How to prepare meals while in the outdoors in the cold temperatures
Show Notes:
- Practical (Yet Delicious) Winter Campfire Cooking Ideas For Outdoor Cooking
- Winter Camping Cooking Recipes
- Winter Camping Recipe Planner
- Wooden Spatula Organic Bamboo Utensil Set (Amazon)
- Cast Iron 2-In-1 Multi Cooker- 3-Quart Dutch Oven and Skillet Lid Set (Amazon)
Transcript:
Working in the cold in general is never fun, and cooking in the cold is no exception.
There are some general tips to cooking in the cold that you should consider and plan for.
The first is planning.
When you figure out your meals, figure out what you can do in advance, and lessen the time you are prepping food in the outdoors. Chopping up veggies and meats in the cold is no fun. Use the cold to your advantage, as items will stay fresh and cold with minimal help in the winter.
Not only should you prep in advance, but you need to consider how your camp kitchen with work in the outdoors.
The pots and even utensils you favor because of their lightweight nature do you no favors in the cold. Heavier pots, such as Dutch ovens and other cast iron cookware hold the heat longer, and let you go back for seconds while the food is still warm.
Even your utensils matter, use plastic or wooden utensils when cooking instead of metal. Metal utensils can cause the temperature of whatever you’re cooking to drop, requiring a longer cook time and more fuel.
On the topic of fuel, the 1-pound propane canisters you use can get tricky in the cold weather. They begin to freeze over as you use them, and they can get stuck. As the internal temperature of the canisters drop, this decreases the pressure and prevent vapor from flowing effectively. The larger BBQ type canisters fair a bit better, as it takes longer to affect a larger tank.
A lot of winter outdoor cooking uses white gas or butane type fuels. Before going the white gas route however, check with you camp, as some limit the gas completely or only let you have small containers.
Charcoal and wood still work fine, but as will all the fuels, things take longer to cook when the weather is cold, so plan for more fuel as well as longer cook times.
During winter cycles its good to have hearty foods, as the amount of calories you need is higher in cold weather. Our body needs extra calories to keep ourselves warm and to enjoy most of the outdoors.
Hearty soups, and stews are better; as all the ingredients are at the same temperature and you are not combining ingredients to plate a meal such as rices, pastas and sauces that may not be ready all at the same time, and you end up with a cold meal.
Slow cooked stews let you put everything in a pot, and if it’s over a fire, you can keep warm while cooking, since you will naturally be by the heat source. But, this is what works for us.
Take what you like and leave the rest, and as we say in Woodbadge, feedback is a gift, leave yours below in the comments, with the hope we can all learn together.
I’m Scoutmaster Dave, and this was a bit on cooking in the cold.
