One-pot meals – The Art of Camping

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

Moroccan chickpea stew recipe

Ingredients

1 tin of drained chickpeas
1 tin of chopped tomatoes
1 onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, crushed
2 carrots, peeled and diced
1/2 handful dried apricots, chopped
1/2 handful sultanas
Olive oil for frying
Spice mix: 1 tsp dried ginger, 1 tsp ground turmeric, 2 tsp ground coriander seeds, 1 tsp ground cumin, 1 tsp ground cinnamon, 2 tsp paprika
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Method

Heat up the oil and gently fry the carrots, onion and garlic until soft. Add the chickpeas, tomatoes, spice mix and dried fruit. Simmer until the chickpeas are soft, but still intact. Season with salt and pepper, serve with harissa and flatbread, cous cous or rice.

Eridge Park venison stew

The retort of hunters’ guns sounded throughout our stay at Forgewood campsite on Eridge Park. Wandering through the forest, we startled a small deer. At the sound and sight of us galumphing over splintering wood, the deer fled in one flash of his white tail, back toward the hunters. When we returned to the campsite, we asked if they sold any venison shot on the estate. They did. And so I devised this stew for the campfire.

Serves 4

Ingredients
4 venison steaks, fat trimmed and cubed
1 onion, diced
1 large or 2 small carrots, diced
2 cloves of garlic, peeled
Olive oil
Knob of butter
Couple of tablespoons of plain flour
Salt and black pepper
3 cloves
1 stick cinnamon
3 or 4 cardamon pods
1 bay leaf
Two slivers of orange peel

Method
Marinate the venison in oil, salt, pepper, bay leaf, onion and carrot for about an hour.
I cooked this stew in a large, lidded billy can over a wood fire, but it could be done in any lidded pan on a gas stove. I heated a pan over the fire and put in the marinated meat. Once the meat was browned all over, I added some water, the spices and orange peel, put the lid on and left it cooking for half an hour or so.

Meanwhile I made a thickener with flour and soft butter, mushing it with the back of a fork until completely incorporated. I mixed this thickener with a bit of the liquid from the pan and then stirred it all into the stew. I cooked the stew some more, regularly stirring it and checking it had enough liquid. Once the meat was tender, I crushed the garlic against the side of the pan and stirred it in. Once seasoned the stew was served with fried gnocchi and a watercress, raisin and pine nut salad.

Foraging and campfire cooking at Wowo

We spent a sunny weekend at WOWO, the campsite of Waspbourne Manor Farm in East Sussex. During our visit, the people running the campsite generously cooked up a wild garlic soup to share with the campers, and this inspired me to cook up some ideas of my own.

Sausage and wild garlic stew cooking on the campfire

A large patch of wild garlic leaves grows in the shady areas under the trees by the Tipi trail. You can smell the garlic as you approach; it grows in such abundance that we were allowed to gather as much as we wanted. It is the leaves that you cook with, treating them as you would spinach or as a strong salad leaf.

wild garlic leaves at WOWO campsite — Wild garlic leaves at WOWO campsite

I took the toddlers and a carrier bag and collected enough for two ‘made up on the spot’ recipes. As Matthew set the fire, I washed and chopped a good handful of wild garlic leaves and some flat-leaf parsley. I then mashed it up with a fork along with a pinch of sea salt, a knob of butter and some lemon juice.

Cath and kids picking wild garlic leaves at wowo campsite

Once the fire was going I toasted some slices of home-made bread that I sprayed with olive oil. Once they were toasted on both sides, I rubbed in the wild garlic leaf mixture and ate it without ceremony; Wild Garlic bread.

Sausage stew with wild garlic leaves for 4

The main course was a sausage stew with wilted garlic leaves. I had some Italian style sausages from Tablehurst Farm and decided to stew them rather than grill them over the campfire. They are meatier than British bangers and so stew well without falling to bits. I had a loaf of bread I made at home; I sprayed it with olive oil and toasted it over the fire. The garlic leaves give a fresh garlicky taste, not harsh at all and barely need cooking.

