Summer Recipes: Camp cooking

Campsite cooking doesn't have to be bland. Photo / Thinkstock.

There's something liberating about heading out of town to a campsite and subsisting with minimal kit. Kitchen tools are whittled down to a basic core - a good chopping knife, a paring knife, chopping board, wooden spoon and can opener. There's no point bringing loads of pots and pans as you're restricted to a camp cooker or portable barbecue. There's no blender or food processor or microwave. And often fresh supplies are a long drive away down a country road. You eat only what you have brought or caught. That doesn't mean you have to live on baked beans - although even they taste special with the smoky addition of charred toast cooked on the campfire.

RAGOUT & RATATOUILLE

Bring cans of the camp pantry essential - tinned tomatoes - and you have the basis of fresh pasta sauces. Canned tuna and olives, chopped summer vegetables and fresh herbs (or keep dried herbs permanently with the camping supplies, but check they have not lost their their flavour and turned dusty). Use smaller pastas like orzo which cook quickly or Spanish medium grain rice to cook paella-style in the sauce. If the fish aren't biting, some canned beans and chilli powder turns the sauce into a more substantial dish.

WOK ON

Adding a large wok widens the possibilities of food you can cook. Fast stir-fries are quick to prepare and use what you have on hand. Save yourself (and your fuel supplies) by bringing fast cooking rice noodles instead of rice: they can be stirred into whatever you're making to cook in minutes, or soaked in boiling water to serve on the side. Or packets of crispy noodles give you the carbs with no cooking. Decant your soy sauce, sesame and peanut oils into small plastic bottles, pack a jar of sambal olek or ready chopped chillies, your favourite curry paste, a jar of crunchy peanut butter, knobs of ginger and cloves of garlic. Concentrated chicken stock is less bulky to carry than cartons or you can probably get away with water to up the liquid. Canned low fat coconut milk goes into curries. If you plan ahead, you can pre-marinate chicken or beef cubes and freeze in zip-topped bags, using them in the first couple of days of camping when everything is still frozen. You can then whip up stir-fried Chinese-style chicken or beef with sliced fresh vegetables and rice noodles. Seafood works beautifully in a Thai-style curry, peanut and soy sauce creates the tastes of Malaysia.

PIZZA PARTY

Packets of thin Turkish bread keep reasonably well in a cooler and can create camp pizzas cooked on a barbecue plate. Or you'll love the Barbizza, a dutch oven that heats on the barbecue and cooks pizzas in minutes. (See barbizza.co.nz). Bring cans of tomato paste, jars of olives and anchovies, mozarella cheese (again, frozen pre-grated packets will stay frozen/useable for some days if you are careful) and then start throwing whatever fresh veges, deli meats or herbs you have to hand.