Just pitched dinners

Cooking at festivals

I went to many music festivals in my twenties. Planning involved little more than a trip to the cash point so that I would have enough money to spend on cocktails, beer and fast food.
Now I travel with three children and a freezer bag of food.

This change is due as much to convenience as it is for economic reasons; it is as quick to whip up a pan of pasta pesto than it is to queue for five meagre plastic plates that have to be consumed standing up, three portions of which may not go down well with the children, who accept or reject dishes with their tiny group mind.

I have eaten well at festivals over the years; Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s mackerel burgers at Port Eliot and Leon’s veggie platters at the Big Chill were real treats. And I have eaten poorly, sampling under-salted vegetarian gloop from every corner of the globe.
So here we are packing and prepping for festivals. I plan for three days’ worth of dinners. Festival breakfast is a more chaotic affair than a normal camp breakfast due to the large amounts of ale downed the night before; we pack plenty of chocolate croissants so that the children can help themselves while I attempt to rouse Math with a cattle prod.

Day 1: Family festival pie
When Math compered a day at the Free University of Glastonbury, he had to interview the writer, campaigner and comedian Mark Thomas. During the conversation, Math admitted that his family had been – for two days – dining off an enormous Glastonbury pie. “I really hope that is true,” said Mark Thomas. It was.

For festival pie to be the perfect one dish meal, it needs protein and a portion of vegetables to go along with the carbohydrate pastry case. Hot water crust pastry is my favourite type of pastry as it is so easy to make and can be rolled out pretty thinly, because I am not keen on a pastry-heavy pie.
Recipes
Beef pie with slow-cooked onions and greens recipe
Sausage rolls recipe

Day 2: Quesadillas

Quesadillas don’t leave much washing up, which you should always be mindful of at festivals where there is only ever a stand pipe. Many festival goers break out the bacon and eggs but it’s not easy or pleasant to wash up after such a greasy meal.
The quesadillas should be spicy with grated cheese, but other than that, choose your favourite fillings. This is how I like mine, with spiced black beans (made at home), grated cheese, olives, avocado, spicy tomato salsa (shop bought or made at home) and if you can store it, Greek yogurt or soured cream.
Warm up a frying pan on the stove. On a tortilla, spread some black beans then add olives, spicy tomato sauce, avocado, a squeeze of lime, yogurt or cream and a handful of grated cheese. Roll the tortilla up and warm it in the dry pan for a couple of minutes, turn it over and cook again on the other side.
Recipes
Quesadillas
Pasta pesto
Super quick and something I know will fill the children up, and it won’t spoil when the ice packs lose their cooling power.

Day 3: Stew from tins
It’s day three at the festival. Let’s open some tins. If you make the spice mix at home this is a simple recipe to make even at a festival and will probably save you £6 a head.
Recipe
Moroccan chickpea stew, serves two

Quesadillas

Day 2: Quesadillas

Quesadillas don’t leave much washing up, which you should always be mindful of at festivals where there is only ever a stand pipe. Many festival goers break out the bacon and eggs but it’s not easy or pleasant to wash up after such a greasy meal.
The quesadillas should be spicy with grated cheese, but other than that, choose your favourite fillings. This is how I like mine, with spiced black beans (made at home), grated cheese, olives, avocado, spicy tomato salsa (shop bought or made at home) and if you can store it, Greek yogurt or soured cream.
Warm up a frying pan on the stove. On a tortilla, spread some black beans then add olives, spicy tomato sauce, avocado, a squeeze of lime, yogurt or cream and a handful of grated cheese. Roll the tortilla up and warm it in the dry pan for a couple of minutes, turn it over and cook again on the other side.

Black beans

Ingredients

1 onion, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 handful raisins
1 tbs cocoa powder
Salt and black pepper
1 chilli, chopped
1/2 bunch coriander, chopped
Juice of a lime
Oil for frying
1 tsp cumin, ground
1 tsp coriander seeds, ground
1 star anise
1 tsp caraway seeds, ground
1 tsp ground cinnamon

Method

Gently cook the onions, garlic and chilli in some oil. Add the spices, beans, cocoa and raisins, a little water and cook until the beans are soft. Remove the star anise and make a paste by mashing the mixture. Add salt and pepper, lime and coriander leaves. This will keep for a few days in an airtight container until you are ready to use it in your quesadillas.

