What are your top camping meals?

[LauraNorder]

Last year we bought a tent and camped for a weekend with friends who had all the kit! This year we are buying our own kit and I just wondered what would be good wholesome camping meals!

It's got to be sausages! I've got a one ring little burner and do sausages in a mini frying pan, then heat up some beans quickly, then heat up some pre-cooked potatoes I do the night before at home! Love it...

Then bacon and eggs in he morning!

Pesto and pasta is another easy one as you can just stir the pesto in at the end. Similarly with pre-cooked tomato/lentil sauce + pasta.

I love salmon wrapped in tin foil, bung it in the coals for about 15-20mins, boil or bring pre-boiled new potatoes then do the same with them. Serve with asparagus-yum!

Love chicken wraps too, so easy and always go down well with a bit of relish.

I sometimes make and freeze chilli then it'll have thawed for night two or three, serve with rice or jacket potato.

Sauasges here too and of course bacon and eggs in a roll for the morning. Even though we have a camper nothing beats cooking on an open fire, we make a rectangular shaped pit and take a babrbecue grill, prop it up on some wood and hey presto you can fit two pans on and everything cooks beautifully. Yopu do need to keep your log pile well stocked though! Have a fantastic time!

Plus you will amazed what you can BBQ on a disposible one to save the clean up

I know this is seriously cheating, but we always takes one of these chilli bags with this rice. Pour chilli and rice in wok, stir fry for 3 minutes or so until hot. Serve with a dollop of fruit chutney.

Fab for a night-off, tastes lovely around the fire with a glass of red.

Oh, and we use the non-stick mat thing on our (Cadac) wok, means the washing up is a doddle too.

Well I'm a bit of an enthusiast when it comes to camping food- I mean, if you're on holiday you may as well eat good food and drink good wine, right?

We love a bit of (pretend) Beef Bourgignon, ie. a winey, tomato-ey stew cooked for as long as you can wait, eaten with baguettes.

A very basic recipe with lots of room for manoevre:

Chop some/all of the following into reasonable chunks: red pepper; potatoes; mushrooms; red onion; garlic; beef stewing steak.

Fry the onions, garlic & meat with a bit of oil, then throw in the rest, add a can of tomatoes and a large glass (at least) of red wine.
Add in some herbs, dried or fresh (rosemary and thyme are good candidates), and cook for at least an hour on the hob or fire (both are good but the latter very satisfying).
Drink the wine, butter the baguette and wait for the stars to come out!

smoked salmon pasta

boil enough pasta for family

stir fry onion, broccoli, carot batons, mini sweetcorn and mange tout (or whatever you fancy)

add in smoked salmon trimmings and cooked pasta

pour in cream, bubble to reduce and serve with green salad

I do this as an at home meal too - is yummy and fairly quick

I like a good veggie curry, with potatoes, sweet potatoes, chick peas and carrots and onions, mixed into a jar of patak's sauce (only time I don;t make my own currys is when camping.

Served with ready made naan bread. Lush.

Chicken and veg stir fries with noodles also good and easy. Any old recipe will do, and a wok.

DS's favourite is couscous mixed with tuna, cherry tomastoes, chick peas, cucumber and peppers. The best thing about it is that all that needs to be done on the stove is boil the water for the couscous.

I don't eat pasta at home so don't bother with it when camping either.

BBqs are of course lovely too. I just pick up some mince from a local butcher and quickly make it into patties, bbq them and have them in buns with lots of salad.

I also like making a stew at home, freezing it, and it tends to defrost by the end of the first full day of caming, and it's a nice easy way of having a good hearty meal after a day of climbing when my fingers are too sore to manage actually preparing and cooking anything.

In all my years of camping I have yet to ever actually have a cooked breakfast!

OMDB my DC and DH would feel completely shortchanged if they didn't get at least a bacon butty! Were camping at the weekend and had full works - sausage, bacon, eggs, toms, mushrooms, beans and for DH black pudding!

posting so I will remember to read this thread before we go camping!

Our quickest one pan dinner is 2 tins of chicken in creamy sauce or gravy, 2 tins of vegs and 3 bags of microwave Uncle Bens rice.
Seriously lazy, not the cheapest but takes about 5 mins, eat it with a spoon if you like. very tasty and my kids love it.
We take a spag bol with us for the first night and just reheat while we cook pasta to go with it.
We always go on a trip to the nearest town to check out takeaways for a couple of meals too.

At home I make a homemade curry - jamie olivers to go with rice, a ragu sauce to go with pasta and a jar of shop or home made pesto sauce and a punnet of cherry tomatoes and a tin of sweetcorn.

Thats three meals for the weekend and I freeze all these meals in tupperwares and take frozen.

I will nake an onion tart and we can have that cold with baked beans and do the same with quiche.

A tomato sauce with pasta

this way I have good food ready made and all we have to do is reheat

Camp Cassoulet

Fry off onions, garlic and peppers in your frying pan....add some good quality sausages, tinned tomatoes and herbs and simmer. Add some mixed beans for the last ten minutes and serve with pasta, potatoes or rice. Tinned potatoes are particularly delicious stirred into the sauce as well and one of those things that you would never think of eating if you weren't camping!

Not yet got up the nerve to do a camping trip since Dd and DS2 joined the family...

how one earth does one deal with early rising children on a campsite? Sorry, that's a whole other thread isn't it?

Camp Carbonara

Cook some pasta. Fry an onion or two, mix with pasta and add some cooked ham, peas and then melt in a tub of Philadelphia cheese. Add a splash of white wine and devour.

For some reason when camping i love tinned potatoes with beans and sausages. Tins of shipams chunky chicken and rice also here. Frozen bolognese with pasta sound like a good plan for our first night so far though!

Our camping first night staple was always chicken n chicken soup:

Get a roast chicken from a rotisserie shop (most supermarkets these days)
Tin of Heinz chicken soup
Tin of sweetcorn
Cut chicken pieces or strips off chicken and put all ingredients in pan to heat

Boil some new spuds on second ring, or serve with bread

It's dead simple but is a nice 'dinnery' dinner for days that have not been wall-to-wall sunshine!

Also do loads of pasta meals, as again only using one or two pans.

D

camping carbonara- our version best when camping near good farm shop/butchers -can do on single burner or double: cook pasta, chop n fry some bacon often farm shops sell ends/scraps which are great....chuck in pasta stir in handful grated cheese, cream - couple of egg yolks - bit of pasta water and warm all through - lovely- you can leave out the cheese but egg yolks make the sauce a fab consistency - or smoked salmon scraps fom supermarket & tub of cream cheese & pasta & any green veg around chopped and cooked with pasta- then stir in the salmon & cream cheese

also use the packets of ready cooked rice for v fast meal as can cook chilli/spag bol sauce then just put the rice in for a couple of mins at the end

• first night tea often cook sausages before go and make tub of salad and take baguette for a v simple meal that goes well with wine!

• am going to try m&S tin chicken curry as recommended somewhere on mnet next trip!

also eat tin potato/fruit cocktail only when camping! waitrose tin pots def the best