Prepping food at home and freezing it in baggies takes up less space in the cooler for camping.  Things stay colder longer this way. (Here’s hoping they thaw out in time for cooking. I’ll let you know on that one.) Even if you aren’t planning a camping trip, these recipes can easily be cooked in a regular kitchen and make rushed mornings that much easier.

Today is just about breakfast.  Tomorrow we’ll talk about dinner and then desserts :).  All of these recipes are good feed our family of 8.

Quick tip: Be sure to label your bags with a sharpee.  A few weeks later pancake batter and frozen smoothie can look kind of similar.

Breakfast Recipes

Pancakes

3 cups flour

1 Tbs sugar or stevia blend

1 Tbs baking powder (or 1 tsp baking soda plus 1/4 tsp cream of tartar.)

3 eggs

3 Tbs oil

3 cups milk

Blend all ingredients together and process for 1 minute.  Pour into a gallon freezer baggie and squeeze out the air.  Lay the bag flat smooshing all the batter into an even layer and place it on a cookie sheet or tray to freeze it flat.

To cook, thaw the batter.  Then snip off a lower corner of the bag and use it to pipe the batter into a hot skillet.  (I’m going to test this method on my protein pancake batter and let you know how it freezes.) If you don’t want to use a blender, you could also just dump the ingredients in the bag and smoosh it around. It won’t be as smooth, but it will be ok.

Hash Brown and Egg Casserole

1 lb frozen hash browns (Raw potatoes don’t freeze well, so if you want a homemade substitute, cube leftover baked potatoes. For a low carb substitute, try frozen cauliflower bits or diced radishes.)

1 lb bulk sausage, browned and drained

1 cup diced onion

1 cup diced bell pepper (I like the baby bell peppers because of the pretty colors.)

1 cup sliced mushrooms

1 cup shredded cheese

8 beaten eggs

1 cup plain yogurt or sour cream

2 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp black pepper

Beat yogurt or sour cream and salt and pepper into eggs.  Pour into a gallon baggie and add remaining ingredients. smoosh around until well blended.  Seal well, removing all air. Lay flat and freeze on a tray to keep it flat. To bake, pour thawed casserole into a dutch oven.  Use this handy guide to decide how and where to place your coals: http://www.dutchovendude.com/campfire-cooking.shtml Bake at 350 for about an hour.  You’ll need around 24 hot briquetts, 6 underneath and 18 on the lid.

This casserole can be made without all vegetables (but why?!) To make it dairy free, 1/2 as much plain almond milk can be subbed for the yogurt and the cheese can be left out or replaced with Daiya cheese.  I’m slightly milk sensitive, but found Daiya cheese (cheddar variety) to be pretty gross and would rather just skip it.

Apple Muffins

¾ C milk

½ C applesauce (or oil)

1 egg

2 C flour

½ C sugar

3 t baking powder

1 t salt

½ t cinnamon

1 med apple, pared and chopped

Mix everything together in the gallon baggie, then freeze flat.  To bake, snip off a corner and pipe into a seasoned cast iron muffin tin OR fill hollowed out orange skin halves 2/3 full with batter. Wrap loosely with aluminum foil (to give room for rising batter.) Nestle down into the hot coals (right side up!) and bake for about 1o minutes.  Any muffin batter can be baked this way.  Imagine chocolate in an orange. (If you compare recipes, the difference between a muffin and a cupcake are minimal….)

Omelets

Use a quart sized freezer bag for each person.  Crack in 2 eggs then add whatever you like:  spinach, onions, peppers, mushrooms, tomatoes, ham, bacon, sausage, cheese etc.  Mush it all around, then freeze.  To cook, drop the bags in a large kettle (or dutch oven) of boiling water.  Boil for 8 minutes.  Only put in enough bags that can float freely (you don’t want them resting on the bottom of the pot.)

Smoothies

Blend up your favorite smoothie ingredients, then freeze flat in a freezer bag.  Thaw until slushy, cut off a corner and pipe into drinking glasses.

Portable Yogurt

Fill snack size baggies with a half cup of flavored yogurt.  Fold over and tape the zipper seal to the side and freeze firm. Snip off the end and push up to eat. Credit

Quick Oatmeal

This doesn’t need to be frozen, but goes in a baggie….so here you go.  Add 1/3 cup quick oats; 1 Tbs sweetener (brown sugar, coconut sugar, or xylitol etc….); 2 Tbs dried fruit; and 1/4 tsp of flavor (Cinnamon, nutmeg etc.)  Other flavor options: 1 Tbs chopped nuts; 1 Tbs mini chocolate chips;  1 Tbs peanut flour; 1 tsp flax meal; 1 tsp chia seeds; 1 Tbs cocoa powder; 1 Tbs dry milk; scraped vanilla bean.  To prepare, pour contents of the bag into a mug.  Add 2/3-3/4 cup of boiling water and let stand for 5 minutes.

Just for fun, let’s clear up some confusion about the different types of oatmeal.

1. Whole Oat Groats: look similar to wheat berries and are the hulled seeds of the oat plan. Since the seed is intact, there is no danger of oils going rancid. These take a long time to cook.

2. Steel cut oats: Whole oats that have been chopped into pieces for faster cooking.

3. Old-fashioned rolled oats: Whole oat Groats that have been rolled on a press. Oats can be thick rolled if the setting is changed on the roller.

3. Quick Oats: Rolled oats that have been chopped into smaller pieces for faster cooking. Nutritionally no different than Old-Fashioned roll oats.

4. Instant Oats: Quick oats that have been steamed and re-dried for faster cooking.  There is likely some nutrition loss in the heat process, but instant oat’s bad reputation mostly comes from the sugary additions in the prepackaged individual serving variety that make it so yummy.  By packaging up your own flavors you can control the quality of the ingredients and nutrition profile.