Ingredients
8 decent Italian or Toulouse sausages
1 tin of chopped tomatoes
1 sprig of rosemary
1 onion, chopped
Olive oil
Salt and black pepper
2 red peppers
2 handfuls of freshly picked wild garlic leaves, washed

Method
Roast the red peppers on the campfire until they are blackened, then skin and chop them. Meanwhile, heat the oil and gently cook the onion, then add the sausages and rosemary and fry for a minute or two before adding the tomatoes. Season with salt and pepper and simmer covered until the sausages are cooked through. You may need to add some water if your stew looks like it may stick. Don’t forget to add the peppers when they are done. Take the stew off the heat and stir in the leaves, they will wilt very quickly. One last taste for seasoning and serve with toasted bread, pasta or new potatoes.
Tags: foraging, sausages, stew, one-pot meals,

Tablehurst farm

WOWO campsite

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Just Pitched Dinners

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.

Minestrone

Serves 4

Tinned soup is the first food you associate with camping. Instead of opening a tin of Heinz Big Soup, get chopping fresh, seasonal vegetables, supplemented with a can of borlotti beans. If you are feeling adventurous, source fresh borlotti beans as they are around at the height of summer, but they do need preparation, requiring 40-45 minutes cooking, which is a fair amount of faffing for a camper. If you do persist with fresh beans, pod them, discarding brown and mouldy ones and cook them in unsalted water for about 40 minutes until soft, drain and then add to the recipe as follows.

Ingredients

1 red pepper, chopped
1 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, crushed with salt against the chopping board with the blade of a sharp knife
4 tomatoes, quartered
2 tbs parsley, chopped, also other herbs, like chives or rosemary
1 x 250g tin of borlotti beans, drained, mash half with a spoon, leaving the other half whole
400g seasonal mixed green vegetables like fresh peas, green beans and broad beans in the summer
¼ seasonal cabbage, finely sliced
100g pasta, small shapes or spaghetti broken up into small lengths if possible, but any will do, larger shapes may need a bit more cooking though
Olive oil
Salt and pepper
1 litre of water or vegetable stock, made with a cube, concentrate or fresh from the supermarket fridge

Equipment

1 large pan
Single ring stove
Chopping board
Sharp knife
Spoon for stirring
Bowl
Sieve or colander

Method

Heat the oil and add the red pepper, onion and garlic. Fry very gently until soft. Add 1 litre of water or stock if you have it. Bring to the boil, turn down and simmer, add the mashed borlotti beans and stir thoroughly. After five minutes, add the pasta and green beans, whole borlotti beans, tomatoes and other green vegetables, except the cabbage. Cook for five to ten minutes and check the pasta and the whole borlotti beans, cook for another few minutes if necessary until the pasta and beans are done. Then add the cabbage and parsley, stir it round until it has wilted over the heat. Season and serve with a drizzle of olive oil and fresh bread.

For a variation: At the beginning of cooking you could add bacon or pancetta cut into small chunks and fry with the onion, garlic and red pepper, if you are feeling carnivorous.

Puy lentils and spicy sausage stew

Serves 4
Sausage stew was the first meal we cooked when camping, made with red table wine from a plastic bottle and a Mattesson’s sausage that Math’s Mum had pushed into his rucksack. Things have moved on since then but the principle remains the same: a warming and easy dish that does not require finesse. Here the sausages should be sturdy bangers and sufficiently dense to withstand boiling without turning into mush. A string of fat cooking chorizo is ideal. If you don’t want a particularly spicy flavour then omit the chilli. The dish could be made with Toulouse sausages, chives and parsley.

Ingredients

250g puy lentils
8 sturdy spicy sausages, such as cooking chorizo. Brindisa make some good ones
1 small or 1/2 large onion, chopped
1 long red chilli, spliced length ways
2 garlic cloves, peeled but left whole
1 red pepper, deseeded and diced
Juice of ½ lemon
1 carrot, peeled and diced
1 stick of celery, diced
8 baby tomatoes (or 4 standard tomatoes quartered, the important thing is they are the tastiest you can get)
2 tbs olive oil
Salt and pepper
3 tbs fresh herbs, flat leaf parsley and/or coriander, chopped

