Cooking

Favorite recipes.

I am no chef, and am a bit of a lazy cook. This can be handy though because it means that most of what I cook is simple and fast. Pretty much everything I cook can be cooked on a stove and in one pot or one pan. So here goes, cooking in a campervan. I should mention that when I speak of servings, I mean a full serving enough for a whole meal. Enough to fill a large eater like me up.

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Recipe 1 - Vegetable stew.

A good thick stew can be cooked in almost any pot, can use almost any combination of vegetables and will be healthy for you. I picked up a recipe for a healthy stew from a medical organisation who used it for patients that needed to loose weight for heart surgery. Of course I modified it by adding meat and potatoes, but it is still very healthy.

Cost

This recipe costs about $16 to make enough for ten to twelve servings. The meat is the main cost. When I make it I invariably have left over potatoes, carrots and beans so if you have a refrigerator, make two lots. My pot is only large enough to make about five or six servings at a time.

Ingredients:

Preparation.

Wash your hands and the vegetables to remove any germs and dirt.

Instructions:

Cut up your vegetables and place them in your pot.

Carrots and potatoes cut up in a pot.

Celery is a great vegetable to add if you want to loose weight as you burn more calories digesting it than you get from eating it.

Beans are also a good addition. Snip off the ends if they have not already been cut off.

Onions add a really good tangy taste. The trick to cutting them is to cut it in half first.

Add meat for taste and for vitamins and energy.

To add taste it is a good idea to add one can of vegetable soup and some vegetable stock cubes.

Once the ingredients have been added, mix the ingredients well. Add some water but make sure there is about three centimeters of water from the top of the pot. Make sure that large bits of vegetables such as pumpkin or potato are beneath the water level.

Put the pot on to the stove at a setting that will allow it to come to a boil. Once the pot is boiling turn the pot down so that it is gently simmering. Leave simmering for about 30 minutes. The stew is cooked when you can sink a fork in to a potato easily. The potato should be soft or almost caramelised.

This sort of stew can be stored for about a week and a half refrigerated or if you pour it in to small plastic storage containers it can store for a few days. It is great to eat on cold winter days. It is also very good to eat when you are feeling ill, as it supplies energy and vitamins.

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Recipe 2 - Home made fried rice.

Back when I was a uni student this used to be a favorite because it was so cheap to make. With the ingredients listed I could make enough for about 8 or 9 servings. Because I can only buy eggs by the dozen the left over eggs can be fried, boiled or whatever for breakfasts. Generally 250 grams of bacon will get you six slices. Use two to make your first 4 servings of fried rice, use the next 2 for your next 4 servings and use two with the eggs for breakfasts.

One down side of this recipe is that the frozen vegetables just won't last unless you have freezer or ice filed box. This is why you may find yourself eating fried rice for 8 days straight or sharing it with a friend. I tend to fry everything without oil, but you might want to add oil if you prefer.

Cost:

This is a very cheap meal. 1kg grams of good quality rice cost me just $1, some times it is a bit more. 1kg of frozen veges cost $2.69, 250 Gram of bacon was $2.49, 12 50gram eggs was $1.99. Because of rounding it came to $8.20.

ingredients:

Preparation:

To save on gas, you can presoak the rice and frozen vegetables in separate containers.

Instructions:

Step 1.

If you have just one burner, place about 250 grams of rice in a pot and bring to a boil. Boil for about 4 minutes, until it starts to go soft. If you have presoaked the rice, just bring it to a boil.

Step 2.

Place three or four eggs in a frying pan and lightly fry them so they just start to become solid. Stir the eggs up and break it into little pieces. About this time the rice should be ready, so turn the heat off there.

Step 3.

Cut up two slices of bacon bacon into small diced sections.

Step 4.

Add the cut bacon to the egg in the frying pan.

Step 5.

Add some frozen vegetables to the frying pan. Mix all in with the egg and back and continue to fry.

Step 6.

Spoon the rice from the pot into the frying pan. Stir in well. At this point you can add margarine or butter for taste.

Step 7.

Stir the mixture well for at least a minute to mix the rice, vegetables and bacon together. Use a fork or knife to break up bits of egg, bacon and clumps of rice.

Step 8.

Fry until the bacon is cooked. Probably only about four or five minutes. Don't let it get too dry. At the same time it should not be really damp.

Serve and enjoy. Flavor with soy sauce if required. I tend to store my fried rice in plastic storage containers in a cool place. It will last a few days unrefrigerated if you place it in airtight containers or even freezer / lunch bags, but is best refrigerated.