shtf « Robin Writes

Thought I’d put together a few simple recipes for outdoor cooking, you know, in case you have to go off-grid or if you just decide to pack up for a weekend of camping.

I’m even going to give you two versions of each, so you can choose quick and easy or completely homemade, depending on your preference and/or limitations of space, time, and skill.

Let’s start with breakfast:

Skillet Breakfast

Bacon

O’Brien potatoes

Cheddar cheese

Eggs

Naturally, this is going to taste better if you use cast iron, but you can use any cookware, on the fire or on a propane stove.

Fry the bacon and remove from pan to drain. Dump in the bag of potatoes, add a little salt and a lot of pepper; while these cook, beat the eggs and add a little water—water will make the eggs fluffier than milk. When the potatoes are cooked and crispy, add the eggs and crumbled bacon and cook until eggs are done. Top with cheese.

Version 2: you can chop the potatoes, onions, and peppers yourself, at the campsite or before you leave home. Unless you butcher your own hogs and gather your own eggs, that’s about the limit on the homemade part!

Of course, you can serve toast or biscuits or whatever with this too, but it’s pretty filling by itself. If you’re making toast over the fire, you can of course toast it over coals on a stick, but you can also just slap a slice of bread on a cast iron griddle, flipping once.

My World Famous Chili

Chili beans, 2 cans

Salsa, half a jar or so

Tomato sauce, 1 16 oz can

Onion

Garlic, 2-3 cloves

Ground beef, 1 #

Chili powder

Cumin

Jalapenos

Black pepper

Beer, one can or bottle

Throw the chopped onion, minced garlic, ground beef, chili powder, cumin, black pepper, and minced jalapenos in a Dutch over. Cook until beef is done. Add chili beans, salsa, beer, tomato sauce, and maybe a little water. Cook for an hour.

Yes, it can be very hot—seasoning-wise. You can adjust as needed.

For the more homemade version, simply use your own canned tomato sauce and salsa, the onions, garlic, cumin, and jalapenos that you grew in the garden, and your home-grown kidney beans that have been well-soaked overnight. You might want to add more spice if you use those, as the commercial ones are pre-seasoned.

More power to you if you butcher your own beef and grind it, and if you also make your own beer, please send me the recipe and the steps needed!

Let’s talk about camping. Most people have done it at least once or twice, some love it, some hate it. My personal idea of camping is sleeping in a tent, cooking over a fire, doing your household chores and personal business without the conveniences of home.

My husband disagrees.

(I will not also get into the fact that SO MANY of my friends—and children—are too wussy anymore to actually sleep in a tent, but if the shoe fits . . .)

So last week, we bought a camper. Not an RV, not a 5^th wheel, although, in hindsight, those would certainly be easier to move around inside—although more difficult to haul wherever you’re going.

My kids laugh at me and say I’m turning into my mother.

Joke’s on them, it wasn’t MY idea.

See, my husband will go camping—the tent kind—but he bitches and moans ALL NIGHT LONG about the hard ground, he’s too hot, he’s too cold, he has to get up and down, etc., etc. Don’t even let him see a mosquito, or hear one, or even think one is within a half mile of him.

So. We bought this pop-up tent camper.

It has a propane tank, a battery, electric hookups, a water tank or water hookup, your choice; it has a heater and an AC unit—good thing, because when pulling it with my truck, that’s the only thing I can see behind me. There’s a tiny fridge and a tiny kitchen sink, a couple cabinets, curtains, a very small dinette, and a propane stove that you can set inside or put on a railing outside under the canopy.

Oh, and heated beds. Good grief.

And you don’t raise it with one those old cranks, the modern tent camper has a switch. Thank goodness. Takes a lot of turning to lower the jacks on the back end as it is.

The first night, we’d parked it in our “guest parking” that no one ever seems to see. Ahem. I think I’ll put up a sign that says “PARK HERE ALREADY” or something . . . Anyway, we set it up and thought, gee, why not sleep here tonight? So we did. Nothing says camping like walking out the door and running smack into an F-150.

We moved it the next day to a more permanent spot, near the house and the fire circle outside the yard. The extension cord reaches there, and it’ll be a convenient guest room. We stocked a few things, like beer and coffee, and set out to spend Night 2.

Well.

The beds are pretty small too—there’s a theme here. One is a single, the other is full-size. Doable, but barely. My husband let me have the larger one, in front, because the dog sleeps with me, mostly. She loved it, by the way.

So I had plenty of room to stretch out, but see, here’s the problem: he snores. Normally, I poke him or holler at him to get him to stop, but I was clear on the other end of the (admittedly) small camper. Here’s the other thing: I do not, and have never, gotten out of bed in the middle of the night for any reason. Well, okay, mostly—I mean, when the kids were little and had those annoying 2 a.m. feedings, sure. Of course, the first time any of them skipped that, it proved to me they could wait until morning and so they did.

Fine, if anyone is pissed thinking that I let my babies wail all night, think again. I did not.

But, for the record, I hate getting up at night.

So, in the camper, I seriously considered throwing something at him. Nothing too painful, and of course nothing within my reach was NOT going to be painful, so I suffered in silence.

Ha, who am I kidding? I just hollered. It mostly worked.

Then, during one his middle-of-the-night forays, he missed the step coming back into the camper. Talk about being jolted awake! The whole thing moved and shimmied and I was AWAKE! Fortunately, it was close to time to get up, and yes, he was fine. Scared the crap out of me, though.

Why am I talking about this on a prep blog? Because a lot of people who plan to bug out will also plan on camping. It’s not like, when SHTF, you’ll be able to check into a Motel 6 or somewhere.

First, know where you’re going and how to get there—multiple routes, because some may be impassable for a variety of reasons.

Second, keep your camper well-stocked and know how to set it up and use all the features. Practice makes perfect, after all.

Third, have your gear together and ready to throw in your vehicle. Know how to use everything you purchase and take with you. Practice again.

And fourth, make sure wherever you’re going is permissible for you to be there. Again, I can’t say this too often, know and practice what to do once you arrive and have to live there for a period of time.