Spicy tomato salsa

Ingredients

6 ripe tomatoes, roughly chopped
1 bunch spring onions, finely sliced
A handful coriander leaves, chopped
1 tbs cider vinegar
2 tsp sugar
Salt

Method

Mix all the ingredients together and keep in a sterilised jar for a few days to use in your quesadillas.

Sausage Rolls recipe

My children like sausage rolls and so I always prepare some veggie ones and meat ones. These will mainly be eaten while travelling to the festival, then during and after setting up the tent. The chore of preparatory baking is minor compared to the disappointment, expense, and diminishment of soul that comes from chowing down at a motorway service station.

Ingredients

1 portion of rough puff pastry
1 packet of veggie sausages
1 packet of organic bangers or 250g sausage meat
1 beaten egg
Tomato ketchup

Method

On a floured surface, roll out half the pastry into one long strip about 15cm in depth.
Spread a layer of ketchup down the middle and lay a veggie sausages or meat sausage on top.
Brush the nearside edge of the pastry with egg wash and fold over.
Pinch the edge with a fork, cut into large or small rolls.
Cut two little slits into each roll, brush with egg wash and cook in a hot oven (200oC) for 15 to 20 minutes.

Camping requires a lot of planning and prep. Don’t leave the first meal to chance. After all that packing, travelling, unloading, and pitching, you deserve to eat something good in front of the perfectly pitched tent.

The trip to the supermarket to load up on pre-packaged picnic stuff just doesn’t do it for me anymore, hauling mounds of plastic pasty wrappers to the bins is not only embarassing, but a major hassle. Some sites make you take your rubbish home, this really gets you thinking: one way to leave no trace is to take your food with you in proper reusable containers.
After the exertions of the day you need something filling, nutritious, easy and lovely. The key is to get a one-pot meal that contains everything you need: carbs, protein, vegetables with maybe some bread to spin it out. Good containers to transport your meal with tight-fitting lids are needed. Once cleaned, they can be used again during your trip to keep other foods fresh.
It’s beer o’clock and someone in your party is likely to be shouting “Where’s me dinner?” Take it with you, heat it up, problem solved.

Cath’s Just Pitched Dinners
– Spanish meatballs
– Veggie chilli
– Spanish tortilla
– Chicken pie

Just Pitched Veggie chilli

I love veggie chilli, I serve it at home with wholemeal soft flour tortillas, pickled jalapenos and guacamole. What you take to camp is really what you can manage. Like many stews, chilli benefits from a day’s rest before eating so is perfect to heat up on a one ring stove. This recipe is more tasty than spicy. The same flavourings can be used for a beef or chicken chilli: substitute the beans for the meat, which you fry off before adding the other ingredients.

Ingredients
250g dried black turtle beans, soaked for 24 hours, or 2 x 240g tins, drained
240g tin of chopped tomatoes
1 large or 2 small carrots, diced
1 onion, chopped
1 stick of celery, diced
1 red pepper, roasted, skinned and chopped
1 clove garlic, peeled
1 bay leaf
2 dried kashmiri chillis
1 tsp chilli powder
1 star anise, crushed
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground coriander
2 cloves, crushed
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ground caraway seeds
1 handful raisins
1 handful flaked almonds
1 tbs cocoa powder
1 handful fresh coriander, chopped
Salt
Juice of 1 lime

Method

The beans
If using dried beans, once they have been soaked for 24 hours, put them in a large pan with enough water to cover them plus about 5cm. Add the onion, carrot, celery, garlic, chillis and bay leaf. Bring to the boil, put the lid on and simmer for 1 1/2 to 2 hours until they are soft and edible. Keep an eye on them, if the water runs out top it up otherwise the beans will stick and burn.
If you are using tinned beans, then drain them. Fry the carrot, onion, garlic, celery in a little onion, then add the beans and chillis and cover with 1 to 2cm of water. Cook for 15 to 20 minutes until they are soft and edible, don’t let them burn.

The spices and finishing off
Grind the whole spices. Add them to your pot along with the other already ground spices. Add the tin of tomatoes and cook for 10 minutes. Add the cocoa, raisins, almonds and red pepper, cook through. Once the dish is fragrant and tasty, then you can add the salt, lime and fresh coriander. You may want a spicier dish in which case add a little more dried chilli powder and cook it through.
You can serve it now, or it will heat up easily, you may need to add some water when reheating to stop the beans sticking. Serve with soft flour tortillas, yogurt and guacamole.

