind without chick peas, aka garbanzo beans - yuck!)
1-2 cans stewed tomatoes
2 large onions chopped into 1/2� pieces
Mushrooms if you like them
1-2 cans tomato paste
1-2 cans tomato sauce
1 can lima beans WITHOUT the juice
Frozen corn and peas if you like
A bit of Worcestershire if you like

Get a BIG pan. Brown and drain the meat. Add the other ingredients. Be sure to include the juice form the Three Bean Salad! Simmer until the onions are done. It should more or less be the consistency of chili but tastes much better! Divvy it up and freeze.

As you can see, the amount of the various ingredients is determined by personal taste. The Three Bean Salad juice is what really makes this rather unique. Haven�t found anyone who doesn�t like it, and most people like it a lot. Remember the sourdough bread!

i am a 21 year old college student, so this next statement may not come as a surprise. i eat better when i am out hunting than when i am at home. my dad always brings some goooooood grub! anything he makes in the dutch oven is to die for! hes got a reciepe, called lil' porky! this thing will flat fling a cravin on ya!

my personal favorite is either FRESH liver, onions, potatoes ya know. or deer or elk shoulder stew... that stuf is awesome!

Leanwolf, it just don't git much better than that !! That's my kind of house cookin', that way you don't git out of practice.
Once in a while if I feel like splurgin' I open up a can of them little sausages or some corned beef. Life's too danged short to set around and cook all the time !

<img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

What month do you hunt your elk?
I just got back from my elk hunt, and it was darn near light at 6 am. My Gentle Ben was going off at 4:30 and I was out of camp by 5 am and where I wanted to hunt before 6.

Breakfast: 2 packs raisin and spice instant oatmeal. Boil the water the night before and put in a thermos; Works dandy to buy a couple more minutes of shut eye. Water in second thermos is still warm enough to use for a hand and face wash before dinner at the end of the day.

Lunch: 1 Sunripe fruit source bar, apple, banana, a couple granola bars, and a bottle of gatorade and water to keep the mouth damp for bugling diaphrams.

Dinner:
1) 1/4 lb. Bacon, 3 Eggs and 3 toast with butter
2) Can of Chunky chili with a smoky and toast and butter
3) Sliced potato's, onion, garlic and left over bacon grease cooked in a covered foil plate on the BBQ
4) Smokies with sour kraut and cheese on toasted buns
5) Minute rice mixed with a can of Campbells condensed mushroom soup, can of yellow beans and buttered toast

When I'm on a hunting trip, supper is the most important meal of the day to replace everything I use up during the day.

RO

My favorite dish for elk camp is spagetti. Make the sauce at home and freze it. When I get back to camp at night I'll put on a pot for noodels and one to heat up the sauce. I have bread and butter with it. While it is cooking you can get other stuff done, its about as easy as a good meal gets in our camp.
After dinner I mix the left over noodels and sauce up and put it back in the cooler. It will get eat for lunch if someone comes back to camp durring the day. When I'm hunting alone, I'll eat left over spagetti for dinner and lunch a couple of days. This year in Alaska I had spagetti for dinner three nights. After hunting season I dont eat spagetti again for a few months.

Jamie

"When I'm on a hunting trip, supper is the most important meal of the day to replace everything I use up during the day.

RO"

agree with that 100% breakfast MIGHT be eggs one day if we feel like being lazy or wake up early. usually its quickyl warmed up burritos and milk. lunch is another burrito, or if we came back to camp maybe hot dogs or brats... dinnr is when we get really into it!

chili over an open fire, cooked in a rediculously large skillet. But let dad do it by himself or he'll be cranky, it's his thing....

hobo potatoes, big old foil pouch filled with chopped everything... potatoes are in there but there's much, much more...

but the most memorable was 4 hungry guys on day 2 of spike camp huddled over a pack stove & a pair of canteen cups, in the dark, on the gound, cooking elk tenderloin cubed into a packet of what was our only packet of dry "backpack food" with melted snow for water, spanish rice. Spanish rice & cubed tenderloin meat seasoned with 3 miniature tobasco bottles like the ones they put into MRE's.

That was one good meal.

good times.

