Camping Thanksgiving: Take Your Celebration Outdoors
As the holiday season approaches, we all feel the predictable mix of excitement and stress. This year we face the added anxiety of how to celebrate with those we love in a time of social distancing.
Our solution? Take your celebration outside for a camping Thanksgiving!
Fortunately for many of us, 2020 has served up an unseasonably warm fall-to-winter transition, which provides the perfect opportunity to move Thanksgiving outdoors this year.
We planned to have a proper camping Thanksgiving early to work out all the kinks for you ahead of time, but in true 2020 fashion last minute COVID complications had us relocate to our backyard. Planning activities in the outdoors with your kids is all about flexibility right?
Not to worry though, we still had a great time. And I still had the opportunity to test out the celebration with my Friendsgiving crew so I could share with you suggestions on how to host a fun and safe outdoor Thanksgiving.
The Location
Whether it be a camping Thanksgiving in the wild or an afternoon in the comforts of your own backyard, the goal of choosing a location should be simplicity. Local campgrounds are a great spot as they are typically close to town, deserted this time of year, fairly inexpensive for a day pass (if not free), and provide both fire rings and tables for meal prep and spread.
Do check ahead of time for seasonal availability as some campgrounds shut down for the winter months. If you plan on using the existing on-site amenities, I suggest bringing a tablecloth for the picnic table, and cleaning off and sanitizing the cooking grates ahead of time. Tip: ball up tinfoil and rub along the grates to break off baked on junk. Then place the grates over the hot flames for at least 10 minutes to sanitize.
Off-the-grid, remote camping sites also provide an ideal venue, especially if you intend to stay overnight, want something free, and feel especially adventurous. This involves a bit more planning, such as ensuring you have multiple surfaces for meal prep (multiple folding camping tables, tailgates, etc.), fire management (enough wood to last the day/evening and enough water to fully extinguish the fire at the end of the night), and dirty dishes and trash management to avoid attracting critters.
Finally, but certainly no less awesome, is a backyard get together. The backyard option for an outdoor Thanksgiving works well, especially if your group has small children, you have time constraints live in colder climates, or you are just looking to find a little simplicity in an already complicated time.
The Menu
How elaborate or simple do you want to make your outdoor Thanksgiving experience? Consider the different interpretations; traditional spread vs. something more unconventional, and self-prepared vs. ordering online to go.
For our outdoor Friendsgiving, we choose a menu specifically curated to accommodate easy Thanksgiving dishes to cook on a campfire or camp stove. We also considered the less refined pallets of kiddos while providing suggestions on how to tweak each dish to make it more outdoorsy gourmet for the adults. In light of COVID, we tried to steer away from the typical, buffet-style food spread. Instead, we attempted to cook individual or family-exclusive portions as best we could.
Main Dish
Rotisserie Chicken: While it is completely possible to cook a turkey outdoors, the thought of another critter to supervise alongside the kids running amuck around did not sound like the relaxing afternoon we envisioned. We choose, instead, to support one of our local restaurants and order up a pair of rotisserie chickens for the event. It worked out awesome, and was super easy to reheat over the campfire.
Sides
Campfire-warmed sweet potatoes topped with fire roasted marshmallows and pecans
Stuffing muffins (with chorizo sausage and fresh herbs for the adults)
Dutch oven instant mashed potatoes (with bacon bits and scallions for the adults)
Canned cranberries (with grated orange zest and ginger for the adults)
Dessert
Cast iron pecan pie cake
Mini pumpkin pies warmed over the fire
Pumpkin pie in a bag (Teddy Grahams topped with pumpkin vanilla pudding and whipped cream)
The Pre-Game
Like most outdoor activities, a little at home preparation is key to making the day run smoothly. It also helps minimize the amount of post-feast cleanup. We did all our pre-preparations the morning of, but you may do many of the preparations a full day in advance. Just store them in the refrigerator, and then transfer them to a cooler to transport.
Sweet potatoes: To reduce the overall cook time, cut the sweet potatoes in half, wrap them in tin foil, and pre-cook them in the oven earlier in the day. This way, when you get around to cooking them on the fire, just toss them on the grate to warm right before serving.
Stuffing muffins: Cook the stuffing per the boxed directions. Split them into two bowls and add the chorizo sausage to one of the bowls. Heavily buttered a muffin tin, fill each well to the top with stuffing, and cover the entire tin with tin foil to make it easy to warm on the grill later.