Just Pitched Chicken Pie

Serves 4

I made two little pies with asparagus and chicken for our tea when we went to Glastonbury. As I burnt the first load of pastry, which I had bought, I had to then whip up another batch. So we had one pie with shop-bought and one with home-made, the home-made won the taste test. If you have time and the inclination then make your own.

This is perfect if you have leftover meat from a roast dinner: you can add more vegetables if you have less meat or top it up with some fried bacon. I like to layer pies, ensuring everyone gets a bit of everything.

If the peas or asparagus are late season ones i.e. bigger than new season, then steam them for a couple of minutes before adding to the pie. New season vegetables are sufficiently tender to go in uncooked.

I use a 26cm oblong enamel pie dish, the old fashioned kind, which is white with a blue rim.

Ingredients

Pastry
1 portion rich short crust pastry, 500g packet shop bought or home-made, instructions below
225g plain flour
110g butter, straight from the fridge, cubed
2 egg yolks mixed with 2 tbs very cold water
A pinch of salt

Pie filling
450g chicken or approximately 2 breasts and 2 thighs of a small chicken, cooked, boned and sliced into generous pieces
2 leeks, cut once lengthways, washed then very finely sliced into half-moon shapes
1 tbs olive oil
1 clove garlic, chopped
50g butter
500ml liquid, a mixture of milk and chicken stock
75g plain flour
Salt and pepper
2 tbs parsley, chopped
100g/handful of seasonal green vegetables, fresh peas or young asparagus, cut into 2cm lengths are ideal
Rind of a lemon
1 egg, beaten

Method
Heat the oven to 200°C

How to make the pastry
If you are making the pastry, get going with it first. Sieve the flour, add a pinch of salt and rub the cold butter into the flour until you have a breadcrumb-like mixture. Add the egg yolks and water and mix with a knife, then bring the dough together with your hand. Add a little more water if the pastry doesn’t come together. A shortcrust pastry is best, so don’t make it soggy, it will turn out hard.
Cool in the fridge for 30 minutes wrapped in cling film.

Making the pie
Roll out 2/3 of the pastry and line the pie dish. Don’t make it too thick, as you will run out of pastry. A pie with too much pastry and not enough filling is a bad thing. Shortcrust pastry is – as its name suggests – very short and sometimes hard to handle. If yours breaks then you can patch it up in the pie dish, no one will know, just make the top look good. Trim the edge of the pastry all round the dish. Prick the base of the pastry lightly with a fork, so it doesn’t rise, cover with greaseproof paper and fill with baking beans. Blind bake for ten minutes.

While the pastry case is cooking, gently heat the oil and fry the leeks and garlic with a pinch of salt until they are soft and bright green – don’t rush this, leeks can go papery very easily. Make the white sauce by melting the butter in a small saucepan, remove from the heat and add the flour. Beat well with a wooden spoon, so you have one ball of mixture in the pan. Cook very gently for five to eight minutes; you want to cook the flour, but not burn it. Take it off the heat. Add the liquid bit by bit, mixing well after each spoonful. Once the liquid is incorporated, then cook gently until the sauce thickens, season and add the parsley. You want quite a thick white sauce so it holds together in your pie.

Once the pastry case is cooked, take it out, remove the paper and baking beans. Layer the pie filling, seasoning well with salt and pepper: leeks first, chicken, lemon rind, peas or asparagus and lastly white sauce.

Brush the edges of the pastry with the beaten egg and roll out the remaining pastry and cover the pie, pinch the edges to seal the pie and trim the excess. Brush the top with beaten egg and cut two slits in the top for the steam to escape. Cook in the oven for 25 to 30 minutes, the meat needs to be fully heated through, so if you put in cold meat you will need the full 30 minutes.

If your pastry top is burning, cover it with greaseproof paper. If the meat was still hot when you put it in, as soon as the pastry is cooked on top, your pie is ready. Take out and cool, cover when cold and take it camping with you in a cool box.

Just Pitched Spanish meatballs

Serves 4

Prepare this at home and take it with you in two pots: one containing the sauce, and the other holding the meatballs.
Once at camp, all you need is a one-ring cooker, (or two-ring if you are cooking rice or potatoes), a large, lidded saucepan and wooden spoon. Once pitched, all you need to do is warm the sauce and add the meatballs until they are cooked through.
Serve on the first night outside your tent with Rioja.

