The first time I ever went camping with FishPapa it was a coup de cuisine. His idea was opening a can of chili and cooking it on the fire. Ick. No thanks.
My idea of camping food was marinating chicken breast in a ziploc bag, grating some parmesan, chopping some lettuce, and having Grilled Chicken Caesar Salad al fresco.
(And yes, I could totally relate to Sally when it came to food. Totally.)
However, recent FishFam camping trips have entailed the men heading out for the Great Outdoors and the women staying home to cry over sappy chick flicks. The boys eat chili from cans and the girls, well, the girls enjoy a feast of salads, breads, and other dainty morsels.
However, this last time, the guys decided to take things up a notch. And they came back with food photography to show me. Love those guys getting into the true blogging spirit. Their snaps of “fish and chips” (fried fish and Doritos) and chili dogs were hilarious.
But, while I’m happy to stay home and sob over Heidi with my 4-year old, I wouldn’t have minded a few bites of their tri-tip sandwiches!
Hubs planned ahead, picking up fresh baguettes at the French bakery on their way up the mountain. He packed garlic butter and trimmed tri-tip in the cooler. And then I slipped a packet of homemade spice rub into their camping supplies. Since they already had a great fillet knife and cutting board in their gear, they were good to go. Not pictured: Salsa.
This is a typical grilled sandwich often served on the Central Coast of California, and one that both hubs and I can agree on. You could easily pack a make ahead garlic bread from the freezer to save time.
Tri-Tip Sandwich
1 tri-tip roast, trimmed
1 Tablespoon olive or grape seed oil
2 Tablespoons of your favorite spice rub
2 baguettes, split and cut into three sections
garlic butter (1/2 cup softened butter mixed with 1 – 2 cloves garlic)
fresh salsa
1. Brush the oil over the surface of meat.
2. Generously sprinkle the seasoning over the meat and rub it in.
3. Cook the roast over a hot grill until the meat reaches your desired doneness.
4. Remove the roast from the heat and allow it to rest for ten minutes before slicing.
5. Meanwhile, butter the baguette pieces with the garlic butter and cook them over the grill.
6. Assemble the sandwiches by placing thin slices of meat onto the grilled bread.
7. Serve with salsa on the side.
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Taco Sloppy Joes
OMG that looks sooooo good if I wasn’t vegan I’d scarf that up.
Sharing our homemade protein bar recipe. Enjoy!
We’re camping this weekend for the first time ever. Well, we’ve camped before but the only thing we cooked was marshmellows 🙂
Thanks so much for the ideas! I’ve already checked out a couple of the links, such good ideas! Your post made me wonder why I don’t love camping more. I might just have to put my dislikes of being dirty, all the work, and all the packing aside while my kids are younger and just do it. Camping builds so many lasting memories. 🙂 I am so inspired by your blog. Thanks for all of your great posts!
Jane
I make-ahead all of our food for camping. I have so many recipes on my blog (there’s a whole tag just for camping posts!) that it was hard to choose. But I think the Jack Daniels Glazed Ribs were the best choice. They’re a great camp food and comfort food!
Could you share your blog URL? I’d love some camping food ideas.
Never mind! Sorry, I was just being lame and didn’t realize you were already linked. Thanks.
No worries! You can jump to all the camping recipes here: http://eastside-make-ahead.blogspot.com/search/label/camping
I love camping because we actually have time to cook. Well, I say camping but really it’s in my father in law’s RV on his property so we have pretty much a full kitchen and a real grill 🙂
That looks delicious!
We are camping right now as I type this and we just had smokies and beans….I usually make better meals then that, but today was busy outdoors day,lol.
We don’t camp often, but when we do I grill the sausages and hobo pack that I linked up today.
Thanks for the link-up.
Boy, I would love to eat that on a camping trip!!
I’m not a big camping person, I’ll be honest, but I love camping snack foods: trail mix, M&M’s, and Rice Krispie Treats!
That sandwich sounds delish. We don’t usually go that gourmet. By the time dinner rolls around we are exhausted from hiking and swimming, we eat easy food (walking tacos, burgers, hot dogs, brats).
