I have more to say about our camping experience at Bon Echo, but it’s been so busy around here lately that I’ve hardly had time to regroup.
I wanted to jot this recipe, er, assemblage, before I forgot.
A lot new campers ask me about the meals I make while we’re away. Camping food and outdoor cooking in general is a big mystery until you find yourself having to figure out how to make your family favourites with nothing but a fire pit and a two-burner camp stove.
I have a few campfire recipes that we return to year after year, but this is one of our faves. It’s one of the easiest camping foods you can pull together AND it’s one the kids can actually help making. And that’s a good thing.
I haven’t tried making pizza on the firepit using raw dough, but maybe next year will be the year. :)
Campfire pizza
You need:
- greek pita bread (it’s thicker than the stuff you’d usually buy to eat with hummus)
- a small can of pizza sauce (you did pack the can opener, right?)
- mozzarella cheese (Do yourself a favour and grate it at home and bring it along in a container. If you forgot to grate it, you can cube it instead. Works just fine… and if someone complains just remind them that THEY ARE CAMPING and CAMPING IS NOT LIKE HOME.)
- Maybe now is a good time to let you know about our camping mottos: “Do what you can with what you have” and “Eat what’s on your plate because mummy didn’t pack any extra food.”
- Assemble your ingredients and make your pizzas. You can make it as gourmet as you want. How about grilled red onions, roasted red peppers, chicken, and feta? It’s totally doable. We keep it simple and limit our toppings to a stick of pepperoni we slice on site. You can add whatever you fancy. It’s your pizza man.
- Bake!
It took us awhile to figure out how to bake them so they crisp up on the bottom and get melty on top.
The trick is to create a special camping pizza oven. Mark deserves all the credit for this idea. You basically fashion a little oven out of a bit of aluminum foil. This is what it looks like when the pizzas are baking:
The result is a lovely crisp crust with a perfectly hot top.
I would love to post a photo of the finished product, but our pizzas disappeared so quickly I didn’t even have time to reach for my camera. Sorry. :)
