Stocking the pantry

I went grocery shopping earlier this week.  I got a lot of the pantry items we'll use throughout the camping season.  Obviously, they'll get replenished throughout the season, but that first shopping trip is a big one.  I tried to partner it with a lower than normal regular shopping trip so that the total cost wasn't quite as shocking.

I'm a big fan of individual servings for food items that stay in the camper.  The food doesn't go stale between trips.  We can get a greater variety of snacks, depending on how I buy them.  My kids love that I'm more likely to buy junk food for camping trips than I am for our house.  Hey, baked potato chips can reduce a teensy bit of guilt, right?

There are definitely items that can't be purchased in individual servings, like graham crackers for s'mores.  For those items, I'll seal them in a ziplock bag and put the ziplock bag back into the box the product came in.  For this reason, I try to have a healthy stock of gallon and quart size ziplocks.

Our camper came with a microwave.  It's a pretty standard item nowadays.  I'm not one to think of microwaving while camping, but it's there.  It's not uncommon for us to go exploring on a hike or going on a bike ride or something else and we get back at lunch time and the kids are "just starving!" (their words, not mine).  Their lunch choices usually include PB&J or Easy Mac (What is that mysterious white powder? Maybe I don't want to know...).  Hello microwave.  Other than that, the microwave is often where I put the fruit while we're traveling because it's not going to get too bounced around.

For breakfast, we'll sometimes have pancakes.  The Meijer brand box of pancake mix only requires water to mix and we can make as much or as little as we want.  I've tried the bottles of mix where you add water and shake, but feel constrained in how many pancakes we make.  National brand box pancake mix requires oil.  I just prefer the simplicity of adding water and mixing.  And yes, my whole food loving friends, I know I can make my own pancakes from scratch, but again, I like the simplicity in this process.

Of course, I'll continue adding more food items before our first trip in 2 weeks.  I enjoy canning the bounty of our garden in the summer and I'll be adding numerous jars for our enjoyment on camping trips.  The week of our trip I'll buy the perishable food.

I know you're wondering, I put the bread in the oven and that's where it stays for the whole trip because I just don't bake while camping.