Ingredients

For the meatballs
500g minced pork
Grated zest of a lemon
1 dried bay leaf, crushed
1 tbs sherry
Salt and pepper
½ onion grated
¼ tsp smoked paprika
1 egg
1 handful breadcrumbs

For the sauce
1 small onion, finely sliced
½ green pepper, finely sliced
1 clove garlic, chopped
Olive oil
¼ tsp smoked paprika
1 small glass sherry
1 pt chicken or vegetable stock (fresh or from cube)
Salt and pepper
½ tin tomatoes
2 tbs parsley, chopped

Method
Put all the ingredients for the meatballs in a bowl and mix together with your hands for five minutes.
Make the mixture into walnut-sized balls between your palms. Keep them in the fridge until you are ready to cook them.
Heat a ridged cast-iron grill pan, for example Le Creuset and when it is very hot, cook the meatballs. If you use a normal frying pan, add a splash of olive oil to cook in.

Brown the meatballs on all sides, do them in two or three batches if necessary. An overloaded pan won’t give you the browned crispy edges you need for this dish. Don’t wriggle the meatballs around, wait until they are brown on one side and then move them over to brown on another side. Do this with a fish slice and slide it under the meatball along the ridge-line of the pan.

What you want is a meatball that is browned and sealed all over but not cooked through. You cook it through once it is in the sauce, thereby keeping it moist but intact. If you are taking the meatballs and sauce separately to reheat at camp, then put the meatballs in a container, and seal it once they have cooled.

Now get on with the sauce.

Heat the oil in a pan and slowly fry the green pepper, onion and garlic. Once soft, add the sherry and apply a higher heat for a few minutes to cook off the alcohol. Add the stock, tomatoes, paprika, parsley and salt and pepper. Bring to the boil and then cook gently for ten minutes or so.

At camp, heat the sauce up, add the meatballs and cook gently until they are cooked through: the meat needs to be piping hot. Keep an eye on the consistency of the sauce, not too gloopy and not too thin. Check the seasoning and serve with some carbs. Crusty bread will do perfectly.

Just Pitched Spanish tortilla

Serves 4

I have been making this tortilla for years, it is a real store cupboard recipe. Waxy potatoes are a must, floury ones like King Edwards will fall apart and leave you with just oniony mashed potatoes. Older new potatoes are ideal, as they are waxy, but less work than new potatoes because they are bigger. Slice them lengthways as thinly as you can, or use a mandoline.
Serve with salad and a mild cheese like Ossau Irraty or Manchego and membrillo.

Ingredients
500g onion, thinly sliced
750g waxy potatoes, scrubbed (not peeled) and sliced thinly, 3mm thickness
3 eggs, beaten
Olive oil
Salt and pepper
2 tbs fresh oregano, chopped

Method
Boil the potatoes for seven minutes in salted water. They should be just cooked, but not falling apart. While they are cooking, gently fry the onions in oil and a pinch of salt until they are soft, sweet and browning.

Drain the potatoes and put them back into the dry pan over a low heat for a couple of minutes. This is so they dry out as wet potatoes will cause you trouble. Don’t take your eyes off of them or they will burn. Mix in the cooked onions and stir in the beaten eggs and pepper, do this gently so you don’t break up the potatoes.

Heat the oil in a decent non-stick frying pan. Once the oil is hot, add the potato, onion and egg mixture, squashing it down into the pan a little. Turn the heat to medium and wait for the eggs to cook. Use a spatula or fish slice to look under the tortilla.

Once it is browning, you are ready to turn it over. Loosen the tortilla all the way round with a blunt knife. Turn the heat off, place a large plate over the pan and a rolled up tea-towel over that. Turn the pan upside down, the tortilla should come out cleanly. Wipe the pan down with kitchen towel and heat another tablespoon of oil. Once hot, slide in the tortilla to cook the other side. Once both sides are cooked, serve onto a plate, season with salt and oregano. Wait for it to cool. You can serve it at room temperature or cold.

Variations
Add 1/2 red pepper, thinly sliced and cooked with the onions.
Add a clove of garlic to cook with the onions.
Add a couple of slices of Serrano ham, shredded.
Add chives or parsley instead of oregano