camp cooking

[cellio]

Dear LJ brain trust, help me figure out what to feed my camp-mates at Pennsic. :-)

We take turns cooking dinner for everybody, where "everybody" is around 25 people, give or take. Cooking facilities are propane-fueled stoves and grills; it's camping, so no electricity, and our camp doesn't build a firepit (especially this year when we'll probably be packed like sardines). We do also have a small propane oven, big enough to bake a dozen muffins, but I'm not sure what role it could play in dinner for twice that many people.

My night is late this year and I don't like to leave site once I'm there, so my usual of grilled fish (and/or grilled meat) doesn't work (I wouldn't trust either in a cooler for the better part of a week). We tend to be a meat-heavy camp, more than I'm used to eating, so I personally lean toward vegetarian (or fish, if that worked). We have a couple people in camp who are lactose-intolerant.

Dry goods (or canned) can obviously be stored for the week with no problem and there is a vegetable stand on site.

I prefer to make food that is period or plausible as opposed to modern.

Any suggestions? I'm currently thinking that something with chickpeas could provide protein, and I could have rice and grilled veggies, but can I improve on this?

Comments

[cellio]

Yes, planning to buy veggies on-site, and thanks for reminding me that I can get fruit and bread that way too. (I had given up on any decent bread for my meal because neither baking it on-site nor bringing it from home would work.

I know you like to use up leftovers and you have the last night for that purpose, but I suppose you won't mind if I use some of them earlier. :-)

[ariannawyn.livejournal.com]

Actually, I was pretty successful last year at making biscuits in the camp oven. You just need to allow a little time in advance since it is small, but really, you can fit two racks in it, so at least a dozen at a time means you would only have to do 4 iterations to have 2 rolls per person. I haven't tried making a more tradition risen bread dough in it yet but I was kind of thinking of trying that this year during Peace Week - making rolls instead of whole loaves because of the size.