Hello Campers,
Campsites are booked. Kutchvalley-event mailing list is set with confirmed & expected campers. Next awaited & usually most important (sometime more difficult to decide then campsite location also 😉 ) item in queue for KV camping preparation is FOOD.
Let’s open up discussion for this years camping menu. 🙂
For two night camping we have 4 meals & 2 breakfast to take care. Some of the things to consider will be ….
– less time spent in food preparation & more time in fun activities
– High temperature in central valley
– In past we have taken one meal prepared from home like Pav Bhaji or Usal. Most of us going for two nights, leaving on Friday evening this could become unfeasible. Unless we come up with creative alternative.
– We can order food like thepla from outside.
Here are some options –
- Friday Dinner – Take care of your own dinner
- Sat/Sun Breakfast – Cereal, Bagel\Cream Cheese, Bread\Croissants\butter\Jam, Gifts\home roasted Upma prepared on site.
- Sat Lunch/Dinner – Sandwich, Taco, Burger using frozen Pattie, Thepla/Mango Raas/Yogurt, Tortilla/Curry, Sabudana Khichadi, Bhel, Tin Soup
- Sun Lunch – All Sat options, Go out some place on the way home, Take care of your own lunch
Of course, other standard snacks items like Fruit, chips will be there.
Please start rolling your suggestions/preferences/ideas here
How about these choices
1) Garden Veggie Burger for lunch we have a small portable grill we can get that..i guess at a time we can do abt 7-8 patties(not used it yet)…sure some other folks may also be having so 2-3 grills should be good
2)Taco for dinner/lunch..the way we did last time
3)Sandwich and tin soup for one meal
Due to heat chances of some food items spoiling could be high
Here are my choices:
1) Friday Dinner: Get your own.
2) Sat Bfast: Bread, Jam, Bagels, Croissants, Fruits.
2) Sat Lunch : Thepalas. (Thepalas are very attractive for a huge group because they dont occupy much space). We can have mango ras cans just like 2 years back. + curd and choondo of course.
3) Sat Dinner: ?? (Tacos or Burgers seem fine).
Should we even consider Pav Bhaji (brought by people who are coming on second day).
4) Sun Bfast : Same as Sat
5) Sun Lunch: Not sure how long will people stay on Sunday. There is a cafe onsite also which we can inquire about. Otherwise we can have a heavy breakfast and then skip the lunch or have something on the way back. If we are skipping Sunday lunch we can think of Upma or more fruits for Sun breakfast.
In fact we can order some more thepalas to go with Sun breakfast also. Yummy. Thepala and Chai. 🙂
1) Burger pattie can be prepared over tava on burner instead of grill. So one less item carry & clean
2) Instead of having Bread, Bagel, Croissant all 3 in same breakfast. We can have Bread & Croissant for one breakfast & Bagel for another one or something like that.
Yeah we could have thepla for Sunday Brunch, Thepla Chai and Indian Snacks
I guess getting Pav Bhaji would be time consuming as getting up early making it and leaving early to reach campsite early would be little hectic
Instead mango ras….. how about Shrikhand this time…….
How come no one wants to discuss food?
Burgers is a good idea too but may require extra cooler storage. Pav bhaji can be made on Friday or also can be ordered from outside and can be brought by people who come on Sat. Second camping trip had fajita’s i think – i wasn’t there so maybe those who went can comment about it.
Few more thoughts –
1. Frozen paratha’s from Indian store
2. Instead of normal sandwich, sandwich in pita alongwith hummus etc.
3. Can also carry readymade packets of tabouleh, couscous etc. Though have never tried them myself.
To me Theplas, Tacos and tin soup+sandwich sounds just perfect 🙂
Based on last year’s camping I guess we will have two breakfasts, two lunches and one dinner.We can add Indian naastas at breakfast.
I would go with Thepalas or parathas at lunch, Pav Bhaji or Tacos at dinner. Fajita we need to cut vegetables I don’t mind, but time consuming. Sunday lunch would be regular sandwich because by that time we won’t be at our camp site for grill or warm up foods…….or we can eat at restaurant. Sounds good to me……
One of the menu can be “Cool Cucumber Yogurt Rice”(south Indian style). Requires less time to prepare. Curd can be added later when time to eat. Good for summer hot days. Can be enjoyed by both jains and non-jains.
Bhel puri can be an option too. We can substitute baked pita chips for puri.. I have been using the one available at Costco and it tastes great.
Onions, potatoes, tomatoes, green chutney etc. can be used for sandwich as well so less # of things to worry about.
As per me Since Bhelpuri is not very filling, Bhel-puri is an option only for Sunday Lunch. Just like Jaina convention where they had given to-go bags of sukha bhel to people on the last day. We can do the same. 🙂 Can check with Hemprabha aunty or other caterers.
Also Indian nashta + some american nashta on Sunday bfast sounds great.
