Notes on Hobo Dinners

Submitted by Lezlie Zollinger and Mallory Watkins

Hobo dinners, or tinfoil dinners, or packet dinners--whatever you want to call them--are classics in the camping community. They're easy to make and customize for picky eaters and easy to transport. Here are some tips:

Preparation:

It helps a lot to cook the meat and potatoes, carrots, or other root vegetables before hand. Then you simply pack it in the tinfoil and warm it up on the campfire. This cuts the time on the fire down to fifteen or twenty minutes rather than 45 minutes to an hour. Cooking beforehand also lessens your need for a nonstick spray.

Using a heavy-duty tinfoil. Place the shiny side inward and spray with a nonstick spray. (If you are using a meat such as ground beef, the nonstick spray isn't necessary.)

Use foil three times the width of the food. Fold sides up creasing foil at edge of food. Keeping edges together, make a 1/2-inch to 1-inch fold and crease. Fold 2-3 times leaving enough room for expansion and steaming during cooking. Smooth ends flat, make four small triangle folds on each end from edge of food to the edge of foil. Fold ends of foil in using 1/2-inch folds.

If cooking chicken, pound as thin as possible to reduce cooking time and ensure thorough cooking.

Recipes:

1. Oriental Chicken: Place 1 boneless, skinless chicken breast sliced in strips and 1 cup frozen vegetables in center of foil. Combine 2 T. soy sauce, some garlic, and a sprinkle of cayenne pepper and 1 T. brown sugar. Drizzle over chicken and vegetables. Wrap and cook well.

2. Ranch Chicken: Dip one boneless, skinless chicken breast in melted butter then in 1 packet Ranch dressing mixed with 3/4 c. corn flake crumbs and 3/4 c. grated Parmesan cheese. Place on foil. Add sliced strips summer squash and bell peppers. Wrap and cook well. Sprinkle with grated cheese just before serving. (Note: One packet of dressing mixed as above will coat 4-6 chicken breasts.)

3. Traditional Foil Dinner: Place thin hamburger patty in center of foil. Add thinly sliced carrots, potato cubes, and rings of onion, salt and pepper to taste. Wrap and cook well. Sprinkle with grated cheese just before serving.

4. Breakfast Nest: Prepare one thin sausage patty made from lean country sausage; place on foil. Add 3/4 to 1 cup frozen hash browns creating a nest in the center. Add one egg to the nest. Wrap and cook well. 

5. Orange Cupcakes or Muffins: Slice top off orange and scoop out the pulp, leaving the rind intact. (Eat pulp. Yum!) Prepare cake of muffin mix. Fill orange hollow 3/4 full with mix. Wrap in foil. Cook until muffin mix has risen and "baked" through.

6. Baked Apple: Slice apple in half and remove core. (You can also remove core with a corer and leave the apple round.) Place 1 T. brown sugar in hollow, sprinkle with cinnamon and dot with butter. Wrap and "bake" until apple is soft and filling has melted.

Campfire Tips:

Ideally, we would cook on coals, not exactly on campfires. With kids, sometimes we don't get to wait that long, but this is how to get perfect cooking coals: 

Build a medium to large campfire (depending on how many hobo dinners you plan on cooking at once). Try to only build it once and avoid feeding it for very long. Allow the fire to burn down naturally until the logs are no more than coals. Depending on the size of the fire, and how long you keep feeding it, this can more than an hour, so plan on starting your fire a while before you plan on cooking your meals. (This is why I cook mine at home and heat them up in the fire.) While the coals are still white hot, gently use a poker to move them around; you want them laying mostly flat and even. Lay the packets among the coals and use a set of tongs to place hot coals on the tops to cook evenly.