This guest post was graciously prepared by guest blogger and Guider Sarah. Recently, Sarah heard about the Coleman Camping Cookbook and Meal Planner App for the iPhone, and decided to download it for a camping trip. She wrote this review from the point of view of a Girl Guider!
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Going through the Girl Guide ranks growing up, it was always a given that each meeting and camp I attended, everything was planned out for me. Never once do I remember sitting around with nothing to do. I took that for granted.
But when I became I leader, I realized I couldn’t just follow the suggestions in the Guider resource books or Canadian Guider magazine; I needed new ideas, creative games, and interesting discussion topics. For all of this, I turn to the internet. I look back on all my leaders in the pre-internet era, and give them props; my Smartphone has become my best Guiding tool.
And yes, I bring my Smartphone to camp (fortunately, working with Brownies, I don’t have to face the debate over girls bringing cell phones to camp). I use it to take pictures of the girls and email them to parents over the weekend; we play music on it to dance around shaking our bag of ice cream ingredients; and I use it for last-minute resources.
Recently I found out that Coleman Canada launched a Smartphone app – the Coleman Camping Cookbook and Meal Planner.It’s a free app and with a camp coming up, I immediately downloaded.
The app is easy to use, you can search by cooking method (all the Guiding favourites are there, foil, Dutch oven, on a stick), by meal type or by ingredients. I liked that you can mark your favourites, but didn’t find there was much variety or choices in their breakfast, desert and sides menus (although lunch/dinner has every protein with a recipe which was nice).
If you are new to Guiding and/or camping, most of these recipes and ideas will be new to you (but if you’ve been around, chances are you know how to make s’mores and GORP). What I personally liked about the app was the Meal Planner.
You start by inputting the amount of people you plan on feeding and for how long. Then you easily pick or add recipes that you plan on cooking. The app automatically breaks down each day’s meals for you and lists what you’ll need to purchase, the equipment you’ll need to pack and the cooking directions for each meal. It’s all completely organized in just a few minutes and right at your fingertips at camp.
I didn’t know when I was a Brownie how organized my leaders were, but as a Guider I value tools like this Smartphone app. Now to submit my garbage can turkey recipe…..
By guest blogger Guider Sarah of Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. Check out her own blog ‘Sarah Smells the Roses‘, as well as her blog posts for Girl Guides of Canada:
- Girl Guide Membership Expiry? Never!
- From Frazzled to Dartmouth Shore Area Special Events Team Member
- Princess Industrial Complex
- Bustin’ a Century Year Old Girl Guide Myth
- There Were No Sexy Nurses at the First Halloween
- Why Every Brownie Should Have a Camp Blanket
- I Camp Therefore I Have My Camp Blanket
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If GGC had its own ‘Camping Cookbook and Meal Planner’, what super-delicious-easy-to-make-camp-recipe would you submit?