Recipes for the Reluctant Camper

It's hot AF. But the family insists that it's vacation time, and they want to go camping, dammit! What's a reluctant camp cook to do?

Sigh deeply and grab a copy of Coping with Camp Cooking (Mae Webb Stephens and George S. Wells, 1966). This should get you through the worst of it.

In keeping with the reluctant title, a lot of the recipes are very short. If the family is getting tired of having hot dogs every night, well...

Make it exciting with Frankfurter Splits. Just split the hot dogs, throw in a little cheese spread, or relish, or, who cares? Peanut butter? Whatever is around the camp. Toothpick the stuffed dogs shut, wrap 'em with bacon, roast, and call it a day.

If it gets colder than you expected and the family wants to warm up, you can always make soup. 

Just soften up some broken pretzels and then serve them in hot milk. Ta-da! Soup!

And maybe heat up a bottle of 7-Up or whatever to go with it.

Not that all the easy recipes sound like they may not be worth even the minimal effort...

I'm making a mental note to pick up some cream cheese and raspberry preserves on my next grocery trip.

And finally, if the family insists on making something that takes a little effort...

...just make it such a pain in the ass that they'll be begging for plain old burgers in no time. (Who wants to try to eat an open-faced sandwich of meatballs drenched in cream of mushroom soup off a paper plate, anyway? Especially when it looks like a fly drowned in the soup at some point during the cooking process...)

If you're lucky, you'll be coping with sit-down-in-an-air-conditioned-restaurant-on-the-way-home cooking in no time.