Breakfast, dinner, sweet snacks – cooking is one of the most exciting parts of camping holidays for Katy Hofstede-Smith…
Summer days – those that are actually warm and sunny – just beckon you to head outdoors, pitch a tent and enjoy the smells and sounds of the beautiful British countryside. There can’t be many things more exciting for children than the prospects of sleeping out, and for those less than excited adults who have experienced far too many soggy childhood camping trips there is one sure-fire way to relight the camping excitement: campfire cooking!
Assuming that you are in an area where it is safe to use a fire and that you have got to grips with getting the fire going, cooking over a camp fire surely has to be one of the most romantic ways to conjure up dinner. Try to pick things that can be cooked in one pan and preferably eaten with fingers to save on washing up and packing. There are a few different “types” of dish that you can choose from, but there are two main categories – one-pot or skewered onto a stick – which give you an easy place to start when thinking of what to cook.
Breakfast offers such a fantastic range of options; bacon or sausage sandwiches (the bacon can be skewered and cooked directly over the fire), fried or scrambled eggs, campfire pancakes (pre-mix the batter at home to make life easier), omelettes, fire-baked apples with a dollop of yoghurt and a sprinkle of muesli. Alternatively, stick wrapped ready to cook croissants or cinnamon rolls that you can buy in the supermarket chilled aisles over the fire to cook.
I find dinner usually needs to be filling and comforting either to compensate for a busy day of running around or to warm up after an unexpectedly chilly/wet one. One pot stews are fantastic and can take some extra spicing. Try smoky Moroccan tagines or spicy curries served with very simple fire-cooked flatbreads; fajitas wrapped and warmed with melting cheese on top; sizzling sausages with a warm bean stew and fire-cooked jacket potatoes or wood-fired pizza with dough pre-made at home.
When it comes to campfire cooking there is one type of dish that really gets everyone excited above all others, and that is sweet snacks. Marshmallow toasting has to be in everyone’s childhood memories and is an essential, but there are lots of ways to elevate this. Dip whole strawberries into an already gooey marshmallow and toast quickly to brown the outside. S’mores are an American camping must-have which turn the toasted marshmallow into a cultural icon: a beautiful combination of chocolate, biscuit and marshmallow. Taking the s’more to another level you can take pre-made waffle ice cream cones, fill with chocolate drops, small marshmallows, fruit and any other bits that you like and then warm them over the fire until the filling has melted. If you fancy something a little different to marshmallow, baked bananas topped with chocolate and alcohol (if you’d like) and wrapped with foil can sit and cook slowly in the fire, or alternatively wrap some sweet pastry or croissant dough around sticks and cook whilst you melt some chocolate to dip them in. You could even make a simple bread and butter pudding wrapped in foil and baked in the fire.
To end the day, homemade hot chocolate has to be the ultimate camping drink and as the dark draws in provides the perfect pre-bed drink before another busy summer day.