help me meal plan for 3 nights camping

[creequealley]

The last time i went camping was with my 2.5 yo dd and 6 week ds and only for 1 night. I'm off on Tuesday and trying to think of family friendly meals for 5 (yup slipped in another baby last summer) that don't involve potatoes unless they come as crisps or chips!

Was thinking a kind of chili mince dish one nnight and maybe hot dogs another, but what to go with them that requires minimal prep time as i now have 3 children under 5.

Tips ladies please

Good idea for chilli or spag bol - if you have time you could make it in advance and freeze it. It would keep other things cold until you are ready to eat it.

We normally do this:-

Friday night is Pasta and pesto with crusty bread.

Breakfast - Brioche (chocolate chip)

Lunch - Rolls (ham or cheese) with crisps and babybels, strawberries if not then apples

Tea - tinned hot dogs for kids BBQ jerk chicken (frozen when we left now defrosted) and salad for me and DH

Breakfast - Sunday is usually bacon sarnies(again frozen when we left)

HTH

Good idea re: the freezing things. I'm guessing we're not going to have a heatwave in the next two days.

Was planning a couple of sandwich lunches - maybe even find a pub. Now what for night 3?

Uncle Ben's express rice (3 mins to cook); packet cheese sauce and lots of veggies stirred in - onion, peppers, peas, sweetcorn...

Or tuna pasta: cook the pasta, stir in tomato sauce and tin of tuna - done!

Or uncle bens rice with tinned veg and tinned chicken in white/creamy sauce. Takes about 10 mins and onle 1 pan[don't forget the tin opener].
Or fish and chips for a treat before you come home.

We eat out of tins. Not literally, obviously, but my theory is that a bit of crap food won't hurt for a few days. My suggestion would be:

Night 1 - tinned hot dog sausages and baked beans (all in the same saucepan).

Night 2 - pasta, jar of sauce, tin of tuna, tin of sweetcorn (all mixed together).

Night 3 - fish and chips from the nearest chippy or spicy rice in a packet with some tinned meat or fish (spam/sardines/corned beef)

Take plenty of bananas/grapes/strawberries for a bit of fibre and healthiness.

Also, bread rolls with jam/nutella/marmalade are great for breakfast. I love my rubbish camping food!

Second pasta and pesto - brilliant camping meal.

we have stag chilli from a tin with rice and crusty bread, pot of custard and hot chocolate afterwards.

Pasta/pesto - with the others on that one.

BBQ food of any kind

curry (we do this, home make it, take it for the first night) with rice, and naan (DH has made chapatti but that is a bit time consuming!).

Fish/potatoes - fish in foil, onto bbq while you pour wine unpack.

Just come back from camping honeymoon in US with new hubby who is a chef... Love him I do but Christ, camping should be beans and sausages no? No, apparently extravagent gourmet epics only... which are lovely but use up one can camping gas daily - never mind warming water for babies milk next am - and an unreasonable amount of washing up to be done in cold water in a sink designed for pygmies to wash their smalls in.

Love him I do honest!

You are on holiday - take stuff you can make in one pan - pasta and sauce pasta and sauce pasta and sauce with sausages and beans for a change if really necessary! Seriously though if you can be arsed to make stuff before hand go like the army and make stuff you just have to warm in one pan like irish stew or somesuch, chuck it in a pan and and stir judiciously while drinking holiday booze...

oooooh and also i am quite partial to Pasta N Sauce. Or super noodles. But only when camping for some reason. Very quick for the kids, and won't hurt them once in a blue moon.

Tinned chicken tikka masala is yummy. Cook some rice to go with it.

Cheesy pasta, or pasta and dolmio sauce.

Chicken tortillas?

Heinz ravioli?

Omlette?

stripey which make of tinned curry? Would quite like to have an excuse to eat that!

I eat either the Tesco or Asda own brand ones, they seem the same to me. Not tried any others. Ok its not as nice as home made but its perfectly edible.

Do not try Stagg tinned chilli, had some of that last week and it was disgusting. All weird processed lumps of bland, odd textured meat. Plus I remembered the thread on here about the bit of mouse/rat in a tin of that stuff.

stagg/tesco/asda chilli = same company provides the food, so if you avoid one due to possible mice infestation, then avoid all of them!

Savoury rice and sausages? That's our standby.

Pavlov we had Sainsburys own-brand pasta'n'sauce on our first night camping on Friday - with a tin of tuna, some defrosted sweetcorn and an extra handful of grated cheese stirred in. It was lovely, and evocative of my more inspired student cooking ... DH said he'd never eaten anything like it before, I'm not sure what that meant. DD didn't like it, but she likes hardly anything.

Tinned meat - we had M&S stewed beef on the second night, which was as reasonable as I remember it being from years ago. I figure if anyone is going to make tinned meat edible it'd be M&S. I'm pretty sure they do curry as well. If DD would eat such things I would have done that with some rice, better than faffing about peeling potatoes in the rain.

How about 'instant' flavoured risotto, with bits added, like ham, veg etc?

i think i can manage a veg and rice thing - but i'm not sure i can handle curry in a tin - kids are unlikely to eat it anyway - my dd doesn't 'like' a lot of things, 2yo ds is enjoying copying her, but the baby will eat anything.

just realised that breakfast maybe a problem as they are big toast fans. gulp.

Creequealley, you can toast bread on the camping stove. Just don't hold it too close to the flame and it's fine.

x

Coleman camping cookbook app?.Lets you plan using availiable ingredients,cooking method or meal type.

I took a stew for our first night, then pasta with a jar of ragu and sausages for the next night - added some red wine once the kids portions had been taken! Ate out third night. We did fry ups for breakfast or brioche. Our camping stove had a little grill so toast was also possible. Lunch was tinned soups or baked beans.

Don't forget to leave the lid on otherwise it will be past and midgies eeuuggh!!