Parragon Book Buddy – “The Camping Cookbook”

It is summer time and I have the perfect cookbook for this time of year – The Camping Cookbook – Recipes for the great outdoors.

Like most of the time with Love Food cookbooks there is more to the book than just recipes. The Camping Cookbook – Recipes for the great outdoors contains a lot of great tips for your outdoors living including:

• What to take – the equipment list
• Hints & tips for pitching your tent
• Campsite cooking – cooking with gas, cooking on the barbecue and cooking over the campfire
• “Don’t forget” check list
• Store cupboard essentials

It even offers some advice on why skipping breakfast is bad for you and how to beat bad weather blues.

So you see it is like a great outdoors guide all in one 🙂

The cookbook part in itself is split into five main chapters:

1. The big breakfast
2. Lunchtime
3. Seriously filling dinner
4. Something on the side
5. All things sweet

There are over 70 yummy recipes in there or how I would describe them as a list of our favourites.

Some of the recipes are simple meals that we might do everyday anyways like Bacon Butties, Apple and Spice Porridge or a Rice Pudding but despite this fact I really like this book. I think it offers a great selection of dishes to pick from and it is written purely with outdoor cooking in mind, so you know the recipes will be fairly easy and will only require a minimum number of ingredients.

I picked few of my personal favourites to share with you.

Spicy Fried Eggs – this reminds me of all the camping trips I took as a child with my parents. I actually still cook it from time to time but Mark isn’t so keen on it. He thinks that all the additional trimmings do not belong with eggs… but hey what does he know?

Tomato Bruschetta is my next pick. It is so quick and simple yet so delicious. I totally adore the taste on nice fresh toasted bread, sweet juicy tomatoes and basil. This is a perfect lunch meal… anytime and anywhere.

Sunshine Risotto makes for a perfect dinner meal; it is light and healthy, fabulous looking and full of goodness. This might not be the quickest meal but once camping we shouldn’t be in any rush. It is good to take your time and prepare your meal with love. This particular recipe features sun-dried tomatoes, which give the biggest flavour burst but it can be adopted to suit any pallet. If you are not a tomato fan you can try and create for example a mushroom risotto, especially if you are close by to some nice woodland and can go and pick your the wild mushrooms yourself.

There are Meatballs on a Stick. This is my favourite recipe from the book. I totally love it and I just can’t believe that I’ve never thought about doing it before. The recipe calls for pork and herb sausages, fresh minced beef, breadcrumbs, onion, fresh herbs, egg and some salt and pepper to taste. It couldn’t be any easier. It reminds me of my Polish Meatballs 😉 I am sure cooking it on the BBQ will enhance the flavour and provide a great dining experience.

Fruit Skewers is my choice for a pudding. I love fresh fruits and I love chocolate, so these two paired together makes for me a perfect combo. You are supposed to brush your fruits with a little maple syrup, which will make them caramelize over the fire. Then just drizzle over them some melted chocolate and enjoy the fresh sharp taste of the juicy fruits mixed with the sweet chocolate. Oh, this really sounds great!

So what do you think about my choices?

Would you like to try any of these dishes?

***
The Camping Cookbook – Recipes for the great outdoors
ISBN 978-1-4723-5619-2
Published by Parragon Books Ltd in 2014
Part of Love Food
Number of pages: 192
RRP: £8
Hardback

*  I received this book for free from Parragon as a part of my Book Buddy pack.

How to hold a successful garden party

Summer is here, which means a perfect time to open our windows and bi-folding doors and connect more with the nature on our door step.

Bi-folding doors or patio doors are the perfect connector between the indoor and the outdoors part of your house. Once open they will allow your garden to flow indoors creating the illusion of one huge open space. They are the perfect solution for creating an airy and light environment to live in; an almost perfect solution for enjoying the summer time to its fullest.

It is summer time so what could be better than a party full of friends and laughter to share in this huge open space you have just created?

A garden party!

They are always so much fun. They provide us with endless opportunities to do something different, to entertain our loved ones and to change an ordinary day into a potentially unforgettable one.

I have a list of things to consider when planning a garden party… here it comes…

Party spot

As it is the UK and the weather is quite temperamental it would be wise to pick a spot in the garden which has some cover above our heads. This will protect us from the sun and keep us cool (or cool-er) and when the worst comes to the worst and Mr. Rain decides to join us, it will help keep us dry. One of those big garden umbrellas should do the trick. If you happen to have a large garden and own a gazebo or a garden tent then of course set the main tables inside them.

