Caravan, camping and holiday cookery

Sarahsaver

Pot noodles and lemon curd sandwiches for afters!

soba

Our new (1968!) VW camper has one burner, and if you have the grill on there's a hotplate above it that will just about keep a saucepan of water boiling. I fear there'll be no gourmet meals for us whilst out and about this year. As a child one of my favourite camping meals was tinned stewed steak, tinned potatoes and tinned processed peas! On the last day of camping we had to use all the tins up cos my dad absolutely refused to take them home again, so we had some pretty strange concoctions as I recall.

Dobie

We have a little old caravan & love our trips away in it. In fact our first one of 2006 is next weekend, we're going to Rutland with some friends.
We always take our first night's meal ready prepared, usually something like a curry or pasta sauce that only needs rice or pasta & bread. Apart from that I just cook in a similar way to at home but a little simpler, I don't peel potatoes, we eat new ones that just need washing & we go for salad or easy veg like peas, mange tout or french beans. Sometimes we have a barbie but often just a one pot meal. Breakfasts are usually cereal ,fruit & yoghurt & sandwiches for lunch.
If we're flush we'll have a meal out in a pub on the last night. :beer:

pavlovs_dog

bumped for all those looking to get out there and make the most of the weather :j

Zziggi

brilliant thread with great ideas!

Penny-Pincher!!

Here is my list for holiday which we are going on today:D

Holiday

Saturday-Take Away
Sunday-Roast Chicken, Roasts, veg, yorkies
Monday-Chicken Curry & Rice
Tuesday-Pie, Mash & Veg
Wednesday-Spagbol
Thursday-Chicken, Roasts, Veg, yorkies
Friday-Shepards Pie & Veg

To Take

Beans x 3, Spagetti, Sweet corn, crisps, biscuits, rice, pasta, soup, jam, marmite, tea towel, dishcloth, wash liquid, oil, curry sauce, salad cream, ketchup, vinegar, gravy, stuffing, squash, lemonade, loo rolls, matches, coffee, tea, sugar, milk, cereal, plain flour, toms, wet wipes, noodles, bags for rubbish, peas x 2, beers, wine, tuna, milk,

To Buy

Cheese, ham, eggs, bacon, sausage, spread, yogurts, large chicken, mince, pie, spuds, carrots, cauliflower, apple, bananas, bread, rolls, mushrooms, coleslaw, salad,

Other stuff to take

Quilt covers, pillow cases, base sheets, shampoo, hair dryer, brush/stuff, make up, deodorant, towels x 3, soap, flannel, laptop, films, DS, board games, cards, shaving stuff, medications, allergy tablets, inhalers, nivea, sun cream,

DD

Knickers x 7, Socks x 7, tops x 7, jeans, crops, shorts, pyjamas x 3, swim costume, bra,

OH

Pants x 7, socks x 5, jeans x 3, tops x 6, pyjama bottoms, jacket, swim shorts,

Me

Knickers x 7, socks x 2, tops x 5, jeans x 3, jacket, pyjamas x 3, bra,

HTH

PP
xx

davetaylor

Hi There,

I'm going on holiday this year with my brother, his girlfriend and their 6 kids!!!

The kids range from 8 years to 18!

We are staying in two static caravans in a lively campsite in the south of France. I've been on holiday with my bro and his troop before and I always like to help out with the cooking.

I need some ideas for some recipes that are suitable for 9 people, that are not too expensive and not too difficult (I'm a 32 year old bloke and not used to cooking en masse!)

Any idea's will be welcome!

PurpleHeather

I go camping about every other week through summer, to sites that have no electricity, and only a gas powered boiler for the showers.

I cook on two portable stoves from InStore, that cost me £10 each, and the gas canisters are about £8 for 4 from Argos, or cheaper for a 12 pack. Each canister does about 4 meals, so about 50p of gas per meal per hob.

We do tend to cook a lot of fresh food, so we call in at the supermarket when we arrive in town, and pick up stuff for the weekend. I have a cool bag (£3 from InStore, with blocks 80p for 2) which we fill up. Another InStore bargain is their white plates for 75p each - they are slightly dish shaped, so keep all the gravy/sauce rich foods I tend to cook on the plate when you're sat on the floor or a tree stump.

Some of my favourite things to do are stir fries, which can be done in a huge pot, with one of the family packs of stir fry veg and something like mushrooms chopped in. If I've only got one burner I use those straight to wok noodles for convenience, or if I've got 2 (One is my boyfriend's and he doesn't always come with us) then I'll boil up some (cheaper) noodles on the 2nd ring.

I like doing bolognese, because mince is quite cheap, tins of tomatoes (with herbs - no need to take extras that way!), and quick cook pasta.

I recently catered a weekend camping for 5 people - £8 per head for 2 breakfasts, 2 dinners & 2 lunches, using the stir fry & bolognese as my main dinners.

