TIP: Cutting and bagging all your ingredients at home makes this an easy, dishes-free option at camp.
Hobo packs are probably one of the easiest and most customizable dinner options for campfire cooking while camping. These particular Cajun-style packs, with sausage, potatoes, green beans and shrimp, are a crowd favorite with our friends and, more importantly, their teenage kids!
Last weekend, we headed to Peninsula State Park in Door County, Wisconsin, for a short adventure. The weather was pretty-darn great for early April in Wisconsin (if it's sunny and above freezing we're happy... so highs in the 60s were absolutely amazing). The first night, as we reached Door County just before sunset (and in the nick of time to grab two of the last "winter" sites available in Tennison Bay), we went a SUPER easy, dinner route: hot dogs and brat burgers. No muss, no fuss on paper plates. Cory and Luke travel with a mini-Blackstone in their RV so we didn't even have to wait for hot coals in the fire!
Saturday morning we hit one of Egg Harbor's gems for breakfast: Big Easy Bagel & Beignet. I swear, they have better beignets than NOLA. And their breakfast sandwiches are out of this world. ALSO... sandwiches come with an enormous side of crispy fried tater tots. Between the six of us, there were so many tots that we had plenty leftover to top off our ham and hashbrown casserole for Sunday morning (and that dish will definitely be a future recipe post... it's one of my camp staples).
Cafe Au Lait, soft bagels, crispy bacon, powdered sugar all over your face... Great way to start the morning. Especially with COVID still being a threat, it's awesome that Big Easy offers online ordering and carside pickup. WE PIGGED OUT! So much so that we didn't even have lunch!
Between breakfast and dinner the crew did a couple of easy hikes through the forest and along the waterside trails with our dogs (this was the first time that our friends' dogs, Bemo and Gracie, accompanied us on a camping trip; Tucker always tags along). Green Bay, especially right after the ice and snow disappear, is so pristine and beautiful. You'd swear you were looking at the ocean.
So on to DINNER.... and the recipe you've been waiting for!
I always pre-cut EVERYTHING that needs to be cut at home and bag it up. That way, all you have to do is assemble each pack before throwing them on the campfire. And this is where you can customize each pack to the eater's liking... my pack options include potatoes, onions, green beans, spicy jalapeno sausage (beef), smoked sausage (turkey) and shrimp.
TIP: For the potatoes, make sure to cover them in cold water after cutting and add a little lemon juice. This will keep them fresh and from turning gray for a few days.
Be sure to purchase fully cooked shrimp (peeled and deveined) and sausage. Otherwise, your cooking times will definitely be longer and you'll need to be much more careful to ensure everything is cooked to the proper internal temperature for health safety. For the packs as I make them, you're really just waiting for the potatoes to soften and the other ingredients to get hot!
A quick side note about the jalapeno sausage I use... I bought it once (I think at Costco) and just loved it. It is SPICY and has some great flavor, as well as relatively few and natural ingredients. Then, I was sadly never able to find it again (which is one of the downfalls of falling in love with things that you find at Costco...). BUT, while on a month-long camping excursion this past winter, we found ourselves at a HEB grocery store in south Texas. AND THEY HAD IT! So I bought a bunch... and, thankfully, our little Casita trailer as a decent sized freezer!
PSA: At this point in my blog (ah.... the very first post), I can honestly say that NO ONE is paying me for endorsing anything. (Wouldn't that be amazing... if someone paid for my opinions! HA!) So if I post a link to a specific location or product, it's because I genuinely enjoy or prefer it. If you can't find that item or prefer something or somewhere else, hey - you do you!
But back to the recipe...
Starting with foil as your base, tear off a sizeable enough sheet to allow for filling on one side and then folding it over to pinch and close. I'd say that roughly 15" of foil will suffice, per pack. Then simply layer the items that need the most cooking on the bottom and those that need the least on the top. My layers go in this order: potatoes with onions (drizzled with garlic oil; spice optional), green beans, sausage, shrimp, spice.
TIP: Use heavy duty foil. Since these packs are placed directly on a grill or grate over the fire, it offers a bit more of a buffer. Plus, if you're cooking over a traditional campfire, you'll likely have to move them around a bit to get all the packs cooked evenly... heavy duty foil holds up better to prolonged poking with tongs!
ANOTHER TIP: If you have the ability to keep your shrimp frozen, do it! If you don't have a freezer available at camp, even a good cooler with plenty of ice may keep them mostly frozen for a few days so just give it a try. Shrimp, especially pre-cooked, need very little time to heat so leaving them frozen and placing them in the top layer of your pack generally avoids overdone or rubbery morsels. I HAVE made this recipe with thawed shrimp and it was still delicious. But people are typically AMAZED at how great the shrimp taste when you start them from frozen... extra points for wow-factors!
After assembling each pack and folding it closed, I label it with the owner's initials. Some don't want spicy sausage... others aren't fans of shrimp... some want a mix... FULLY CUSTOMIZABLE. And we keep a sharpie in our trailer for just these moments.
If there are remaining ingredients after making each individual camper's pack, I typically fill a few extra packs so there is plenty of food to go around. In Wisconsin, no one should walk away hungry!
Now get those packs on the fire! People are starving!
We had an extremely HOT bed of coals... our campfire had been burning or smoldering all-day. So we actually had to raise our grate higher to avoid burning (with some super-fancy, high tech logs on either side of the pit...). Practice makes perfect when cooking over a campfire and results will vary based on your coals, flame and placement. Rotate your packs on the grate to avoid hot and cold spots in your fire. I'd estimate that the packs will need to cook for 30 to 45 minutes but, after about 20 minutes, I generally pull a pack and check to see how the potatoes and green beans are progressing.
Be careful when unfolding... the escaping steam will be hot. When the potatoes are soft and everything else is hot and steaming, dinner is ready. Grab your paper plates, unfold, dump and enjoy!
Photo creds go to Nate's fancy iPhone and Cory's raw photography talent.
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