Times like these get me reminiscing on a bunch of the awesome camping trips I’ve been on over the years. One of my favourite parts of camping is cooking up an absolute feast for the boys.

So I’ve decided to share with you my 3 absolute favourite meals I’ve cooked up for the boys on camping trips. I’m going to take you through a very easy to follow way to cook them and I guarantee you’ll be itching to whip out the camp cooking gear and have a backyard camp cook up!

Now these camp cooking recipes aren’t in any particular order here because it’s just too darn hard to choose one that stands out from the others because they are all so bloody good!

• Roast Beef on Damper Rolls with Rum Gravy

Now, some of you guys might remember a couple years back, Cahn and I hosted a campfire cooking fridge giveaway competition where we got you guys to send in some simple, but delicious camping meals. We then picked out which one we frothed over the most, and gave that lucky winner a 60L Kings fridge. The way Cahn and I kicked that competition off was with our very own campfire recipe which was roast beef on Damper rolls with rum gravy.
For this meal we only used 3 bits of camp cooking gear– a bedourie camp oven, the kings rotisserie and a cast iron skillet pan.

We used a pre- marinated roast to save time, then we added some salt and pepper and let it sit in some rum for a few hours before we chucked it on the rotisserie over some hot coals.

To make the damper, we used a relatively generic recipe with a few splashes of beer. If you’re not sure how to make campfire damper, its super simple and I reckon you definitely need to have a crack!
All you’ll need is about 3 cups of flour, 80grams or so of butter and about a cup of milk.

Chuck the flour into a bowl, then add the butter and need it together with your fingers until it becomes the consistency of breadcrumbs, then slowly start to add your milk an a few splashes of beer if you like.  Once its all mixed together and it’s no longer sticky to the touch, let it sit for about 10 minuets, then separate it into burger roll sized proportions, chuck them in the bedourie on the fire an top the lif up with hot coals as well.

Now, to make the gravy- Cahn used a generic gravy mix tin, but added rum to it for a bit of extra flavor. If I was to do this recipe again, number one- I wouldn’t leave Cahn in charge of making the gravy (especially when alcohol is an ingredient) and two- I’d dial back the amount of rum that went into the mix because my god it near knocked the camera crew and I off our socks!

Once the roast was all done, we let it sit for about 15-20 minuets, sliced the damper rolls in half and made some of the best roast beef rolls I’ve ever had with of course a delicious rum gravy on top. It was simply unreal- despite the fact that we used way too much rum in the gravy mix!

• Campfire BBQ Pork Ribs

Funnily enough, this next recipe was the ACTUAL winner of the fridge competition who I believe was a fella named Josh who I can’t thank enough for sending us this recipe because I reckon since then I’ve cooked it at least half a dozen times and it is ALWAYS a camp favourite.

Now back to the recipe! The first time Dave and I cooked this up was to announce the winner of the competition and we just so happened to be on Moreton Island– which is one of my absolute favourite camping locations I’ve been lucky enough to travel to for work.

We basically seasoned a few racks of pork ribs with salt, pepper and a bit of BBQ rub we let them sit in the camping fridge overnight to make sure all of that flavor was right the way through the ribs.

Once you’re ready to start cooking, grab the ribs out of the camping fridge and sit them inside of your Aussie camp oven. Now this next part might freak some of you out- but trust me it is absolutely unreal! Grab a bottle of coke and pour it into the camp oven so the ribs are almost completely submerged. Whack the lid back on, sit the camp oven on some hot coals, cover the lid and let it sit for about 4 or 5 hours. During that time, Dave and I went for a fish and as my luck would have it- we caught absolutely nothing!

Once the ribs were just about falling off the bone we sat the campfire BBQ plate over the fire and sat the pork ribs on top to char them while basting them with smoky BBQ sauce. Trust me guys, my mouth is watering just talking about it!

• Smoked Scotch Fillets

And last but certainly not least, we have some smoked scotch fillets in the Kings Vertical Offset Smoker. This cookup was more recent than the previous 2 and it was actually my first time using the Kings Vertical Offset Smoker while we were on a trip up near Tamworth.

All I did was season the scotchies with salt & pepper, then chucked them into the smoke box for about half an hour until we hit an internal temperature of about 75°C which is just before medium, rare. Then let them rest for about 15-20 minuets before serving them up with some veggies.

I reckon if the boys had to pick one of these campfire recipes to be their favourite- this one would have to be up there!

Well there you go guys- those are just 3 of my favourite camp cookups that are simple and easy for anyone to have a go at.
I’ve cooked up that many camp feeds over the years for the team here that it was honestly really hard to pick just 3, but again- it all came down to simplicity and ease!