In past Waypoints, we’ve shown you how to Set Up a Sweet Campsite, Start a Bonfire, and Cook a Campfire Meal.

Those were all the basics to get you started. But now, if you already accomplished that, you’re ready to level up your camp stove to a 3-zone approach complete with different heating levels and cooling areas for every part of your meal. It works great when cooking for the whole family.

As part of this Waypoint, we’ll suggest ways your children can participate in the cooking process, since the cooking area will be bigger and better.

You know your children best. You know what they’ve accomplished in the past, and you know how they handled stressful situations. Keep both those in mind when deciding which parts of the cooking process your children are ready for as you read through our suggestions. Stay safe everyone.

This camping setup is not for backpacking. This camping setup is not about hotdogs on sticks. This camping setup is all about cooking delicious food around the campfire that somehow tastes better than home.

So take a walk around your kitchen, and see what you’ve got in rough enough shape that you can use on your camp stove.

Things to look for:

• • Cast Iron Skillet: Flat, heavy, perfect for camping.
• • Grill Pan: Great for a solid sear on meat.
• • Wire Racks: Cheap and lightweight, allow heat through.
• • Sheet Pans: Cheap, with a lot of space to spread out.
• • Dutch Oven: Good for stew, casserole, apple cobbler.
• • Metal Tongs: For moving food around, flipping things over.
• • Grill Gloves: Avoid fabric gloves, they can get wet.
• • Fireplace Shovel: Worth buying, although the right stick can do the trick.

Before you take anything, we strongly suggest you get your significant other to approve. Once you use a pot or pan or any metal cooking utensil out around the fire, you’re probably not going to want to use it at home again. Mostly due to the burn marks that may happen or general roughhousing that goes on outdoors.

Your food will sit on the pots and pans and wire racks, your coals will heat it all up, and your rocks… your rocks are there to keep it all contained and prop it all up.

See if you can gather some good rocks around your campsite. Send your kids on the hunt for small and flat rocks, while you look for larger rocks.

The larger rocks will be for building out the structure, and the smaller, flatter rocks will be for balancing everything above the coals.

Once they’re gathered, keep them to the side. We’ll use them to set up your zones after we’ve gotten our coals going.

This one starts with creating a fire, and you know this one from our Start a Bonfire Waypoint.

The premise is the same: gather wood, create a structure to allow for air flow, then light the wood to get the fire going.

The big difference is you really don’t need or want thick logs in your fire. It’s not about keeping the fire going all night. It’s about turning those logs into coal. We don’t want to cook over the direct flames, we want to cook over the coals. If you need to, stand up a piece of wood block, stick your ax into the top, then use another piece of wood to hammer the ax down and split the wood into smaller pieces.

After about 30 minutes or more, depending on your wood, you should have coals forming. Poke the wood with a stick to break pieces off. When the coals are glowing, it’s a good thing.

Take a few out, and set them aside. Let your kids blow on them to see the red of the heat appear. Show them how the coal may look dead, but the heat could still be alive. They should never assume a coal is cool to the touch. It’s safer that way.

Push your fire to one side, then split up the other side with your larger rocks. Each section should we wide enough to fit the width of your pot/pan/whatever, and deep enough to add coals, then rest your pan on top.

Scoop or push some of your coals into one of the sections, then scoop or push a whole bunch more into the other section.

We’ll use one section to create a medium heat, and the other section to create a high heat. The more and deeper the coals, the higher the heat.

Don’t scoop away all of your coals. You want to keep your fire going so it continues to churn out more coals for you.

Take your smaller rocks and flat rocks and use them to balance your skillet, pots, pans, wire racks, whatever, over the sections of medium heat and high heat. The high heat section works best with the cast iron skillet for cooking meat. The medium heat works best with wire racks and sheet pans for cooking vegetables and such.

Now it’s time to add your food and get cooking.

As your food cooks, try not to tinker with the coals. Rotate your skillet every 10-15 minutes to distribute the heat instead of pushing around coals. If you see the coals fading, add more from your fire and redistribute the spacing of coals.

Keep this going for as long as your meal needs. If you’re cooking with a dutch oven and it has a lid, scoop up some coals and put them on top of the lid to get a faster cook from all sides.

As your food finishes, use a few more of those larger, flatter rocks to rest your hot plate away from the coals.

PRO-TIP: If you brought a wire rack, put your meat on the wire rack once it’s done cooking, then place the wire rack on top of your skillet that’s cooking the vegetables. The meat will be off the heat, and its juices will drip so heavenly down into your veggies.

When you’re done cooking, before you eat, you have the choice of “turning off your stove” or getting a fire going.

To turn off your stove, spread the coals into a single layer as much as possible. Depending on their size, they should only take a few minutes to turn to cold charcoal. If you’re in a hurry, drown it out with fire.

To start up a fire again, push your coals together, get your kids to gather some twigs, and make a quick tipi. Then grab a hat and fan the flames. Make the everyone stays back away from blowing ash. In 20 or so seconds, a flame will start up again, and you can build into another fire.

Make sure to follow Leave No Trace when it comes to cleaning everything including dishes up in the end. We hope the meal comes out great!