Camping and Cooking on the Mogollon Rim

Most of the folks in my little corner of Arizona don’t camp the Mogollon Rim, however, my family has camped around the Payson area for eons. (not really. I’m not that old.)

I haven’t been camping in forever, but this past Memorial weekend, I packed up with my two teens and we drove up to Willow Springs lake to spend a couple of days with my sisters and their kids—and their kids. They do this every Memorial weekend, rain or shine. They don’t just go up for Saturday through Monday though. The traffic is too bad, so they leave during the middle of the week before and after and make a week of it. Then they turn around and do the same thing on Labor Day weekend.
The views are stunning. And, yes it always makes me nervous when my kids get so close to the edge. It doesn't stop them from doing it though.

There are usually elk to be seen—always an awesome sight.

We love to feed the chipmunks.

Sometimes the Blue Jays steal the peanuts, but that’s ok because they’re pretty.










This year I didn’t want to spend all of my time cooking and cleaning up, so I looked online and found some good recipes and some good ideas that I’d like to share.
1. Line the pan with aluminum foil before cooking. After cooking, remove foil and the pan is clean. Easy!!!

2. Chop veggies ahead and store in pre-measured baggies.

3. Foil dinners don’t have to be made with hamburger patties.

I found a recipe for chicken in a hot bag and looked everywhere for a hot bag only to discover that they’d been discontinued years ago. So, I had to improvise. I bought the large roll of heavy aluminum for this.

Chicken Dinner in Foil
Use any veggies that your family likes for this recipe. This is what we used.

3 boneless, skinless chicken breast

6 red potatoes cut into 6 or 8 chunks each

1 onion cut into fourths

1 pkg of Lipton’s Mushroom Onion soup

¼ C water (approximately)

Tear off two long pieces of foil. Place chicken and vegies on foil, then sprinkle over the top with the soup mix. Turn up the sides of the foil and add the water. Fold over the ends of the foil several times until it is close to the food. Fold over the ends several times. Pinch all seams tightly so that the juices don’t spill out.

NOTE: This can be cooked over the coals, but I raised the rack on my camp stove and cooked it over low heat for an hour. Turn several times during cooking—use hot pads or mitts.

It’s windy on the Rim, so to keep my stove lit and to make it more oven-like, I wrapped foil over the top and let it hang loosely over the end of the stove.