Party furniture

Chairs are the key. Yes, it is a garden party and so your guest will most likely be either running around and playing or standing and mixing in the garden but at some point they will all want to sit down and relax and have something to eat and drink… make sure that the chairs have soft covers on them and are comfortable. It is really not very pleasant to sit on hard, uncomfortable chairs for hours and this can kill the good mood around.

Tableware

Whatever the theme or the occasion of your party do not use the best family china or even the silver, there is always an increased possibility that something will get broken. A garden party will tend to relax people a bit more than a standard party and thus we are prone to being less careful. Use your everyday tableware set or even better use disposable ones or even a plastic picnic set. Now a day’s disposable tableware can be so pretty; no more of that boring white all around… they can be purchased in a variety of different colours and patterns.

Food

It is BBQ time! I am not joking, a garden party is meant to be coupled with a good BBQ, but you will need some more things to round out your feast… Make sure that you have plenty of light fresh dishes, which are easy to eat and do not require you to sit bolt upright and use a knife and fork. Salads, finger foods, fresh fruits and of course some veggies are always a good choice… oh and remember to do some vegetarian options just in case one of your friends has converted 😉

Drinks

For a garden party you will need plenty of them especially if it is a hot day. Keep them cool but not freezing cool and make sure that there is a lot of water. If you serve alcohol, serve some water just next to it… alcohol will speed up the dehydration process so your guests will need to drink a bit more. Keeping drinks on ice in hot weather is not very practical but pour some cold water into a bucket, place in a shaded spot and put your drinks in… They will stay nice and cool and all you need is a cloth to dry them out before serving.

Decorations and light

Make sure that the surroundings are all neat and tidy and all surfaces are clean. Cut the grass the day before, hide all the gardens tools, remove any dry or “dead” plants… this all helps to make the space look nice and presentable and will help save you time and money on additional decorations, sometimes a lovely looking garden is all you need.
Like with most parties we never know when it is going to finish, so be ready for an evening / night time. Prepare some lampions, garden lamps or just a bunch of candles, ready to light up when the sun starts to set.

Fly’s / Wildlife

Summer time equals a global invasion of fly’s, wasps, mosquito and tons of other little creatures which are out and about and will want to join in, pretty lights attract them. Protect your food with covers at all time. Buy some insect repealing candles or smelly sticks and keep them burning.

Noise and neighbours

If you neighbours aren’t invited then be polite inform them about your party. It is the nice way to be with your neighbours, and who knows it might just help to avoid that two hour long session with his chainsaw he had planned for that day. Give them fair notice that this day / evening will most likely not be as peaceful as usually and the noise level may well be much higher.

I think that’s all.

Now that all the basics have been covered – go invite your friends… and I mean it… friends. No one enjoys those parties that are full of guests who were invited because it was the polite thing to do… These parties are never as much fun as the parties with your friends, people you trust and love.

So have fun!

And if you have any further tips for a successful garden party, please do share.

* Post written in collaboration with expressbifolds.co.uk.

Shed me happy, please

We all have hobbies and things we love to do, we Mark loves to cook, especially using our BBQ or a smoker (I crossed out the “we” as I am more of an eating than the cooking type).

Most people use their BBQ in summer when the weather is nice and they have a bunch of friends over, we use it all year round. Mark would love to take his BBQ skills to the next level and he has already catered for 50 guests. All this is good but being a huge BBQ buff means a lot of accessories, tools and extras which you wouldn’t even imagine. Our kitchen is drowning in wood flakes needed to achieve smoke, different racks, 100s of spices necessary for mixing to create the perfect rub depending on the cut and type of meat or fish we are cooking and tons of other things which apparently are essential must haves, I don’t complain though as usually what comes out at the end of the process is mouth-wateringly awesome. All this stuff though which is used solely whilst BBQ-ing all take up valuable space.

Two different types of BBQ require a double amount of accessories, apparently. Very often a rack which can be used on our open top BBQ is not suitable for the closed up smoker, so we need two of them… and the story continues…

Accessories, tools and all those additional things needed for a good BBQ is one thing, the other problem is a prep area. Our kitchen is not huge and at times we really struggle to find enough space to do all that needs to be done.

So I plea to Best Sheds: please shed me happy to save my sanity and my kitchen from being overrun by BBQ accessories and help us create an outdoor prep and storage area.

The 5×4 Pent Shed would be perfect for us. It is not too big, so it will easily fit in our back garden and it is not too small, so there will be enough room for a small prep area and a lot of storage.

And you know what? If we win we might even prepare a nice BBQ for your arrival, so you can have a nice nosh up whilst delivering the shed 🙂