One burner recipes

[OrangeRhinoInTraining]

Attempting a lightweight backpack in a couple of weeks - any good recipes for easy one-pot recipes that can be done on a small one-burner stove???

A simple meal of cooking some pasta and stir in jar of pesto. Cooked tortellini heated in pan of boiling water is also a quick simple dish.

Boil some water and use it to soak couscous for 15 minutes. We use Ainsley Harriet's Mediterranean flavoured couscous. If we have a coolbox, I crumble up some feta cheese and cut peppers and tomatoes to add to the couscous. In past we've fried an onion with some chicken pieces and courgette. If we don't have a coolbox I use a tin of chickpeas instead.
Alternatively, use boiled water to soak nests of noodles. While they're soaking, fry an onion and chicken pieces until well browned. Add a packet of stir fry sauce. We use Amoy chow mein. Add any tinned oriental veg such as bean sprouts, bamboo shoots or water chestnuts and heat through.
We've also successfully made this delicious recipe for Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall bacon and kale oatmeal. Tip: add Parmesan when it's finished! www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/jan/17/oat-recipes-hugh-fearnley-whittingstall

Fry bacon lardons and a sliced onion in the pot. (No need for oil, bacon fat is sufficient).

Once cooked, tip that out into bowl.

Boil water and cook pasta. (Use fast cook pasta for ease - or even the already cooked pasta pouches for microwaves and just heat through using boiling water).

While pasta cooking, whisk an egg into the bowl (add a dash of cream if you want to carry that too).

When draining pasta, save a few tablespoons of the water in a mug - just in case it's needed (to loosen the sauce).

Put pasta back in pot, add bowl of bacon, onion, egg - mix together (either VERY low heat - or even just heat off and hot pasta will do it enough) until egg thickens slightly to make sauce. Add some pasta boiling water if needed to make it less thick.

Ground pepper and grated parmesan are great seasonings.

I've done similar (at home) with sundried tomato pesto rather than the eggy mix, which is also lovely. And it's also nice with mushrooms included as veg. Or using chicken (needs oil though) rather than bacon.

Otherwise couscous or "no cook noodles" would be great.

The ultimate one-ring, one-pot is a tin of beans and sausages. You can even cook it in the tin which makes it a no-pot.

But with timing, sequencing and the right cheat ingredients you can get quite adventurous.

A fantastic cheat ingredient for camp cooking is Tilda precooked rice. Sachets don't need to be kept chilled, and to serve only need heating through - the packet says microwave or stir fry, but a gentle heat in the pan with a splash of water works just as well. Other great cheat ingredients are the squeezy tubes of herbs and spices, they ought to be chilled after opening but will keep at least a couple of days without if you're careful.

A one-pot one-burner meal from a couple of weeks ago when camping was.. soften chopped onion in oil, stir through squeezy garlic, chilli and ginger; remove from the pan and place in a bowl to one side. Add a splash more oil and gently fry cubed salmon steaks for 3-4 mins, add raw tiger prawns and fry for another 3-4 minutes; remove the fish and place into the bowl with the onions scraping all the tasty bits into the bowl and mixing them through. Add a splash of water to the pan and heat through precooked rice. Serve the rice with the fish/onion over the top. If the pan is big enough you could just pile the onion/fish on top of the rice once it's heated through and give it a stir.

It's a bit fancy for camping with salmon and prawns, but you could do something very similar with onion and bacon, or chicken (or bacon and chicken), or chorizo (or chorizo and chicken - mmm-mmm, making myself hungry here) or any other cured sausage that will cope with ambient (rather than chilled) storage for a day or so. It's just thinking ahead and working out what needs to go into the pan when, and using the resting times to allow things you've taken out to continue to cook through.

Great ideas - thanks!