Can I just tell you all how excited I am about our 2 weeks of Summer Camp?!? Like Amanda, I always loved summer camp, and these two weeks are taking me way back!  Don’t be surprised if I break out into old camp songs… My kids and poor hubby are already inundated with the old tunes.

The first thing I knew I wanted to make were hobo meals!  When I came home from camp, I always had mom and dad make these for us – I loved the way the flavors melded together in the little foil packets of goodness.  So here’s what you’ll need:

• ground meat (beef or turkey)
• carrots
• potatoes
• onions
• any other veggies that would roast well (mmm, broccoli! asparagus!)
• salt and pepper
• butter
• cheese (optional)
• aluminum foil

Cut the potatoes and carrots into bite-sized pieces, and slice the onions up however you like them!  I left them kind of big so I could pick them off the kids packets in case they didn’t like them.  Make a 3-4 oz. patty with your ground meat and place in the middle of a piece of aluminum foil, and salt and pepper the meat patty a bit.  Line up your ingredients and then let your kids add the veggies to their own packets…

Notice the only things in Elias’s packet are meat, carrots and cheese.  He decided he didn’t like potatoes – but that’s OK, because he ate everything he put in it!

This is what a real hobo meal should look like – pile the veggies high, add cheese if desired, put a pat or two of butter on top and sprinkle with more salt and pepper.

Wrap the aluminum foil up around the food, folding at the ends, and let your 4 year old “write” each person’s name on the top of their packet.  If you are adding this to a real campfire or a fire pit out back, wrap your packets with 2 layers of foil.

Bake in your oven at 350 degrees for 45-60 minutes (ours only took 45 minutes), or grill or place on a campfire for 15-30 minutes, flipping once. Open your foil packet, and you can eat right out of the packet – no need for cleaning plates!  I have no “after” pictures for you, because the after shots looked a lot like the before shot… but I can tell you that these things are delicious!  The boys each ate everything that they put in their own packets, and I scarfed mine up quickly, too!  We will be having these again soon.

What were/are your favorite camping meals (besides the s’mores, of course!)?

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Welcome campers! Today begins 2 weeks of the best (at least we think so) camp crafts and activities for you and your kids to try—AT HOME. I have always loved summer camp and cannot wait until my kids are old enough to experience s’mores, cabins, camp crafts and just hanging out in God’s creation! So, I decided, I’m not gonna wait! I’ve taken some of my favorite elements of summer camp and introducing it to my kids right now. Each day for the next 2 weeks, we’re going to share camp crafts, activities and even books all with a wonderful campy feel to them!

Today we’ll start off with a bang! The very best and most camp-y thing of all: S’MORES. My favorite way to make a s’more is by lighting the marshmallow on fire, letting it burn and expand, then blowing it out and smashing the newly blackened marshmallow in between the chocolate and graham crackers. YUM.

A few years ago I read about this cool s’mores experiment and have kept it in the back of my head because I was determined to try it. The idea? S’mores baked by the sun…or as Family Fun calls it, Solar S’mores. We had a camp playdate for some of Lydia’s friends last week to try them out!

All you need is a shallow box with a flip-up lid. A pizza box would work well. I used a shipping box. The first step is to cut a new flap on the top…about 1-2 inches around the inside edge.

Once your new flap is open, spread glue all around & cover with tinfoil.

Try not to get any creases or wrinkles in the tinfoil. You want it to be as smooth as possible. This is our main reflector.

Next, layer more tinfoil in the bottom. Then cover with black paper. (I didn’t glue or tape any of this.)

The last step is the hardest: find some thick plastic like a plastic sheet protector. (Mine was from an old scrapbook…that I never ever finished.) Tape this onto your new opening–make sure to use clear packing tape to seal it on nice and tight.

And the yummy part: layer the s’mores inside!

Finally, send the kids out for a giant stick. You’ll need this to prop up your sun-reflecting top!

It’s time to sit back and relax for about an HOUR!

The result: Well, we didn’t have direct sun. So, after about an hour and a half we opened up the box and the marshmallows were soft. Not melted. Not roasted. Just soft. Kinda the same feeling as if you left them in the car for an hour or so.

I think if you put them in blazing hot sun, directly pointing onto your marshmallows and maybe even sealed the entire box with tape, you’d get a little more “greenhouse effect” going on and they’d melt quicker.

So, we threw them in the oven to broil for about 14 seconds and they browned up quite nice!

The kids were our final judges. And they were pretty happy with them:

How do you eat a s’more?

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I get so bored with lunches. I always want to do something fun and yummy. Alas, when 12:00 rolls around I find myself staring at the pantry wondering what to cook. I just have a hard time wanting to dig out all sorts of cooking utensils knowing that I will be pulling them all out again in a couple hours to make dinner!

A while ago I heard about muffin tin lunches! It’s the most fun lunch idea ever. You grab a muffin tin and fill it with food creating a super creative lunch for your kids. Michelle from the Muffin Tin Mom.com hosts Muffin Tin Monday every week and you can add your own creative Muffin Tin to the linky.

Sometimes there are amazing themes like this week’s Seeds Plants & Flowers theme…

photo by Muffin Tin Mom

Or educational like this ABC & 123 theme…

(see it? Apples, Bananas, Carrots…the number 1, 2 oranges, 3 sided triangle tortillas…)

And I love this interactive one that Vanessa did…

Usually my muffin tin meals end up being leftovers. I fill it with last night’s spaghetti, coupled with a few pretzels and the remains of our cut up cantaloupe. Sometimes I try to find matching colors at least—the top row of red taco meat, strawberries and leftover spaghetti and the bottom row of pineapple, hummus and tortillas…it’s red and yellow, get it? Ah well, it doesn’t matter. The kids love it for the sheer novelty!

Today we had a last minute picnic outside and I grabbed whatever I could to make a decent meal. It ended up being homemade spelt biscuits, pretzels, leftover tuna pasta salad, bananas and homemade granola. I had planned to just eat out of the containers. Lydia, however, wanted to make her own version of a muffin tin meal and spread her napkin out all the way–then placed each different food in their own little squares! And yes, she ate it all up!

So, next time you’re struggling for a lunch idea, pull out that muffin tin! And tell me, how do YOU make lunch fun?