Camping cuisine! What do you feed yours when camping?

[gerbo]

Help. We just had a lovely four days in Sussex, camping at Wowo - def. back to basics. We borrowed a friends two ring stove with grill.

Managed a couple of pasta dishes, but thought rice may be a bit faffy, and my idea of omelettes on those thin little camping pans wouldn't have worked.

Resorted to tinned hot dogs (nasty, I know) and tinned chilli (M&S so hopefully not too grim)...

Need inspiration for healthy but easy camping fodder!

Do you take your own pans?

Any fail safe ideas????

My children are 3.5 and 6 months (so he's eating up mashed family food).

Spag boll is easy, if you take a ready made and frozen bollognaise sauce. Use fresh pasta rather than dried, so it cooks quickly.

Fish pie good too - same approach - made at home prior to trip and frozen. The frozen aspect means you can keep it in a cool box for at least a couple of days. I'm a big fan now of pre-made food as it means you can then just heat up in one pan.

Fried sausages and fish fingers in buns also good.

Another fan of taking home made food which has been frozen. Chili, Spag bol, curry etc.

When we go for a weekend, I will put in a main meal, which conveinently doubles as a freezer block, and will slowly defrost in the cool box over 24/48 hours ready to pop in the pan. I normally take home made soup for the first evening, which is dead quick with crusty bread, to save faffing around once you've set up camp.

For me camping is also about having a BBQ! Nothing tastes as good!

As a fall back I take a Mattersons smoked sausage (doesn't need to be kept cool) and a packet of Chicken noodle soup (the kind that makes about a litre) simple chop the sausage and heat with soup. Really simple and filling.

My niece and nephew adore my "Sausage soup" and always request it!

What kind of food do you like normally?

Let us know then we can make some suggetions.

Thanks Mrs.Mellow. We didn't take a cool box this time, but I suppose we should invest... Hadn't thought of fresh pasta either - took ages to heat water on my stove for our pasta so thank you!

Anyone else? Just wondered if there were any one or two pot wonder recipes out there to suit a preschooler and parents??

Rice is not a faff! Uncle Ben's Express Rice takes 3 mins to cook - we serve with a packet cheese sauce and lots of mixed veg stirred in: savoury rice.

We always have hot dogs and always have tuna pasta. And the first night, as others have said, is definitely something homemade.

Thanks everyone... It's little tips like Uncle Ben's rice and matteson's sausages that are helpful!!

I think I need to go and browse the packet/tin shelves.

We usually eat homemade stuff - soups/casseroles, stews, meat and two veg, etc. Pretty simple food.

Anyone else?

After a week camping I was desperate for some fresh veg - innocent (of the smoothies) do a 'veg pot' which worked well - just heat up.
Pasta is a staple for us too.
I find camping food a nightmare though, my DP really won't compromise on using ready made food and insists on cooking - no problem with that per se, but throw in 3 kids and 2 reasonably fussy eaters and a mix of veggies/non veggies and its a right pain.
There was a thread recently about useful gadgets for camping and someone put on a link to something that cooked rice/pasta really quick.
We used a Trangia a lot for cooking this time - really simple and fast - v good for making a cuppa.

mine like curry and I cook veg in the same pot as rice.
also pasta, especially wwith cheee sauce/pesto and bvacon.
They also eat vast amounts of cake when camping.
For breakfast they like sausages/bacon and cereal + yoghurt is also popular.
We take a tiny barbeque and wrap fish/peppers in foil, cook pittas on the barbeque too...

packets of cous cous (flavoured type) then you can add any stir fried meat like chicken or bacon etc, serve with crusty bread and loads of wine .

only ever use quick cook pasta and easy cook rice as its par cooked and doesnt take as long.

corned beef hash. onions, corned beef, baked beans, all served with a jacket potato.

we tend to have salad instead of veg when camping, and loads of fruit.

I only do easy stuff when we're camping, so mostly tins. Only problem is it has to be gluten free for my dh. I do curry, chilli, hot dogs, always Aldi packed risotto (really yummy!). Always have a takeaway at least one night and probably eat out once as well.

Our firnds did a stew last night whcih was

2x tins of big and mighty veg soup,
2x tins of corned bee chopped up and 2 tins of newpots it was deilicious adn i will def do one next time we go!

Brilliant everyone! Thanks - getting loads more ideas.

Are you allowed to take BBQs to most sites?? Wonder if they're too safety conscious...?

Cous cous is great for camping as is pasta (though that can take a while)

We have done paella, curries, full english breakfast (though toast can be tricky!) fish, stew - pretty much anything burgers can get dull after a while!

There are a few cook books for camping out there that have some great menus - will try and find ours and let you know