Gluten Free Camping Meals

How to Enjoy Camp Cooking with Gluten Free Recipes

Dutch Oven Cooking

Gluten intolerance and Celiac disease are two types of gluten allergies. Gluten is a protein that is found wheat, rye, barley, spelt, bulgur, semolina, couscous, triticale, durum flour and oats, and any products that are derived from these grains. Both of these conditions require a major change in what you eat. Eliminating gluten from your diet can be a challenge, but with a little care, you can continue to maintain a normal lifestyle. One example is in preparing gluten free meals when you are camping.

If you are camping with friends, you have to decide how you are going insure that your meals are gluten free. There are three choices that you have.

1. You can plan and prepare all the meals to insure that everything you eat is gluten free. Your camping companions may be delighted to be freed from the kitchen detail, but this is a lot of work for you.

2. You and your friends can just cook separately. This is time consuming, even if you have what I consider the best gas grill, the Coleman Roadtrip Grill. Also a lot of the fun of camping together is sharing the cooking chores.

3. Sharing the cooking chores is an option that allows you the camaraderie of planning and cooking together, but still controlling what you eat.

You can easily bring gluten free breakfast and lunch foods, but collaborate on planning and preparing your main meal. Many familiar camping recipes can easily be prepared gluten free with a few substitutions.

Foil Meal for Camping

Whether you are cooking separately or together, it's a good idea to bring your own utensils and pots to avoid cross contamination with foods containing gluten. Flexible plastic cutting boards and your own knives will keep your food preparation area free from contaminates.

Many common foods are gluten free and meals can be built around them.

• Fruits
• Potatoes
• Vegetables
• Quinoa and Rice
• Eggs
• Fish
• Beans

Here is a great recipe for cooking in a Dutch oven.

Enchilada Pie

Ground beef, enchilada sauce, onions, green peppers, sour cream, 4 cheese Mexican grated cheese, gluten free corn tortillas and cilantro if you have it.

Cook the ground beef, onions and peppers at home and either freeze them or just bag them to use the first night.

In your Dutch oven put a small amount of enchilada sauce to cover the bottom. Then place a layer of corn tortillas. Then add meat, peppers and onions, cheese, sour cream, cilantro and more enchilada sauce. Repeat layering until you have used all your ingredients finishing with corn tortillas and enchilada sauce. Place the Dutch oven on your portable grill or over the campfire. Since your meat is already cooked, you are only heating everything through. Yum!

Another easy camping meal is Hobo Stew. This is prepared in a foil packet and cooked on the coals. It is a familiar camping recipe; I just never realized that it was gluten free.

Hobo Stew
Tear off a large piece of heavy duty aluminum foil. Place your ground beef patty, seasoned as you like it, on the bottom of the foil. Add a thinly sliced potato and sliced onion. Then add any other vegetables that you want as long as they are prepared in small pieces. Wrap tightly in the foil and place on the coals. Check after 20-30 minutes to see if it is done. This is best cooked on coals rather than on a blazing fire.

If you suffer from gluten allergies, there is no reason why you can't continue to enjoy your camping trips. It is not that hard to prepare gluten free meals, either at home or over a campfire. Just give it a try and you'll be glad.

Author Bio: The author has her own website, Always-Outdoors.com. She writes about outdoor activities and reviews products, such as Coleman's large 3 room family tent and Nikon's best binoculars, the Monarch 7294 ATB binoculars.



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