Elsewhere on this web site there's a big ebook with over 100 camping and outdoor recipes. Check it out!

Here are some favourite recipes of my Unit.

Breakfast

Pancakes

We're lazy with this one - we usually buy the ready-made pancake mixes and add water. One bottle makes sufficient pancakes for a patrol. One of our Patrol Leaders surprised me recently when she did an internet search for pancake recipes, and did breakfast from scratch at camp!

Toasted cheese sandwiches

Ingredients

• Two slices of bread per sandwich
• Grated cheese (we like Tasty)
• Butter

Method

1. Spread butter on one side of each slice of bread. (We found that sometimes the butter doesn't want to spread, in which case we put a dab of butter on the bread, and placed the bread butter-side down on the hot frying pan, then moved the bread around a little bit, which spread the butter nicely.)
2. Sprinkle grated cheese on top of one piece of bread.
3. Place the second piece of buttered bread on top of the cheese.
4. Cook each side until golden brown.
5. Add finely chopped ham for tase if you like.

Lunch

Hot dogs

Ingredients

• Frankfurt sausages
• Hot dog rolls (the long ones)
• Butter
• tomato sauce
• Milk carton per person

Method

1. Make up the hot dog (put a frankfurt inside the bun, buttered or not).
2. Wrap the hot dog in foil.
3. Place it in a milk carton.
4. Set light to the carton. When the carton has completely burned, the hog dog should be hot.
5. Remove from foil, add tomato sauce to taste.

NB Don't use ordinary sausages in this recipe - the meat must be cooked before it's put in the milk carton, which is why we use frankfurts.

Alternatively, cook the frankfurts in a large dixie on the fire. When they are ready, organise a chow line where everyone lines up, takes an already-prepared hot dog bun, and proceeds to the server who will take out of the dixie a frankfurt and place it on the hot dog roll. Have the tomato sauce at the end of the line.

We do this for the last lunch at camp - it saves on washing up in the (usually) frantic activity of striking camp, because you only have to wash the dixie, not plates.

Beverages

Hot Milo

1. Heat water to required temperature for the drink.

2. Line up your campers, each with her own mug.

3. Organise three serving people.

4. Each camper receives in her mug hot water (server 1), condensed milk (server 2) and Milo (server 3) to taste.

Yum!

Also saves having to wash up a milk-covered dixie!

Snacks

Scroggin

Ingredients

Sultanas
Chocolate (we use Choc Drops or Maltesers)
Raisins (or sultanas, in a pinch)
Orange peel (candied)
Ginger (crystallised)
Glucose (barley sugars or the like)
Imagination
Nuts (any kind - be careful of nut allergies in your group. If the nuts are salted, they provide the most wonderful mixture of sweet and salty tastes in the scroggin, but some people don't like this)

Method
Mix together chocolate, raisins and nuts in about equal amounts, add whatever extras you like (in lesser amounts) and nibble at it when you need an energy boost on walks.

Note: The name comes from the first initials of the traditional ingredients - but don't let that stop you leaving out things you don't like and using the "I" for imagination to add in things you do like. Some of the other extras we add are dried apricots, dried apples, banana chips, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds. Make sure you keep a balance of chocolate, nuts and dried fruit in it though - too many sweets and it's a lolly mix, not a scroggin.

Origin of this recipe: It's a New Zealand tramping tradition.

How to serve

There are two ways of serving scroggin - the healthy way, and the not so hygienic way. We use these methods so that people don't pick out their favourites before everyone gets a chance.

Serving Method 1

Using a small cup, scoop out each serving and put them into individual ziplock bags. Each person gets one bag - LABEL IT!

Serving Method 1a

Same method, but put enough into the ziplock bags for each patrol.

Serving Method 2

Tell people NO PICKING! Put the scroggin into a large dixie or bowl. Tell the people to close their eyes and grab. Whatever they get, they eat.

The ingredients were found at http://www.azmetro.com/nzrecipe.html#scroggin

Hints from our experience

Scroggin is NOT a collection of sweets! When buying ingredients for scroggin, don't buy a kilo of sultanas! 200 g is plenty!

Usually I put scroggin ingredients on the camp kitlist, and assign each camper to bring a particular ingredient (hence the comment above about quantities).

Scroggic (my own invention)

When a Guide with a severe nut allergy joined my Unit, I had a choice: to stop having scroggin at camp, or to adapt it to suit the girl with the allergy. I chose not to penalise the girl for something she has no control over, so I invented SCROGGIC.

Scroggic is the same as Scroggin, but with no nuts in it.

Warning: It is very difficult these days to find this type of snack that has not been manufactured on machinery that processes nut products, or that has traces of nuts. Check with the girl's family if in doubt!

Sultanas
Chocolate - be careful here - most chocolate seems to be produced on suspect machinery
Raisins
Orange peel - at our last camp, we ended up with some items in an O-shape, which meant that we didn't use orange peel
Ginger (crystallised)
Glucose (barley sugars, jelly beans or the like)
Imagination
Cheezels

You could substitute Nutrigrain for the nuts, but that would still make it Scroggin, and I wanted my allergic girl to know that the snack was safe for her to eat, and therefore chose cheezels instead, which makes it sufficiently differently named.

Method of mixing and serving as for Scroggin.

Dinner

Pocket pizzas - we LOVE this!

Ingredients

Method

Cut each pita in half (that is, split it open, not cut it into a half circle).

Spread the tomato sauce inside.

Add cheese, ham, and other toppings.

Wrap in foil and place in coals.

Cook for one or two minutes, flip, and cook another minute or two.

If everyone makes the same, it's not a problem if you pick up someone else's. If different people make different pizzas, either note where you put yours in the coals, or make a special fold in the foil, or use some other marker.