I can’t say I go camping very much (at all!) but if I did, I think I’d want some of my zucchini banana bread. It travels well and is so satisfying!
some camping meals:
first night is always easy – hot dogs/chips/fresh veggies and then smores for dessert.
we have a small camp stove – so we always make eggs/pancakes/sausages for breakfast (try the pancake batter in the can – great!). For lunches, simple lunchmeat sandwiches work for us.
Other dinners: hobo hamburger packs, marinated chicken, or marinated steak.
hmmm, I linked back to your page and it won’t link up??? I’m working on a new mac?? http://momonamission.me/?p=1984
Mmmm that looks yummy. We are going camping in August for a week. One of my children’s favorite camping dishes is mac and cheese cooked over the fire. Very easy to prepare ahead and so fun to let them make it themselves. You could use it either as a main meal or as a side. We usually use it as a side since we are so hungry form being outdoors all day!
This is the orginal recipe, I have altered it to fit my familys needs.
http://familyfun.go.com/recipes/campfire-mac-n-cheese-687708/
Love, love, love tri-tip! True Santa Maria style tri-tip is seasoned only with garlic salt and black pepper. I keep the rub simple and serve with a yummy BBQ sauce. Plus, eating anything outdoors makes it taste just that much better. Growing up, the camping trips usually consisted of the men going fishing and the women staying at the campsite working on their tans. At least one evening we had chili that cooked all afternoon while my mom and her friends read magazines, gossiped and drank margaritas. Talk about a vacation!
NICE sandwiches! I’m impressed. We camp once a year and I like to pack a huge SW Chicken Salad (everything in separate ziplocs until we are ready to eat), tomato pasta salad, frozen soups, breads etc. I love not actually cooking when camping. Just warming great food and hanging out with family is the best!
We eat a vegan diet, so coming up with great camp food is a bit tricky. Sandwiches for lunch is always our stand-by, but I hope to come up with more great dinners.
Wow so glad I found this! We are having a big camp-out in August and I can’t wait to check out these recipes. Thanks!!
Do you guys live on the central coast? Im in SantaMaria, and not only is tri-tip the most popular bbq dinner, its my FAVE!! I never even thought of taking it camping… Ill have to let my hubby in on this idea for our next trip 🙂
@Megan, no, but we lived in both Santa Barbara and Paso Robles for a number of years.
That looks good. I’m more like your husband and feel like camping is no time to spend cooking. I’d rather have PBJ sandwiches and canned something. However, he is more like you. So over the years, I’ve learned to make decent camping food, with maybe some shortcuts (and for us, nowadays, camping is in an RV). So I bring steak, or make a chicken curry (maybe with the quick sauce from TJs) and such. My husband would like this sandwich, so maybe we’ll make this next time.
Wow, this looks great! Does Tri-tip go by any other name for it’s cut? Our stores don’t sell anything labeled as such, so any help would be great. 🙂
We love going camping! We do at least one make-ahead dish for the first night, plus make-ahead ingredients for breakfasts, then cook the rest there. Sometimes I make a beef stew to eat for the first night, so easy to reheat over the fire, and we often cook up potatoes and bacon ahead of time for breakfast tacos. We enjoy grilling steaks and mushrooms, then serving the leftovers in the morning with eggs, wow is that good! Love bringing a fruit salad, homemade “chex-like” snackmix and homemade cookies to munch on throughout the camping trip. Two other favorite dinners are fajitas (steak and chicken) as well as grilled chicken we marinated ahead of time. Then just serve leftovers in a Taco Salad or over fresh salad (also made ahead of time). We rarely do the “regular camping hotdog and hamburger thing” when we camp, since we love making it a fun vacation & we save so much money we can splurge on the food…and it’s funny, but sometimes our kids will beg us, “Can we actually have “real camp food” like hotdogs this time?” 😀
Tri-tip is typically a “california cut,” but a knowledgeable butcher should recognize the name. That portion is often chopped up in different ways around the country.
Thanks! 🙂
Love, love, love your site! So glad I found you and your recipes!!