Pocket Ranger™

3 Cleaned Russet Potatoes

4 Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts

4 Slices of Bacon (cut in half)

Sliced multicolored peppers

sliced onions

garlic

assorment of fresh herbs (rosemary and basil work well)

Overlap two peices of aluminum foil four times. (Enough for four packets) Place two pieces of bacon in the center of each foil square. Thinly slice the potatoes and layer on top of the bacon. Add the chicken on top of the potatoes and layer in the herbs, peppers and onions. Season with salt and pepper. Fold contents of each packet in the aluminum foil tightly then wrap again with the second piece of foil. Place the packets over hot coals and cook for about twenty minutes. Remove packets from the fire, carefully open packets and serve a quick easy camp fire meal.

An easy one-pan recipe that will charm your friends and family

Ingredients

1  (3.5-4 lb) boneless beef brisket, trimmed

3 tablespoons olive oil

2 large white or yellow onions, one inch dice

One (16 oz.) can of Irish stout, such as Guinness or Murphy’s

1 cup of a favorite BBQ sauce

2 tablespoons cider vinegar

Salt and pepper to taste

Directions

Preheat grill

Place oil and onions into a roasting pan

Place pan onto direct heat, stirring occasionally until onions are golden, about 10 minutes

While onions are roasting, rub the brisket with oil, salt, and pepper

Place brisket directly on grill over direct heat to sear, about 4 minutes on each side

Remove pan with onions from the grill, add Irish stout, BBQ sauce, and cider vinegar, and stir to combine

Add seared brisket to onion mixture, spoon liquid over brisket, and cover pan with heavy foil

Place covered pan on indirect heat, close grill top, and cook until meat is very tender, about 3 to 3.5 hours; grill temperature should be about 350 degrees

When meat is tender, remove brisket and set aside to rest for 15 minutes

While meat is resting, cook onion mixture down into a thicker sauce over direct heat, stirring frequently, 10-15 minutes

Cut brisket against the grain, and serve with sauce (and an Irish stout, if you like!)

This recipe is made with a camping dutch oven that has a lip on top to hold coals.

2 cans blueberry fruit pie filling (or whatever you please)
1 white cake mix
1- 12 oz can of sprite

Pour pie filling into bottom of dutch oven. Mix cake mix with sprite and pour on top.  Batter will be lumpy.

Bake with 20 hot coals on top and 10 on the bottom until golden brown. Serve hot. Top with vanilla ice cream if desired.

This is an easy recipe that goes well with any kind of meat.

Ingredients:

4 potatoes (skin on), Real butter, white onion (sliced)

optional:

Bacon bits, chives, chili powder, garlic powder

wash potatoes and cut in half length wise, score the inside of the potatoe with a knife, spread butter in both halves of potatoe, place onion and any other extra item you may want to add between the two slices of potatoe, wrap stuffed potatoe thightly in heavy duty foil. Place wrapped potato in fire where there are lots of hot coals, roast for about 45-60 min, turning often.

When it comes to camping, s’mores are as ubiquitous as bears, unidentified noises, difficult-to-pitch tents—you get the point. S’mores are definite campfire staples. While we love the graham cracker, Hershey’s chocolate and marshmallow combination, it’s time our palates experience something new. So we’ve scoured the Internet, interviewed campers and done everything short of breaking out our old Girls Scouts uniform for a chance at one more troupe camping trip to bring you a list of inventive s’mores recipes for your next outdoor outing. Some have been adapted from fancy celebrity chefs while others were simply happy accidents.

Have you sampled any of our suggestions? Tell us which is your favorite!

S’mores a la Italiana:

Nutella is to Italians what peanut butter is to Americans. This creamy, chocolate hazelnut spread is said to boast tons of nutrients and vitamins, and be a super-healthy breakfast alternative for kids, all of which is great news but hardly why we hoard this nonperishable item every time we camp. Nutella is absolutely delicious.

Swap the Hershey’s for Nutella, lightly toast the marshmallow so as not to melt the spread into a gooey mess when assembling. Here: Food Network chef Giada De Laurentiis opts for crusty Italian bread instead of crackers, but we’ve found both to work well. 

Elvis S’mores

Speaking of peanut butter, Elvis s’mores combine two of our favorite ingredients—peanut butter and chocolate—for a gut-busting rendition. Spread a generous layer of peanut butter on the graham cracker, top with a piece of Hershey’s chocolate and sliced banana. Though The King favored bacon on his, we prefer to keep ours vegetarian. Swap the chocolate and peanut butter for a peanut butter cup (as seen here) for a quicker treat. 