Dessert: Pre-assembled the pumpkin vanilla pudding mix and store it in a gallon-sized resealable bag so you can easily, and mess-free, pipe it directly into the pie shells and Teddy Graham bags come dessert time. Pre-cooked the pecan pie cake in individual family-sized cast irons and set them aside.
The Setup
Cook space: Whether you have decided upon a camping Thanksgiving or backyard gathering, the first item of business should be preparing the cooking site (campfire/propane fire pit/camp stove).
Campfire: The key to cooking your outdoor Thanksgiving meal is having a solid base of hot coals. These provide a more uniform and predictable heat. Trying to cook on roaring flames will result in patchy intense heat and an unpleasant mix of under and over cooked food. Once you get a good base of coals (which can take up to an hour to achieve so be sure to plan ahead) spread the coals evenly throughout the fire ring and place your cooking grate over the coals.
Propane Fire Pit: Use a propane fire pit with a grate on top. The grate is key as you will need a large area available to both cook and reheat items all at the same time. The propane allows variable control of the heat and is super simple to just turn off and put away at the end of the night.
Camp Stove: A camp stove is also a possibility, the difficulty being the limited space for keeping different dishes warm, in which case having a few different camp stoves all going at once is ideal. Just be sure to monitor and stir each dish frequently as camping stoves have a tendency to always want to burn everything at the bottom of the pan to a charred lump if you’re not paying attention. (Or does that just happen to me?)
Outdoor decorations: By no means do you need to go all Martha Stewart with your setup, but having even a few special items can have a big wow factor with minimal actual effort. Think tablecloths, string lights, or simple centerpieces inspired by the surrounding decor, such as leaves, pinecones, etc. Added bonus: this is also a GREAT kid activity to keep them busy while you’re cooking!
We had a fully decked out backyard setup courtesy of our host, which made the entire evening that much more special. It really swept us away, even if only for a few hours, from all the rest of the craziness around us.
The Main Event
Once you’ve settled in with your crew, you’ll want to start preparing everything roughly 30 minutes before you plan to eat. I have included below how we timed our meal.
30+ minutes to dinner: Start anything that will take more than 30 minutes to cook. Place the foil-wrapped sweet potatoes on the middle (hottest) part of the grate.
20 minutes to dinner: Cook anything that will take less than 15 minutes, and start reheating the precooked dishes.
Chicken: Place the pre-cooked, sliced chicken in foil pan, add ½ cup chicken broth to the pan, cover with tin foil, and place on the fire pit or campfire grate.
Mashed Potatoes: Follow the package directions to place the appropriate amount of water into a large dutch oven pot. Place directly on the fire pit/campfire coals or camp stove and allow to boil. Once the water comes to a rolling boil remove pot from heat, add in packaged potatoes, stir and let sit on the edge of the fire pit or campfire grate.
Stuffing: Place the muffin tin (still covered with tin foil) on the edge of the fire pit or campfire grate.
10 minutes to dinner: Start preparing non-cook dishes.
Sweet Potatoes: Wrangle the kids and have them roast marshmallows on the fire. Unwrap the sweet potatoes and place the roasted marshmallows inside along with a few pecans. Rewrap and place them back on the fire pit or campfire grate.
Cranberries: Mix in one tablespoon of grated fresh ginger, two teaspoons of orange zest, and a squeeze of the orange juice to the cranberry sauce.
After dinner: Start preparing the desserts.
Pecan Pie Cake: Place on a fire pit or campfire grate, and cook for 20 minutes.
Pumpkin Pies: After the pecan pies are done pipe the pumpkin filling into the pre-made graham cracker crusts, top with whipped cream.
Pumpkin pie in a bag: Cut open the top of the teddy graham bags and pipe in the pumpkin filling, top with whipped cream.
The Wrap-Up
While it is completely understandable that different people will have different levels of comfort when it comes to holiday gatherings during COVID, I can say that our outdoor Thanksgiving experience felt both safe and respectful, and helped scratch that itch for normalcy that we all have.
Our outdoor Thanksgiving turned out much simpler than I think any of us anticipated. It provided our kiddos with such a fun and unique experience, that we all agreed to make camping Thanksgiving dinner our new Friendsgiving tradition.