Sausage stew with crusty bread is another good one - get one of the large 16 packs of sausages, cook them through in the pan, then put in some chopped onion, maybe other veg or tinned veg if you want to, pour over a packet stew mix and water & simmer for about 15 minutes or so, then eat with crusty bread.

Last year we camped for 10 days solid with about 60 friends in Wales, cooking for ourselves in groups of 5 or so. On the last day the entire camp pooled potatoes and we just ate jacket potatoes cooked in the fire barrel. When we go to that site our Saturday night treat is pizza - I phone to order it and they deliver to site. Because so many people come in with us, and we always end up with about 15 pizzas plus sides, I always ask them "What is the best deal you can do on this order?" and so I typically get a couple of free pizzas, and most of the sides for free. I make sure that when I collect the money from everyone, I ask them for a £1 tip each for the driver, so we always get good service and a very cheap deal, because they know we are good customers.

We do lots of camping for LARP (Live Action Role Playing) so spend our days running around. Lunches I buy those pre-split rolls, ham, and cheese, and fruit for snacks, and just put the box out in our camping area so everyone can help themselves, as the fruit is a really cheap snack. We tend to get those morrisons buckets of cake or flapjacks too as they are good for quick energy if someone is hungry.

I tend to put a bit of the home cooking oil in a spare coke bottle for the weekend, rather than buying a new bottle of oil specifically. We always have problems with spread, as in buying a small tub and not using it. I don't have spread, but others do, so any tips on that would be appreciated!

Zip lock bags are a godsend - when I do lots of veg chopping teas, I just scoot all the veggies into the bag till it is time for them to go in the pan, and it saves them getting dirty. I also seal bacon etc from one breakfast to the next in Ziplocs, as I use bags of ice (£1 each from the supermarket) when my cool blocks melt, so that stops the bacon getting soggy.

Someone mentioned they always forget tea towels - I replaced our home ones recently as they were getting ratty, so I just kept the old ones and out them in the cool bag so I wouldn't forget to bring them with me. I also did this with the old washing up bowl, as that is good to carry the clean washing up in when you've walked to the sinks to wash it.

At the moment, each time I go camping I'm buying a little thing to make it more pleasant, because it is my only holiday, so before the next event I'm going to buy a £4 collapsible water bottle, as the stand pipes for water are about a 5 minute walk away. Last purchase was a £20 aluminium camping bed from Argos, which is wonderful - you do need a high ceilinged tent to make the most of it, or you are kind of sleeping in the roof!

Someone said they needed a tent. If you are only going camping in summer, and are pretty sure it won't rain, then tesco do '2 man' (1 person really if you have stuff) tents for £8 for the blue one or £11 for the flowery one. My mum had one this weekend at a festival and it was fine. Easy to put up too.

I got my nice, very weather proof 3 man tent for £20 at a local auction house (Kelsalls in Rochdale) that sells on lots of ex stock for cost cutter, so that is something worth considering.

My boyfriend's tent is wonderful - he's 6' tall, and can stand up in it. If you just filled it with people it would sleep about 6 in one main room, with the porch. We share it between the two of us, with our camp beds, and have 6 of the £1 blue Ikea bags under our beds as drawers for clean and dirty clothes and things like props (for the LARP) and handbag, etc, as they just slide in and out, and it is a joy. It has a nice big porch where we store the food and folding tables, and it cost him about £40 (Bargain - similar ones on the big camping shops are £100 plus). He got it from Go Outdoors in Coventry; http://www.gooutdoors.co.uk/

Also, (last one, I promise!) keep an eye on your local FreeCycle group for free camping equipment - I see tents go up on my local ones about once a month or so!

Heather

jellycat40

We always bbq when we camp whatever the weather.

Egg and bacon for breakfast, sarnies and salad for lunches and huge bbq in the evening.

Love it love it love it.

We caravan on green field sites so no electric, loos or showers. But it is nice to go to bed at night!

Louise

neilk_2

We've been camping a fair bit but don't have the luxury of a grill, oven or Foreman! It's usually a gas or meths stove (like a Trangia) or bbq. So basically we usually go for one-pot methods.

I'm sure a bbq doesn't need any explaination, just a decent local butcher and some salad.

We have a Foreman grill at home and IMO it makes the best cheese toasties going - give that a go if you haven't already.

Here's a few camping tips that we often do though, that might be useful:

Use old 35mm film canisters to take small amounts of mixed herbs, curry powder etc - a little bit of seasoning can make a lot of difference to a meal.

Curry and rice: Nothing special about this, but if you buy the sachets of microwave rice, you can just drop it into the pan with your can of curry and heat the whole lot up together in the one pan. Same goes for cans of Stag chilli.

Corned beef hash: Fry a chopped onion, add a chopped can of corned beef, chopped tinned new potatoes, a can of baked beans and a few herbs and heat through.

Curried bean soup: Fry a chopped onion, add a can of baked beans, use the empty can to add a can-full of cold water, add some curry powder and heat through.

The sachets of pasta in sauce are pretty good too.

They're all very quick to cook and only need one pan.