Easy Camping Recipes & A Peek into Our Camping Weekend

Heath and I took the kids camping! We rented a beautiful, new camper from some friends of ours. The site was already set up so comfortably and it was honestly the best way for us to camp since we don’t own a camper or even a truck. This was a quick getaway about 30 minutes away from home the first weekend of May, which meant beautiful weather here in Kentucky!

I’ve only been camping with my family in the fall, so late spring camping after the pollen count died down and before the humidity and mosquitoes get bad was so nice! It was perfect for cozy throws, coffee and campfires in the early morning and late nights, but hot enough for shorts, sandals, biking, watermelon and popsicles during the day.  Best of both worlds!

My favorite things about camping are the very quiet early mornings before everyone else in my camper—or in the campground— is up and moving around yet. 

It’s special to step outside with my first cup of coffee that I soooo very quietly made (not to wake the kids) and enter the fresh air as the sun is coming up through the woods. Then I usually make a small fire in the fire pit and snuggle with my coffee and soak up the fact that I’m surrounded by nature—God’s creation!

We enjoyed all the food that we made. I kept it very simple: roasted hotdogs with chips and queso dip (which was delicious!) and gooey s’mores the first night. 

S’mores are a must, especially for Rosemary!

So lets talk queso dip! This recipe was different than I usually make, and so very good! It had the best spice and smoky undertones about it. It was so delicious that I want to share the very easy recipe with you!

Smoky and Spicy Queso Dip

8 oz. pepper jack cheese, cubed

Half brick of Velvetta, cubed

Jar of salsa verde (I initially used just shy of a full jar and it was perfect for me.)

A few dashes of Cumin

Put everything together in a cast iron or another pot, and heat until everything is gooey and melted! Stir every few minutes so it doesn’t burn. 

I cooked ours in cast iron skillet I brought along with us, over a hot grill. It’s delicious with tortilla chips!

All outside cooking! Hearty meals to fuel days full of playing. 

For breakfasts we had pancakes cooked on the griddle, which was really delicious and fun, and sausage in the cast iron pan over the grill. 

Lunch was simply sub sandwiches with deli ham and various cheese with chips and pickles.

Dinner the second night was delicious! I made some chili at home the evening before we left and brought it in my red Dutch oven. I heated that up over the fire because why not!? We are roughing it after all! Lol!

( In hindsight, I don’t recommend doing this unless you’re using a cast iron Dutch oven that’s not glazed. I may have ruined that pot. I can’t get the blackness off and it still smells like smoke, but it was very inexpensive. I’ve used this pot it hundreds of times over the last 13 years. Lol.) You live and learn.

We had the hearty chili with some fried cornbread made on the griddle, and we roasted a few more hotdogs for those who wanted chili dogs and finished the cheese dip. Very cozy and perfect for camping!  

Dessert was the favorite of everybody’s though!.. I made a classic campfire cherry dump cake, except I cooked it over the grill! I have never made any dessert on the grill before, but I was improvising since I didn’t have a cast iron Dutch oven to make it in the fire, and the pan was too big for the camper’s oven. This grilled cherry dump cake turned out so delicious!!! Oh my word. I think we were all pleasantly surprised. It’s good enough the kids want me to make it at home, too. To serve with some vanilla or butter pecan ice cream would take it over the top!  

The beauty of this recipe is that it so easy and only requires the cake mix, cherries and butter! The cinnamon and almond extract are optional.  Like any dump cake, you simply dump or layer the ingredients.. no stirring required! This is my kind of food when camping!

“Campfire” Cherry Dump Cake

1 Box Yellow Cake Mix

1 Can Cherry Pie Filling

1 Stick of Butter, Melted (1/2 c.)

A sprinkle of Cinnamon, optional

1 tsp. Almond Extract, optional, I didn’t use this

-Spray or butter a 9x13 inch baking dish. (Sometimes I just rub the butter’s wax paper after I’ve taken the butter out of it.)

-Mix the almond extract, if using, with the cherries and pour the can of cherries into the pan and spread evenly. 

-Sprinkle the box of dry cake mix over the top of the cherries. Drizzle melted butter over the dry cake mix, although it won’t cover all the cake mix and that’s ok. 

-Lightly sprinkle cinnamon all over, if using. It’s as simple as that! 

-Bake in an oven for about 50 minutes or until light golden brown. Or bake it on a closed grill set on med-high for about 20-30 minutes. I don’t have an exact time for this because I just winged it. But I would say to check every 10 minutes or so and take off when you can start to smell it and it becomes light golden brown and bubbly. It took me about 25 minutes to bake!

-Let cool enough to eat and enjoy! We loved this super simple dessert!

