If you are going camping this weekend or sometime soon and you happen to be near a Trader Joe’s, as I happily happen to find myself again, then you might like to discover, as I have, that you can get several days’ worth of relatively easy and healthy camping meals in one quick stop.
Cooking on a camp stove is of course different from being in my kitchen, which I love and miss, but I think I have finally settled into sort of a happy compromise between what I am used to and what is possible for an entire summer of camping.
Still, Trader Joe’s has made some of those compromises much easier. For example, letting the children roast hot dogs over the fire once a week is much easier to do when I am buying all beef nitrate free Trader Joe’s hot dogs, Trader Joe’s whole wheat hot dog buns and Trader Joe’s organic ketchup.
So the routine is that I usually roll up to a Trader Joe’s after we’ve set up in a new town and have pretty much used up all our groceries. It seems like it is usually in the afternoon. And the kids have to help or wait in the car. For their trouble, we usually get a box of dark chocolate ice cream bars or ice cream sandwiches made with two chocolate chip cookies. Both of these novelties come in boxes of four and are a deal at $1.99 when you consider that everyone is begging to go to the Cold Stone next door which would cost us our dinner.
So after the ice cream, we have…
Dinner:
2 packages frozen gyoza (they come in pork, chicken, shrimp and vegetable)
1 bottle gyoza dipping sauce
2 packages prepared sushi
1 box organic ginger snaps
I fry the gyoza in a couple of tablespoons of oil in my cast iron skillet on the camp stove. Dinner is served.
Breakfast:
Coffee
1 package whole wheat bagels, sliced and toasted on the griddle
Organic cream cheese
Angelcots (a rare apricot in season right now that my kids are gobbling)
Apple Cereal Bars
Greek Style Yogurt (We LOVE this stuff. It is so creamy. And we love all the flavors, which include honey, fig, strawberry, apricot-mango, pomegranate and blueberry.)
Lunch:
Baguette
Cheese (goat cheese brie and sharp cheddar)
Raspberries
Fuji Apples
Sesame Pita Chips and Dip (We alternate between hummus and cilantro-yogurt dip)
Snacks:
Bananas
Cherry tomatoes
Organic animal crackers
Dinner:
Whole Wheat Organic Penne Pasta
Organic Marinara Pasta Sauce
1 package fully cooked meatballs
Packaged Caesar Salad or Spinach Salad
Charles Shaw Shiraz
Breakfast:
Coffee
Whole Wheat Buttermilk Pancakes with Chocolate Chips
Maple Syrup
Lunch:
Whole Wheat Crackers
Blueberries and Cherries
Cheese
Whole wheat pita pockets with Tuna Salad (made with white chunk tuna, organic mayonnaise and hard boiled eggs)
Snacks:
Flax seed tortilla chips and salsa
Roasted almonds
Any number of trail mixes
Dinner:
Various Canned Soups for the kids: the boys pick chicken noodle, Mary Polly picks an Udon Noodle bowl
Instant Indian Food (curried lentils) and whole wheat tandoori for Taido and me
OR
Hot Dogs for the kids and Cilantro Chicken Sausages for Taido and me, which I save half of for my eggs in the morning.
Random red table wine
Dark Chocolate, Cinnamon Graham Crackers and Homemade Style Marshmallows
Breakfast:
Eggs, Bacon (nitrate free) and Skillet Potatoes
Eat lunch out (Baja Fresh, anyone?) and then go back to Trader Joe’s again….everything listed is Trader Joe’s own brand right down to the marshmallows.
We love love love the TJ’s marshmellows!!! We also love the vegetarian potato stir fry mix –frozen. I need a TJ’s run bad!! Jacob is really wishing for Ben. He said” Ben would understand the way I play and read. “
trader joe’s should be paying you in groceries for this advert… i had to google some of this stuff! i will tell you that one of my all time favorite snax is ginger snaps with strawberry cream cheese. YUM!
I am totally with you on the gyoza’s, we love the veggie ones and I use the Island Soy Vay marinade sauce to dip them in.
The mini mint oreo ice cream sandwiches are also yummy, not as yummy as the chocolate chip cookie ones, but still good.
gy-o-whats?
I love that you treat your kids after grocery shopping…we do the same here, but they have to go for an hour inside the store. Sounds like you are having a great time, one your family will never forget.
[…] HERE at the ol’ Chino House. We spent SO much time at Trader Joe’s this summer on our big camping trip that the kids totally GET all the little jokes in this song. They watched me drink like 80 tiny […]