Nice meals from tins!

kayl

Our family go camping in France every year, and I always try to take enough food for half our meals.
Things that we like to take are :
1. Tins of chicken in white sauce. Combine with sliced peppers and tinned sweetcorn, and lovely served with rice
2. Tins of mince and of chopped tomatoes. Combine some with a packet of chilli mix, and tinned kidney beans, and serve with pitta or rice. Others can be mixed with bolognese sauce and served with spaghetti
3. Tins of tuna. Combine with white sauce and veg and serve with pasta
4.Tins of chicken curry to serve with naan bread
5. Corned beef. Fry with onions, mashed potato and tomato sauce to make corned beef hash
Hope these ideas help

CoconutQueen

Thanks for all your help! Some really useful ideas! :T

I am feeling more confident with it now!

rachbc

tinned dahl is pretty good, with some rice and extra spiced fried onions on top

ragz_2

I like tins of chili con carne, nice with a chunk of bread. Tins of soup to which you can add pasta/noodles. Tins of tuna etc
Oh, and don't forget the tin opener - yes, I've done that lol

sandiep

Boil in the bag rice?

balmaiden

On our "Sun" holiday last year I took a tin of Lidl chillie co carne. Don't usually use any tinned meals but found this to be more than acceptable

Dizzy_Ditzy

I have done this a few times, its trial and error as to what you like and how you manage to do it, but you will find whats right for you.

For the 1st night, I took some ikea meatballs, chucked 'em in a bag inside a cool box, some pre-grated onion, tomatoes, S&P, pasta and some grated cheese. By the time you get there, the meatballs are soft enough to cut up, fry them up using spray oil, boil the pasta, mix it all together and hey presto, you have a lush meal!

Tins of soup are ideal if you get a large lipped flask as you can carry it round with you, saves you truding back to your tent for lunch :-)

Tinned curry is a good one with some boil in the bag rice- or you can get those microwaveable rice packs which you can chuck in a pan with a teeny bit of water, let thatgo until all the water is soaked up and you have another one!

Instant mash is ideal, some beans and something tinned of your choice. stewing steak is great but make sure you get good quality as the cheap stuff is proper nasty and not a lot of beef

You can get jars of little potatoes in tesco, again they are ideal

For tea and coffee you can get those little milks that you get in places like McDonalds. Sugar, tea and coffee are essentials, as is a mug!

Also make sure you take enough small bottles of water for things like brushing your teeth and washing your hands. You should be able to get enough water on site for washing up so take a 5 litre bottle with you that you can refill.

Clothes pegs to hang up your tea towels and wet clothes (if needs be)

plenty of washing up sponges

A sturdy box to keep all the food in as it will be very heavy when you have to move it from your car to the campsite. same with all the cooking things but thats more space saving than anything else

valk_scot

Well, you've got till June so why not try out a few different tins and brands? I take ...
M&S pasta sauces in jars, 3-minute pasta (ideal for camping!).
M&S tinned curry, boil in bag rice, vacumn opacked nan.
Instant noodles with tinned chinese veg and tinned ham chopped up for stir fry.
Packs of saute potatoes and bacon from Lidl.
Instant hot chocolate sachets.

We also have brunch type fry ups...eggs, baked beans, fried bread and thin slices of fried Spam, which sounds horrendously 70's but is absolutely delicious, lol.

My best camping tip, btw, is in addition to a cool box take a cool bag or two for all your dried foods like cereal, pasta, rice, biscuits, packets etc. Cool bags are strong with good carry handles, are damp resistant and also fairly bug and rodent proof. Ideal for tent storage.

Oh, and keep your matches and sparker in a plastic bag with a clip, or in a sealed plastic box. Your cooker may have piezo ignition but take it from an old hand, these are unreliable on damp mornings. As are damp matches and sparker....


PS. I went back to read your first post again and see that there's four of you and four days worth of cooking? My other suggestion is just to do one day each, thus all you need to do is dream up one set of meals.

Sunnyday

Morrisons do a cheap sachet of savoury rice for 24p, we used to take these camping and add tinned prawns and some chorizo for a quick cheap paella.

The stew with instant mash is another filling meal, into one pan put a tin of stewing steak, a tin of mixed veg and some peas and in the other pan make your instant mash.

We used to have a carrier bag with each days food in it with a label on saying which day it was for and just take the bag that we needed for each day out of the car.

SD

squelchy69

One year when we were kids we went to Tenerife with Mum and Dad. They weren't particularly well off so saved for a very long time.
Once there, we had to made do as cheaply as possible for food. Not knowing what a lot of the things were due to the language and also that the facilities in out apartment were limited, we stuck to tins.
Mum bought some stewing steak, tinned potatoes and sweetcorn which she told us was "Tenerife Stew".
We loved it and actually still cook it now 20 years later as an emergency quick tea. I'm sure you could substitute the sweetcorn for tinned carrots and/or peas.
Jo x