We have either oatmeal or boiled eggs and toast for breakfast. They're both easy and fast to make while the coffee is going.

Lunch is whatever you shove in your pack. Protein bars, trail mix, dried fruit, jerky. Sometimes I cook ramen on my little pocket rocket stove if the weather is bad. It warms me up when I'm far from camp.

Dinners can be anything. We bring in chili (add beans while it's recooking and make corn bread in a skillet out of corn muffin mix), pork chops, chicken, and burger. We make hamburgers, soft tacos (chicken or elk burger), a pan lasagne with penne, cheese, sauce, and ground meat, pork roast on and under the wood stove, and lots of other stuff. One night it was rabbit (bought one frozen when we rode into town) and grouse (shot while out hunting) cooked in the same skillet.

My favorite elk camp meal is tenderloin just seared in bacon fat and left rare with caramelized onion and bacon bits to go with. We have mashed potatoes and corn with that most times.

I don't get up super early. Most times I hunt elk it's with a bow and I'm in the wilderness. Elk can be right outside camp so leaving before you can shoot just isn't a good idea. Plus I shoot at least one arrow before I leave camp to make sure my last time in the woods I didn't bump something and mess up the sights or wiggle the sights loose or something. Knowing for sure the arrow goes where I aim it is really important to me.

If I am back packing then its what ever freeze dried food packets I find. If I am hunting out of a base camp, or RV. Then It get a little more interesting. I like Western Omlets for Breakfast with red skin potatos converted to hash browns, I do all my prep work at home and every thing is is tupper ware containers. Lunch, some apples cheese and nuts, a sandwich or two on good rye bread. Dinner well, I will grill beef steaks and do oven roasted potatos and a toss salad with a little Red Wine. Beef Strogonoff etc. Spagatti with meat sauce, made a home with sausage. the Usual sort of guy food. I find if I do all the prep work before hand ie chopped onions garlic, roast garlic, celery tomatos, all in seprate containers, it cuts way down on the time it takes to get a meal ready. Been known to pre cook pasta as well, you can do a good hot meal in 15 to 20 min with a little bit of pre work. I spend a good bit of time before season, planing meals and such. I just hunt better when I eat good.

Rib roast imbedded in rock salt in the Dutch Oven. Simply awesome, and stupid easy. Seperate D.O. for taters, mushrooms and onions.

Mark

Precooked Mediteranean Sausage Dish/Mess

1# or more of smoked sausage
2- Diced Onions.
3- Garlic Cloves
2-Green peppers, cut up/diced
1.5# can of chopped tomatoes,

Cook together in pot (start by sauteeing garlic & onions, add green peppers, and sliced sausage (1/2" slices), add tomatoes.

Serve over favorite pasta or rice (pre cooked).

My favorite was taught to me by a late wildlife biologist friend; he called it "Eggs [bleep]." Scrambled eggs with last night's dinner leftovers. Tasted pretty good when the water bucket is frozen over at 5am!

when my wife comes she spoiles me omlets,or bberry pancakes and bacon fo breakfast. sandwitches an fruit for lunch. stroganoff, or burritos, or steak and tators for supper. by my self i do mre's and snicksnacks for short rifle hunts, and for 1 week plus bow hunts i do mre's with chochalate exlax for a treet (learned that in the army).
p.s. i like to save my back straps for elk wellington with family.

We go out of our way to keep the cooking simple. Instant oatmeal and coffee for breakfast. Sandwiches/lunch are usually assembled the night before. For supper we usually bring stew, or a tray of lasagna (premade) that just needs reheated. We very seldom due any serious cooking. Just heating up casseroles/dishes brought from home. There's nothing worse than comming in dog tired from a hard day afield and having to do a mmajor production for dinner.

I'm with you on not cooking in camp. I take my main dinners frozed in aluminum baking pans.

1. chicken corn chowder
2. Shepards Pie
3. Mild green chile
4. hunters stew
5. lasagna
6. BBQ ribs and beans. (had a lot left over from BBQ froze them)

when I come down from the mountain and stoke up the stove I just set the pan on a rack on top of the stove and dinner is cooking as I relax and get the gear ready for the next day.