Duke of Edinburgh camp-out meal for a coeliac

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DD1 is going on her DofE hike at the weekend, and has been tasked with bringing food for six which can be cooked on the trangia stove.

She decided on pasta and sauce, which I dutifully purchased. Now she tells me one of the group is a coeliac, so she'd like to make the meal gluten-free. I realise you can buy gluten free pasta, but my coeliac friend tells me it's disgusting stuff.

Any ideas for a gluten free meal? Needs to be simple/one pot/easy for teens.

How many stoves will they have between them? I'm assuming 2?

Is this the real expedition where they are hiking from point to point and therefore carrying everything, or is this the practice and staying in one campsite and going out for the day? I am assuming it's the real one and therefore weight is a consideration.

Personally I think cooking for 6 is daft and v difficult to do on a trangia and they would be better off cooking in pairs.

We generally took our own food (those special boil in the bag meals or super noodle type things).

Anyway, you could do something like this:

Starter: 6 cup a soups. Pick ones with the most calories in and hopefully there is one the C can have.

Having the soup stops people getting 'hangry' whist the main food is being cooked.

Main: 6 sachets of the single serve boil in the bag rice. Easy to drain and keeps portioning simple.

Mix in 1 tin of tuna each and a little tin of sweet corn. Shake over dried Parmesan (you can buy it in small plastic shaker tubs).

Pudding: Chicolate bar

If two stoves, whilst the rice is cooking, in the other stove you could fry off chorizo onion and peppers with some mixed herbs and then stir that into the rice. Can dice the onion, pepper and chorizo at home and take in a bag with the herbs - will be fine out of the fridge after a day of hiking. Could call it a paella which would make it sound more fancy than it is!

Or buy packs of the gallo risotto mix. I like the mushroom. Would need 2 stoves for 6 people tho. That's really nice and super easy since it's just one pack to tip in, add water heat and stir. Light to carry too.

GF pasta is gross, yes. Heinz beans and sausages are GF, as is rice, M&S sausages are all GF too. Could fry sausages and onions and put in rolls? Tell the GF person to bring their own bread (the prescription stuff is far nicer than bought stuff)

Doubt you'll find a GF cups soup to be honest

Or you could do smash + something.

Smash + tuna, sweetcorn and cheese would be nice.

Smash + baked beans (heavy to carry tho) and fry sausages (should be ok out of fridge for a day, if worried can freeze them and let them defrost during the day).

In these situations it's a bit shit having to cater for other people. Much better to take own food. Then you can take what you like to eat and you have to carry it.

What if you had one veggie, one GF and one dairy free in the group? Would be a nightmare. And what about the person who doesn't like rice etc

Don't take tins on a DofE camping expedition - too heavy. Smash is a good idea, with pre cooked (ideally veggie for food hygiene safety reasons) sausages to slice into it once it is cooked and grated cheese to go on top.

A lot of 'look what we found' meals are GF, things like chilli, meatballs and all sorts of other stuff in sealed packets. Not cheap though, you could stretch one chilli out to feed two if you added enough rice and nachos (have seen GF).

Trouble is that unless GF is cooked from scratch it tends to be more expensive than a non GF option.

When we camp our first night dinner is often risotto. I chop the onions before we go and grate some cheese, weigh the rice and put two stock cubes and herbs in a bag.

Just substitute the pasta with rice. No need for replanning their meal. It doesn't have to taste nice remember - just provide them with calories!

Precooked rice in packets (Tilda or Uncle Bens in the mushroom variety) with some pepperami (which is shelf stable) stirred in and some tub parmesan would work. To heat it, put some water in the pan and bring to the boil then add rice otherwise it sticks.

You can also do this with tomato soup - the Heinz soup stick things in tomato are GF.

Another alternative to the pasta is to use rice noodles - they cook in 3 mins in boiling water, not even on the stove so are v convenient

Mine have cooked in two and 3s - much easier and one took pasta with a stir through sauce and mattersons smoked sausage to chop into it as that doesn't need to be refrigerated - no idea if it's GF though. The other made hot dogs and noodles.

Rice is a good option and you could stull use a stir through sauce such a carbonara so it turns into creamy risotto and chop sausage through it if GF. Mine also made cake and custard for pudding - packet of instant custard that you add boiling water to and a chunk of swiss roll. I know that GF brownies can be very good so GF brownie and custard might be an option?

The above are good if they are camping somewhere with a water supply - if you have to carry the water to cook with then you are better with the weight of a pre packed pouch dinner or tin etc as you aren't saving weight by carrying water to throw out when you've cooked with it.

Wow, some great ideas - I like the idea of rice, tuna and sweetcorn (or sausage). I'd forgotten about boil in the bag rice. And baked beans (although tins might indeed be heavy).

I don't know how many stoves they have, but I understand there is water at the campsite so they don't need to carry that. It's a practice expedition, but still overnight (just a bit shorter). And they have agreed to cook together and each bring a course of a meal; I was just a bit stumped about having to do it all gluten free.

I will present some ideas to DD1 tomorrow and see what appeals. Thanks again!

If you are putting in tuna remember they will need to be able to open it, a lot of tuna doesn't come in ring pull cans. Ds1 likes tinned mackerel in olive oil which is ring pull and he just drains that and eats it from the tin adds it to pasta/rice or onto a roll. Highly nutritious, not too heavy to carry and plenty of good calories. Appreciate it's not to everyone's taste though :)

If you are putting in tuna remember they will need to be able to open it, a lot of tuna doesn't come in ring pull cans.

I was about the only person who could open tins using the swiss army knife tin opener thingy on my gap year thingy. I basically got put on 'tin opener duties' constantly rather than have to do the less glamorous cleaning of the squat toilet tasks or washing up etc. Was well worth having that skill!

I've never been able to get a grip on being able to do that either whois . I suppose Scout DSs should be able to but I suspect that skill is about as good as their navigation skills.

I've never been able to get a grip on being able to do that either whois

It's honestly really simple once someone shows you how it works. And strangely satisfying!

I bet. I think the opportunities for practice are pretty limited nowadays

The pre made ration pack meals are good and everyone can choose their own- can be eaten cold or warmed in the packet!