Black & White S’mores

Adding Oreos to just about anything is bound to make it taste better. Our suggestions? Crumble up a few cookies and add them to your favorite s’mores just before assembling. In keeping with the black and white, you may also want to opt for white chocolate instead, which we’ve found to be a better tasting alternative to milk chocolate in this recipe.

                    

Caramel S’mores

Throw your preconceived notions of what s’mores should be out the RV window. Now that you’ve done that, you’re free to indulge in a decadent caramel concoction that faintly resembles s’mores. For this you’ll need two cookies of your choosing (we like this version made using peanut butter cookies), pile with dark chocolate, drizzle with caramel (you may also melt caramel squares over a campfire) and top with a toasted marshmallow.

Assemble, eat, repeat! 

This is a keeper campground recipe for our family — it even works when small car camping or deep back country camping dictates minimal gear & cooler ingredients.

MUST HAVE INGREDIENTS:
1) Foil squares
2) Fire
3) Food (even bagged jerky & canned corn works)

OPTIONAL BUT TASTY INGREDIENTS:
4) Corn
5) Potatoes (diced)
6) Onions (chopped tiny)
7) Peppers (small)
8) Seasoning: Steak, blackening, soul or cajun seasoning (like Tony’s) or Season-all (like Spike or poultry)
9) Beans, sausage, jerky or canned fish (your choice)
10) Butter or oil (this is optional if your meat provides oil)

In a foil packet, arrange your choice of these ingredients (Protein choice + Veggies + Starch + Fat). Sprinkle with seasoning. Roll up foil packet and place around fire edge/in ring. Watch it so it cooks and doesn’t burn. Depending on how large you cut your potato pieces, it will take 30 minutes to one hour to cook. Unpeel your packet and YUM! Instant camp breakfast, lunch or dinner! And you even have an easy to clean-up & pack-out “dish.” Choose your favorite ingredients and go. (By the way, I taught my husband this foil recipe when we were dating — he was just eating way too much frozen pizza and he loved it do much he started making frozen chicken breasts with veggies for his mom and sister when they visited. They were do impressed. Same foil formula: (chicken breast+starch+veggie+fat) and cook at 400 degrees for 45 minutes to one hour. Outside in the campfire, the chicken will cook fast or slow depending on your fire so be sure to check the meat for complete “done-ness” before eating. Chicken should not be pink, so be sure to cook it through and even better, if you can cut it into chunks so the individual pieces cook through with the veggie, fat and starch juices. Enjoy!

      
From jewelry to camping equipment, diamonds are everywhere these days—and no, we’re not referring to glamping or blinged out sleeping bags. The precious metal is turning up in our pick for cool gear courtesy of The Cave tent. Crafted by Heimplanet, The Cave’s design takes a cue from the molecular structure of a diamond to offer maximum stability and durability outdoors. Its shape allows for seating of up to six people, can comfortably sleep three and pitches just as easily and quickly as an exhausted camper post-hike. (The tent is in fact inflatable, and literally comes together in seconds with the help of a handheld pump.) If you’re still too tired to disassemble, the tent deflates and rolls back for easy storage. Though we wouldn’t necessary go as far as agreeing with Heimplanet’s claims of The Cave being “intuitive,” we would definitely consider splurging (practicality isn’t cheap!) on a no-fuss durable tent such as this one.

What do you look for in a tent?

When it comes to a filling, portable snack, few things beat a savory granola bar. But with hundreds of options on the market, picking the right bar isn’t always easy. Do you opt for chewy or crunchy? Is all natural, organic healthier than a raw, gluten-free bar? How much sugar is too much sugar? When deciding on the ideal granola bar becomes too overwhelming a task, we opt keep it simple by making our own. Below is a granola bar recipe you can make ahead of time and pack for everything from a vigorous hike to a weekend camping trip. Feel free to swap ingredients for other dried fruit or nuts. 

Do you have a favorite granola bar recipe? Enter it here! 

Chances are that rumbling you hear out on the trail isn’t a rockslide or even a babbling brook, but the beastly growl of an empty stomach in need of fuel. We’ve whipped up some wilderness-worthy trail mix recipes to overcome hunger as you set out to conquer trails.

 For the full sensory experience we’ve prepared a different kind of trail mix. This 10-track playlist is perfect for solo hikes or group treks and is made of only the finest ingredients for your listening pleasure. 

Have a recipe for trail mix you’d like to share? Enter it in Pocket Ranger’s Summer Recipe Contest for a chance to win a slew of cool prizes!