Weekly Quest · Adventure
Outdoor Dinner Challenge
Moving dinner outside turns an ordinary weeknight into something the whole family talks about for years. This Outside quest walks families through planning, cooking, and eating a full meal outdoors together, building real kitchen confidence along the way.
This page is the public web guide for Outside's Week 8 family quest, called Outdoor Dinner Challenge, from Outside, the family adventure app. It covers how families can plan and cook a complete dinner outdoors in roughly 90 minutes, earning the Outdoor Chef badge and 300 XP inside the Outside app. The guide includes step-by-step advice, age-specific tips, and answers to common parent logistics questions. Outside is a family adventure brand offering a 52-week quest calendar designed to build outdoor skills and family memories through structured, low-pressure experiences.
| XP | 300 |
|---|---|
| Week | 8 of 52 |
| Badge | Outdoor Chef |
| Difficulty | Easy |
| Estimated time | 90 minutes |
Why dinner outside changes everything
There is something about putting a meal outdoors that strips away the usual Tuesday-night fog. The table feels different. The food tastes better. Conversations go longer. Researchers who study family routines consistently find that shared meals build connection, and moving that ritual outside adds a layer of novelty that wakes everyone up to the moment.
This quest is deliberately placed at Week 8 of the Outside 52-week family calendar, right when early enthusiasm can start to plateau. A shared outdoor meal is a reset. It asks nothing exotic of your family. You already know how to cook dinner. This time you just do it in fresh air, with jobs for everyone and no particular hurry to get back inside.
How to run this quest well
Start with a meal your family already loves. This is not the night to attempt something new and complicated. Burgers, pasta cooked on a camp stove, grilled chicken, foil-packet vegetables, even hot dogs with good sides -- all of these work beautifully and hold up to outdoor cooking variables like wind and uneven heat.
Set up your outdoor kitchen before anyone gets hungry. A folding table, a stable surface for your grill or camp stove, and a clear spot for ingredients make the cooking feel organized rather than chaotic. Lay out your eating space at the same time: a picnic blanket, a patio table, or even a card table dragged to the yard all count. The Outside app will walk you through each step, from planning the menu to plating your meal, and tracks your progress toward the Outdoor Chef badge.
Give everyone a real job
The part families remember most is not what they ate but what they did. Assign every person a task that genuinely matters to the meal. A four-year-old can wash vegetables, carry napkins, or announce when the timer goes off. A ten-year-old can manage a grill or camp stove with close supervision, helping to flip burgers or stir a pot. A teenager can own an entire side dish from prep through plating.
When kids do real work, they eat with pride. The child who seasoned the corn or arranged the plates will notice whether anyone comments on it. Make sure someone does. That small recognition builds the kind of confidence that shows up everywhere -- not just in the kitchen.
Making it work for different ages
**Ages 4 to 6:** Focus on sensory jobs. Let them tear lettuce, rinse fruit, or set out utensils. Keep them close and narrate what is happening on the stove so they feel included in the bigger picture.
**Ages 7 to 10:** These kids are ready for supervised heat exposure. Let them stir, baste, or manage a simple side dish on a camp stove with an adult right beside them. Give them a specific responsibility they can name.
**Ages 11 to 14:** Hand over a full dish. Let them read the recipe, gather their ingredients, and cook it with minimal interference. Offer help only when asked. The goal at this age is genuine independence, not a supervised performance of it.
Stay for the sunset if you can
The Outside app encourages families to linger after the meal, and there is good reason for that nudge. The window between finishing dinner and full dark is one of the quieter, slower stretches in a family day. Fireflies start up. The air cools. Someone spots a bat or a bright planet.
You do not need to manufacture a lesson out of it. Just stay a little longer than usual. Let the conversation wander. Bring a blanket if the evening is cool. The reflection question inside the app -- what was the tastiest part of your outdoor dinner -- is a light prompt that works equally well spoken aloud around the table as it does typed into a journal.
Describe your outdoor dinner from start to finish: what you made, who did what job, and the one moment during the meal that you want to remember.
Frequently asked questions
Do we need a grill, or can we use a camp stove?
Either works perfectly well. A two-burner camp stove on a stable outdoor table is completely capable of handling a full family dinner. The goal is cooking and eating outside, not any particular piece of equipment. If you have neither, a simple cold dinner assembled outdoors -- sandwiches, a composed salad, charcuterie -- still counts and still earns the badge.
What if the weather is not cooperating?
A covered porch, a garage with the door open, or even a carport all qualify as outside enough. The spirit of this quest is stepping outside your normal indoor routine, not enduring miserable conditions. If a genuine storm rolls in, reschedule for the next clear evening. The Outside app saves your progress so you never lose ground.
How do we complete this quest in the Outside app?
Open the Outside app and find Week 8 in your quest calendar, listed as Outdoor Dinner Challenge. The app walks you through four in-app steps: planning the meal, setting up your outdoor kitchen, cooking together with assigned jobs, and eating outside. Check off each step as you go. When you complete the final step and submit your reflection, your family earns 300 XP and the Outdoor Chef badge automatically.
Our kids argue in the kitchen. How do we keep this fun?
Assign jobs before you go outside and write them down so each person knows what belongs to them. Clear ownership reduces most of the friction. If a conflict starts, redirect it toward the task rather than the person -- ask what the dish needs right now, not who is doing it wrong. Outdoor cooking also tends to diffuse tension naturally because there is more space and more to look at.