Equipment

Chopping board
Sharp knife
Sieve
Large bowl
Large lidded pan
Wooden spoon

Method

Rinse the puy lentils and put in the bowl, cover with cold water and soak while you get the other ingredients ready. Heat the oil in a pan and gently fry the onion, carrot, red pepper and celery until soft. Drain the soaked lentils and add to the pan, add the whole garlic cloves, pepper, the split chilli and sausages. Cover with water and bring to the boil. Once boiling, turn down the heat to a simmer and cover. Stir regularly, but carefully, making sure the lentils don’t stick to the pan. You want enough liquid to make a soupy sauce, but not so much that the dish is watery. After ten minutes, add the tomatoes. Once the sausages are cooked through (should take about twenty minutes in total) and the lentils are soft, but still whole, then you’re ready to serve. Turn off the heat, squash the garlic cloves, against the side of the pan and throw them in, along with the herbs, season with salt, stir and serve with chunks of bread and olive oil.

Paella

Serves 4
You can buy an outdoor paella pan but that would too extravagant for us. But you will need a large frying pan with deep sides to cook this dish.
avignon-04-188 Paella can accommodate different seafood and meat – such as rabbit – but this is a basic recipe with chicken and prawns. The dish doesn’t need constant stirring like risotto, but just make sure it doesn’t stick. The rice should be served moist, not wet.

Ingredients

1 red pepper, finely sliced
1 onion, finely sliced
2 cloves of garlic, finely sliced
100g green beans, topped, tailed and chopped into 1cm lengths
1 x 250g tin or jar of butter beans
200g paella rice
2 x chicken breasts, sliced
200g raw prawns, de-veined
1 lemon, quartered
½ tsp of paprika, plus more for sprinkling
Pinch of saffron
1 ltr vegetable or chicken stock, made with either a stock cube, concentrate or fresh from the supermarket fridge
2 tbs olive oil
1 tbs parsley, chopped
Salt and pepper

Equipment

Large frying pan
Single ring stove
Chopping board
Sharp knife
Spoon
Bowl or jug

Method

Heat the olive oil in the pan and gently cook the red pepper, onion and garlic for ten minutes until soft. Add the chicken and cook until it starts to colour, then add the rice and saffron. Stir for a couple of minutes and add enough stock to cover all the ingredients. Season with pepper and cook for ten minutes. Top up with stock as it cooks, making sure it isn’t sticking to the pan. Throw in the butter beans, green beans and parsley. Cook for five more minutes. Check the rice. When it is nearly cooked add the prawns and paprika and cook for a few minutes until the prawns are pink all over.
Check the seasoning and serve with lemon wedges and extra paprika if you want a spicier kick.

Fish stew

Serves 4

This is a nod to the bouillabaisse I ate on the balcony of the Peron restaurant in Marseilles, which hangs over the sea. Perfect if you are staying near a market and can pick up a variety of
fresh white fish.
avignon-04-1831
Ask the fishmonger to skin and bone your fish if necessary, as this is an effort at home, let alone in a field. Use one or more varieties of fish, whatever is available. You can add more kick with a sprinkling of paprika.

Ingredients

1kg of firm white fish such as monkfish, haddock or conger eel, cut into 2cm chunks
8 new potatoes, scrubbed and thickly sliced
1 small onion or the equivalent in shallots, diced
1 leek, white part only, finely sliced
1 fennel bulb, peeled off its tough outer layers and remove the heart before dicing
1/2 tin of tomatoes or 4 decent sized fresh tomatoes, deseeded and diced
1 carrot, diced
1 clove garlic, finely sliced
½ tsp paprika
Pinch of saffron
1 lemon, wedged
1 tsp fennel seeds
1 clove garlic, finely sliced
1 small glass of white wine
1 tbs flat leaf parsley or chives, oregano, chopped
Olive oil for frying

Equipment
Chopping board
Sharp knife
One-ring stove
Large saucepan

Method
Heat the oil and gently fry the carrot, onion, leek, fennel and garlic until soft. Mix in the saffron and fennel seeds. Add the wine and cook off the alcohol for a few minutes. Add the tomatoes, paprika, herbs, salt and pepper. Stir well and adjust your seasoning if necessary. Layer the potatoes in the pan, you may need to add some water to just cover them, but not drown them. Cover the pan and cook until the potatoes still hold their form, but are just cooked. Add your fish. Cover and cook for a further two minutes, check and cook for longer if necessary. Serve with lemon and chunks of bread to mop up the gravy.