Cooking

[Nonimouse]

Some tips:

Go Outdoors do some lovely tables like these https://www.argos.co.uk/product/9278211?istCompanyId=a74d8886-5df9-4baa-b776-166b3bf9111c&istFeedId=c290d9a9-b5d6-423c-841d-2a559621874c&istItemId=ixilqptqm&istBid=t&&cmpid=GS001&_$ja=tsid:59157|acid:629-618-1342|cid:9563523552|agid:102230985110|tid:pla-913324488954|crid:423314716697|nw:g|rnd:9213130518632023517|dvc:c|adp:|mt:|loc:1006563&utm_source=Google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=9563523552&utm_term=9278211&utm_content=shopping&utm_custom1=102230985110&utm_custom2=629-618-1342&gclid=EAIaIQobChMImd_08cns8gIVaEpyCh3KRwXaEAQYAiABEgJctfD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds and oddly enough so do Argos.

I have two both over 15 years old with much use. Cooking on the ground is a pita.

I always carry a trangia  - always. It's consistantly reliable and the perfect back up. Mine has run on cheap vodka, petrol, surgical spirit and various other inflamable substances. It also has a gas converter. My trangia is now over 30 years old and has seen use of four continents!

Generally I use a two ring burner running off a 4.5kg butane bottle - very, very efficient and weeks of cooking. My burner is a Viper two ring cast iron unit. Tough, easy to fix. I use the same gas bottles to run my gas fridge.

I have a few of the aerosol cartridge Pezo electric cookers. Really good - until you go to more remote places, then no gas. But for the UK, brilliant

Kelly Kettles are fine. Only but Stainless. Cooking on them is, to be fair, a pita. too small and the heat is either on or off. These are better https://wildbounds.com/products/bushbox-outdoor-pocket-stove?variant=25388966600&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIpZm60Mvs8gIVmozICh09VQAiEAQYAyABEgJ8a_D_BwE and more flexible/fun

As most of my camping is either in small basic campsites or 'Wild' sites (like Nash Oakland); I have based what I need on where I am going and with whom. Generall we don't go camping as a family. My wife takes the kids to larger. better equipped sites. I take the kids to the previously mentioned. Everything is boxed up and labelled, prepared as soon as we return. I generally use 'Really Useful Boxes' but also have a number of Pelicases and Zarges boxes. I always wriet what is in the box on the lid! I take on spare of everything, from plates to cutlery. I also often go off camping on my own - to meet up with friends or just get some P&Q, so I also have a 'me' box. I do try to make sure, as much as possible, that all items have more than one use. For example, food preparation knives. I avoid non stick pans - I always go for stainless steel. I picked up a set of these a couple of years ago https://www.campingworld.co.uk/en/Wynnster-Copper-Bottom-Pot-and-Pan-Medium/m-2468.aspx A decent kettle is of high priority - as big as you can carry. Stainless is best and nice and thick. Second hand AGA kettles are good.

I'm naturally tight. The drawback of having young kids later in life. I loathe paying inflated prices for stuff, so frequent Go Outdoors. They accept Blue light Card, CSSC card and numerous other cards, as well as their own discount club. My wife and I have found that they will add up the total discount!  They also have sales. After the enourmuos upsurge in camping this year , there will be a lot of expensive kit being sold cheap this winter.

Always happy to discuss camping and sites.

[Anderzander]

Thanks Nonimouse.

I’d love a camping chat at some point 🙂 

[Ed Poore]

Possibly not the most versatile of cooking systems but my little Alpkit Brukit did sterling service on Friday.

I was "volunteered" to help out at an open day at Whitland Abbey (well I've also been "volunteered" for mowing and ground maintenance duties over the last couple of years). Basically just a fun and information day at the ruins of Whitland Abbey. Anyway the generators loaned for the teas and coffees kept cutting out on the first morning with 80-100 visitors wanting hot drinks fairly early on. Whilst I ran back to a friend's farm, my parents farm and my place to try and cobble together enough to use a BOC gas bottle on a proper stove for boiling water I left the cake ladies with my little Brukit (picture below). Only had a little gas bottle underneath it and only holds ~1l of water. Anyway I came back with a proper gas stove and decent sized bottle but probably took about 90 minutes all told running around before I got back, during that time they'd had the busiest period for serving drinks and the little Brukit kept up with demand admirably.

So always a handy little stove to have in the back, I've recently taken to leaving it in the back of the Range Rover with some water and tea making supplies so was handy I had it with me. But most impressive dealing with the volume of people that appeared.

Here's a drone shot from later in the day when things had quietened down quite a lot - the cakes / pies / teas & coffees were in the gazebos to the right (the ruins are in the middle area surrounded by trees).

[Mo Murphy]

I have a brukit too, getting on for 5 years old now and still doing sterling service, used on every laning trip and foreign adventure.

We even cooked for 2 on it for a week in Holland a couple of years ago when I forgot the flat stoves 🤭

No connection to Alpkit just a happy camper !

Mo

[Tanuki]

When I've been "out and about" it's generally been on missions which involved some significantly-powerful radio-transmitter-stuff, so i've been carrying a little Honda 4-stroke generator and a 1Kw 12V-to-240V inverter.

A small modern 'inverter' 600-Watt microwave-oven has always done to boil water for tea and cook things A typical toaster only takes 750 Watts.... and everyone knows that when you're freezing-cold after a night on the moor there's no finer mood-booster than freshly-made crunchy toast.