Camping food

[TheoriginalLEM]

what do you cook/eat?

we went away twice last year and feel we let ourselves down food wise. We did have the most amazing steaks cooked on the fire but everything else was a bit shit.

Going in a few months, so haven't actually practised this yet.
On day one, I'm going to take a pre made batch of chilli, frozen.
The idea is that it will thaw out in the cool box over the course of the day, and then people can eat it with nachos/crusty bread. And it will be easy to heat up on the camping stove in one pan.
Think we will just do various meats on the bbq or eat out for other meals.
One fab idea for pudding on the bbq is smores- get two chocolate biscuits, sandwich together with marshmellows, and then wrap in foil and leave on the bbq for 10 minutes.

yes - my dd is a smores afficionado!

English breakfast for dinner is easy enough if you have a shop or have it on day 2. Cheese and ham omelette with crusty bread day 3.
Then its lots of rice/couscous/pasta with boxes of tomato based sauce with hotdogs or tinned curries etc is about as adventurous as we get.

My brood like old fashioned/girlguidey camp cooking: foil parcels on the BBQ/in the fire, fajita cooked over flame, cakes cooked in hollowed out oranges. If we're on a site that doesn't allow fires or at a festival we tend to eat rubbish which involves as little effort as possible. Cereal bars/peperamis and juice boxes for breakfast etc.

Sausage rolls

Ingredients: sausages and a carton of croissant dough.
Skewer a sausage lengthways and cook it over the fire. Then, still on the skewer, wrap it in half a piece of croissant dough and toast it over the fire.

Orange cakes.
Ingredients: oranges, flour, eggs, chocolate buttons.
Cut the tops off two oranges. Scrape out insides and eat. Break an egg into one, beat it up, then pour half into the other orange. Add a generous spoonful of flour to each orange and mix well. Should be about half full. Push in choc drops. Put the tops back on the oranges. Sit each on a big square of tinfoil. Gather foil up so that orange is tightly wrapped with a tinfoil handle sticking up. Place in very hot embers/coals. Should take about 5-10 mins to cook.

I think it might depend on how much do you like cooking and washing-up! We have a full week of camp cooking and the Scouts cook all of their evening meals on double ring burners or open fires. Generally everything is a meal that can be done with just one or two pots but it is proper cooking and recipes need to be Scout idiot-proof. The sorts of things we have done are:

• chicken curry and rice (heating the naan breads in foil on top of the rice pan or doing them on a grid over embers if open fire available)
• beef stew and dumplings (stew made with a base of vegetable soup)
• frying pan pizzas (but note you need to make dough so takes a while!)
• One-pot Moroccan chicken and cous cous (fab BBC recipe)
• spaghetti Bolognese and garlic bread (done in foil on the embers)
• chilli con carne (even better if you have tortilla chips, jalapenos, sour cream, guacamole etc to go with it)
• Sloppy joes and salad
• Fajitas

Having only camped once in my life ( last week) in no expert, but I felt we ate well.

First night chilli and nachos pre prepped and warmed

Second night steak on fire with camp stove boiled new potatoes

Third night bacon and bean soup cookthestory.com/bean-and-bacon-soup/

Fourth night flatbreads and chilli foil baked squash and salad

I'm afraid we go for really easy food, which most would hate (but I secretly love!) We only have a double burner and there are 6 of us. I occasionally do bacon or fried eggs (never both together) but always regret it when I come to wash up. I keep thinking of getting a grill like a cadac, but tbh I don't think I would use it much.

Here are some meals we often eat camping:
Pasta, jar of sauce, bag of grated cheese (sometimes with pre-cooked cocktail sausages mixed in) canned veg.
Pasta, minced beef, tomato pasta sauce, canned veg, grated cheese.
Minced beef fried with onions, new potatoes, canned carrots.
Canned chicken in white sauce, boil in bag rice, canned veg.
A fajitas kit, with extra wraps, pre-prepared stir fry veg, grated cheese.

On shopping days we might buy a hot chicken.

My kids would rather eat canned veg than salad. My Dsis would have the same meals, but with salad or raw veg.

Then a cold meal such as sandwich/crisps/fruit/cake for the other meal.

First night is a frozen curry or casserole which slowly thaws on the drive down.

Other nights -
BBQ meats with salad ( I will often make a big pasta salad and bring it with us)
Tacos
Pasta with stir through sauce
English brekkie for dinner
banana - partially peel, pop in a few chocolate chips, close up peel, wrap in foil, pop on BBQ for 5-10 mins

We do pancakes for one breakfast - pancake mix pre-made (eggs, milk, flour, the lot) and put into an spare 2pint plastic milk bottle in coolbox, where it keeps for a couple of days. To make the pancakes you just give it a shake, then pour it straight into the frying pan! We have with bananas, honey, Nutella, and this year also tried with a tin of raspberries which was yummy.

Wraps are great camping bread because they don't get squashed and keep well without going stale. You can fill them, fold in half, then dry fry in frying pan to hear the filling, makes very little mess or washing up! We always take a bag of grated cheese, other good fillings are chorizo, ham, tomato, jar of roasted peppers.

Heat the filling I mean....

If you have a fire or BBQ then salmon is good, wrapped in foil with drizzle of olive oil, seasoning, fresh herbs like parsley/dill (pre-chopped) and slices of lemon on top. Make a sort of pillowcase parcel folded at both ends (but don't fold down too tight - you need to leave some air inside to cook the salmon). Really delicious. You can take a piece of fish frozen in coolbox for second or third night - but makes sure it's in a double ziplock back if you don't want the coolbox smelling of fish!

We also take a bag of new potatoes pre-cooked and sauté these up in a frying pan.

I freeze chilli, curry & Bolognese in those Ikea boxes (you get 17 in various sizes in a set - the big 'brick' shaped ones are ideal for a family portion).

Kept in a cool bag with lots of frozen drinks (cartons of juice, boxes of white wine) & which you only ever unzip to get something out to defrost, everything will last 3 days. Serve all of them with lots of bread to avoid faffing with rice or pasta - although cous cous will go with the chilli as an alternative.

Once that lot is gone, it's takeaways or the local pub!

Also we do rib sticking breakfasts of bacon, egg & beans or eggy bread. Then a quick snack at lunchtime (crisps & fruit) keeps everyone going until their chilli etc.

I have developed a great (for us) system over the last few years of camping.

Dd like cereal for breakfast, so 1 bag o cereal and uht milk.

For each day I bring 1 carb 1 protein 1 vegetable and 1 fruit

So for example a recent 6 day trip looked like this. (Monday isn't included because there's always extra to be used up)

Fruit isnt included in this list but we took some apples, pears, bananas and oranges from the fruit bowl and home and bought some grapes.

Somethings I have discovered that keep well even without refrigeration

Boiled eggs in shells - 1 week kept not in direct sun. Serve with mayo and crackers/bread/brioche/wraps/pita and spring onion/sundried tomatoes/peppers. Or just dip in salt

Cooked sausages
Breakfast muffins
Cooked meatballs
Bruschetta
Cured meat
Breadsticks and cream cheese

Curry from a jar
Cous cous
Shit loads of brioche, croissants etc for breakfasts.
Pancakes

Our favourite camping meal is a curry using a Spice Tailor kit . It is especially good in France once you are sick of cheese and ham.

We take our gas bbq with us and do absolutely loads on it. We roast veggies in a basket, fry eggs on the griddle plate, make cheese on toast.

For treat pudding, we melt a bar of chocolate over a pan of hot water on the burner and then dip bits of banana, strawberry etc into it. Nom Nom.