I hope this gives you some easy, simple ideas for your next camping trip! We don’t always eat so rich, and we did have some fruit in there and lots of water, but overall we were doing a lot of biking and the kids were playing non-stop outside so this food fueled us well. Summertime is basically here, and my family is here for it! Let me know if you make either of these delicious recipes and let me know what you think.

The Cozy Little Cabin!

There’s been so much going on the last month with soccer season and just all the things, and I’ve just decided if I don’t have time to share frequently in this space, I will not sweat it. Because it was actually that very reason why I ultimately had to say good-bye the last time here. I felt terrible for being an inconsistent writer, however, I am learning my most consistent priorities have to be limited in order to pour my best self into the right things. 

Those consistent priorities are time spent with Jesus, my family, and my ministry —leading worship/women. Everything else fits between those priorities..... and that’s why I’m not a pro blogger!! Ha. ;)

However ... I’m excited today, because I have so much to talk about with you!!! Where do I begin??

I would love to start with the fact we went camping last weekend but back that up a bit. 

Let’s start off with...

We bought a tiny cabin by the lake!!!!

Yep.  After passively looking for almost 2 years now, the right little fixer-upper popped up in real estate. I don’t know if it’s like this where you live, but the real estate market here in my neck of the woods of KY is HOT. Houses are literally flying off the market and selling above their value right and left. We almost didn’t get this house but thankfully we snagged it after it hardly being on the market a week! 

It’s a tiny cutie-patootie of a place. It is 51 years old and just under 800 square feet + a full length screened-in front porch— which is so useful in our humid-mosquito summer season. The cabin is a 2 bedroom, one bath with a tiny kitchen open to the living room. It has a great brick fireplace which will be even better by the time we are done with it, but I like even the brick of the chimney outside against the wood! Something about the setting of that under the pine trees feels nostalgic to me.The cabin sits on 1/3 of an acre on the end of a small street with backs up to over 100 acres of TVA woods. That means, no one will ever build around it and the woods will be undisturbed so lots of wildlife and quiet views. One of the best parts.... just through a thin patch of woods is the lake! We have a lake view that’s much better in the winter than summer, however, once we clear some of the grown-up side yard on the property we will have an even better view! 

We have so much vision for this little place! It needs a bunch of TLC—more like a gut— because it’s been a seasonal fishing cabin for a long time now, but the potential is great! It’s full of classic, rustic cabin charm of being by the lake on a quiet street with woods. We can envision our family going out there on weekends to stay so we can be out on the lake to fish or kayak or one day boat around and just play on the beautiful Kentucky Lake. The kids are already exploring the woods and are building a “fort”, so they get the woods they have been wanting since we moved away from woods a few years ago. We can see bonfires outside on some Adirondack chairs under the stars as we eat messy s’mores in the  crisp fall. Morning coffee sitting on the porch under the fans and cozy nights by the fireplace in a cozy living room reminding my husband and I of the first 10 years of our life in tiny homes. Hopefully there will be family gatherings, friends celebrations, and grill-outs when the weather is just right! I can see flower gardens and an herb garden around the property. Possibly a flower box spilling over with geranium on the side. I want this place to bless missionaries passing through our church or whomever the Lord lays on our heart. I want this cabin to be an extension of our home—with all the hospitality and Holy Spirit peace to rest and welcome all who enter!

But FIRST. It needs lots of work!

I’ve begun to clean the inside at baseline (I’d rather have my germs than anyone else’s in the house, even if will are ripping almost everything out eventually.) Heath has already began with Jayden’s help to clean up the outside. He’s mowed and weed-eated, blown the drive and the roof and gutters and trimmed some bushes. We will be hauling some trash away that was left and start to clear some side woods. We need to pressure wash the paved area and the outside and I want to paint the doors. We will absolutely be hiring out professionals for most of the work inside the house, because it will be extensive and we want it all done right! It will need new of almost everything!! The fireplace will just be spruced and I’m hoping to keep the outside doors and the neat washboard double sink in the kitchen—I think it can be refinished!

SO... we absolutely believe the Lord has given us this place. 

If you know us, you know we love a project and putting on the vision goggles to see potential. An old, dirty place doesn’t scare us like it does some people. We see beauty and that can come from ordinary, roughed up places. Anybody else out there like the story that comes from older homes more than starting from scratch? It’s never as straight forward, but it’s a redemption project every time. 

I am thrilled for this journey in our lives, and so glad you can join us in this space to see bits and pieces along the way.

This will be The Cozy Little Cabin!!! 

P.S. I can reply to your comments now—yay!!!! So be sure and leave one, if you want! I would love to know if you are like us and love seeing old or abandoned things get a new life more than starting with a clean slate. Both are probably fun, but I’m a bit like Erin and Ben Napier — I like preserving some of the history and story in a place!