Gentlemen and Ladies:
Here are my choices + views:
1) Friday Dinner: Get your own or Thepalas + Choondo
2) Sat BF: Thepalas + Chai/Coffee
3) Sat Lunch : Thepalas + curd + choondo
4) Sat Dinner: Thepalas + Peanut chutney/curd/choondo+Mango ras
4) Sun Bfast : Go to step 2.
5) Sun Lunch: Step 3 or Step 4
This way there is more time for fun activities (medavo, patta, games, water activities, antakshari, dumb charades and more medavo…) and less time spent on “preparing” (BF/lunch/dinner/BF/lunch.
With around 40+ campers preparing time for each course can be a staggering number….Like to hear other choices that need practically zero or close to zero preparation time.
For Theplas we can try these garlic fries that we get in Costco…can we warmed and used like potatoe veggie tastes good
Looks like Nilesh has no exit statement from Thepla Loop
While (Thepla)
Eat;
EndLoop
Sneha need more explanation on garlic fries. I did not get it. Are you saying that it can be used as sabji with thepla???
Yeah could be used as potato vegetable
My choices would be:
Fri dinner: on your own (as people may arrive late).
Sat BF: Cereal, bagel, etc.
Sat Lunch: Sandwich / Burger (does not require much cooking. Only cutting).
Sat Dinner: Taco or Bhel (again not much cooking).
Sun BF: Cereal, bagel etc.
Sun Lunch: Thepla, Yogurt, pickle (No cooking at all. Just open the packs).
Menu sounds good to me. This will be our 1st time for camping. I was wondering how do you store milk and other frozen foods? Do you get ice there?
I guess, with Burgers or Sandwiches ther will be too much of bread item to consume, as we are counting Bagel’s , croissants..for breakfast…
Skipping burgers & sandwiches will also save time from cutting vegetables, as it will take long time to cut for so many people, & will also be free from carrying so many vegetables & grill’s & stuff
My choice would be-
Friday Dinner : Get your own
Saturday Bf : bagel / Crossiant/ fruits/ cereals/ tea/ juices
Saturday Lunch : Thepla/Subji/Mango Ras-srikhand
(Can order Subji from outside & any one coming on Saturday morning can pick it)
Saturday Dinner :Tacos
Sunday Bf : Thepla-Chundo /Bagel / Croissant/ fruits/ cereals/ tea/ juices..
Sunday Lunch : on the way home
I totally agree with Vandana on comment 11.
Regarding curd rice or even lemon rice for the dinner ? Rice would be filling and am sure all kids would have curd rice.
And incase we have curd left we all can have little bit of Kutchi beer 😛
We can have diff kind of rice- Curd rice, Lemon rice, Coconut rice, Mango rice…yummy in my tummy ;-).
Here are some of the views on some of the ideas expressed so far:
1) I dont think we can have rice by itself as a meal. It has to go with something else. Correct me if I am wrong here.
Maybe we can have small amount of rice to go with Thepala? Also the thing with Rice is that it will have to be brought by someone who is coming on SAT. If one of the Saturday comers can make some curd-rice and bring it with them then that seems the best option.
2) Mango Ras sounds better than shrikhand because it can be kept outside the cooler also. We can add ice at time of serving to make it cool in the hot summer day.
3) There seem to be many votes for “Something else” on Sunday lunch. But can we have some ideas also about what that “Something else” can be?
Whatever it is I prefer it being a pre-packaged kind of food which does not require coolers.
Thing to remember here is that we dont how the mood will be on Sunday noon. Those who have been there since Friday could be in a hurry to leave.
Remember we have only so many coolers and we will need them to store milk, stuff for tacos, etc. So take into account all that while trying to decide the food for Sunday Lunch.
All the above are my views only and this is of course open to discussion. 🙂
Milan is ready to give one big thepla for 90 cents and Sukha Bhel Mix for 6.50 per lb…bhel we would need abt 8-10 lbs for the total headcount
Let’s focus on Core competency which is Having Fun… All other things should be Outsourced
Friday dinner and Sunday lunch – manage on your own or try the on-site cafe
Along the lines of “Having Fun” – we should also think about pre-assigning (or signup) every family (in groups) to take turns for preparation/cleanup during the various meal times (BF/Lunch/Dinner). That way you are tied up for “food services” only once and have the rest of the time for activities.
guess i might be to late to alter the Sat dinner plans, but how about Idli Sambhar??
Advnatages:
1. Kids and adults everybody will love it
2. Less work to do
3. Less storage space required
4. Can be picked up by one of the Sat commers.
And how about Idli-Sambhar with papdi-chat?? (picked fron Sherly in Fremont) Ofcourse we got to make sure that Sherly cooks potatoes on Saturday morning
On another thought we can do this
Sat lunch/dinner –> Idli/Sambhar and Taco (one for lunch and other for dinner)
Sun brunch: Thepla and sukha bhel
Think Sat lunch cannot be dependent upon people who come on Saturday, if they arrive late people who are there on Friday will be hungry 🙁