Camping is supposed to be a relaxing occasion, not to be stressful or end with injury.

One thing that can make it stressful is cooking, as you are removed from your home kitchen, away from running water, a refrigerator and all your normal ingredients at your disposal. According to Scott Webb, general manager of Public Lands, an outdoor sports store in Cranberry Township, there are ways to bring your kitchen on the go, while remaining safe and still having fun.

To Webb, the first thing people should always consider is safety. This means remaining safe from open flames, not attracting wildlife and keeping the environment safe.

“Anytime you are cooking over a fire there are open flames,” Webb said. “If you have kids, make sure they know about fire safety. Anytime you have an open flame you have the risk of it spreading. If you are in a state or national park, those recreation areas are pretty well maintained, but you go elsewhere you might not have a fire ring. Don't let the fire get too high. If you can feel the heat more than 4 feet away it’s too big, especially to cook on.”

Webb said the most common mistake people tend to make is they often end up burning themselves accidentally, even if it’s not from the fire directly.

“Things get hot,” Webb said. “Most likely, if you are cooking over a fire with cast iron, that holds heat for a very long time, so make sure everyone knows there are hot pots and pans around. Coming back home for a burn is never good.”

The next safety concern Webb mentioned was to make sure food is properly stored away, so wildlife, such as bears, don’t come around looking for a snack.

He said to not leave food laying around for too long, and if you spill something, make sure to clean it up to reduce the smell of food as much as possible.

If possible, at night, store your cooler and other food items locked inside a vehicle, but if that is not possible, there is another method.

“If you are backpacking with limited resources, you are generally packing smaller food items,” Webb said. “A bear bag or bear container works really well. They are air tight and no smell will get out.”

The last safety concern would be to make sure perishable foods stay cold and at an ideal temperature to prevent salmonella and E. coli.

This can be prevented by packing a cooler properly, which can help food last longer and prevent illness.

“Heat rises so you want to pack the coldest items at the bottom of the cooler,” Webb said. “That is going to keep everything else maintained. If you plan for hamburgers and you have frozen patties, pack them at the bottom and have them on Day 3, or something, because they will thaw out a little. They will also act as little ice blocks inside your cooler.”

Webb also said to make sure to not leave a cooler in direct sunlight, and to open it as little as possible. He recommended having two coolers, one for food, and one for beverages.

When it comes to actually cooking meals, Webb said camp cooking is no different from at home cooking, it’s just modified.

The most common cooking technique is cooking over an open fire, which gives that classic, nostalgic feeling with the smell of burning wood.

“To me that signifies you are actually camping,” Webb said. “It’s not the easiest though. If you get one of (the) portable grills from Coleman that run off propane, those are the easiest. You turn them on just like at home. I think the over-the-fire way is just that classic camping thing. It’s a little more fun.”

Some classic, easy meals that Webb recommends would be hot dogs, s’mores and what some Pennsylvanians call mountain pies.

“That would require a cast iron pie iron,” Webb said. “Take some bread, pepperoni, cheese with some marinara and you basically have a hot pocket you can make over the fire.”

There are many meals you can make outdoors, but to Webb, sometimes the more simple the meal is, the better.

Doing as much prep work before heading into the wild will help as well.

“A pretty good trick is: crack all your eggs ahead of time,” Webb said. “Then put them in a gallon milk jug, and then you can pour them right into the pan. You can make a great egg scramble with ham, vegetables and eggs.”

Having water to cook and drink also is essential to having a good camping experience Webb said, and using water from the wild is possible, if certain precautions are taken.

“You don’t know what is upstream that could be contaminating the water,” Webb said. “Either boil it, filter it or use iodine tablets. There are many ways you can filter water to make it drinkable. At a minimum, boil it to remove bacteria.”

Lastly, Webb recommends to make sure you clean up your camp area as best as possible, using the classic camp rule of leaving a place better than you found it.

“Yes, things like banana peals and stuff like that are organic, but they take a long time to break down,” Webb said. “They also don’t grow naturally in Pennsylvania, so they can really alter part of the ecosystem around them if you are not disposing of them properly.”

Webb said while things like paper towels, paper plates and Lysol wipes seem like something you can simply throw in the fire to dispose of, it might not be that simple.

“Putting them in the fire is not the best way,” Webb said. “Those Lysol wipes have a lot of chemicals and plastic materials in them. You don’t want that burning in your campground, so carry out what you carried in. Certain paper plates need to be 100% paper to be burned safely and a lot of them have a wax coating. Take a look at what is actually in the paper plate before you burn it.”