Plan your menu

Menu planning for three meals a day plus snacks will pay dividends 

Don’t just wing it. In order to ensure you don’t run out of food - or ideas - it is important to make a comprehensive list in advance of your trip of all the meals you will need to make. Include breakfast, lunch and dinner - plus snacks!

Think about the equipment you have and how many mouths there are to feed. Keep it simple and try and plan to cater to everybody all together. You will not want to be making a host of separate variants every night. Consider how much gas or water your meal will require to prepare. One pot recipes might seem the easiest but in reality, unless you’re cooking on an open fire, may not be the most economic solution for a small gas stove, especially if you are catering for large numbers.  

I have assorted perennial camping checklists (shopping, packing, equipment etc) which I store in Notes on my phone and tweak and adapt for each trip. Similarly with the weekly menu. Alongside the tried and tested go-tos and some emergency staples, many more seemingly ambitious recipes have become firm favourites over the years. Nowadays no summer family holiday is complete without an Indian Feast!

Pick your ingredients

Only take what you really need and you know will keep well. Take it from me bananas are a no-no.

We store our fresh produce like fruit and veg or bread and bagels in our Lowd Vans Applebox (or Orangebox if you are in a T3). The deep divided drawer has ventilation holes to prevent moisture build up and we’ve found the central low position of the Applebox to be one of the coolest spots in the van. We’ve even unwittingly but successfully kept chocolate Easter eggs in there on a scorching hot 38ºC day! 

All of the Lowd Vans fridge cabinets are designed to take a 45L fridge. Ours can plug into 240V if we are parked somewhere with power, but mainly we prefer staying off grid so we tend to run it at 12V through a house battery (ours is deep cycle lithium) plus a flexible solar panel (ours is 200W) mounted on the pop top roof (see blog post Fully Wired). These small fridges are surprisingly capacious - the door rack fits a 2L container of milk and a bottle of wine! 

Use your space wisely. Supermarket packaging is often cumbersome to both store and dispose of. We have found a great way to minimise bulk and improve shelf life is to vacuum pack proteins in advance. You can even freeze some of the packs for meals planned for later in the trip. We always marinade a butterflied chicken or prep a curry at home and then vacuum pack and freeze them for the trip. Nothing beats a 'ready meal' after a long hike!

If you have a freezer section in your fridge I’d highly recommend popping in a small packet of frozen prawns - it's such a flex to bring out on the last night. Or even a few surprise mini magnums! 

For long trips we do usually take along an additional esky as well, for deep storage. You can use the frozen food packs - or even a well-wrapped frozen chicken - as ice bricks. Choose containers that are robust enough to withstand a few knocks and watertight when the ice melts.

The Lowd Vans larder cabinets are perfect for tins or jars and small packaged items. We recommend decanting measured quantities of rice, lentils etc into smaller containers to avoid storing more than you will use. Bulkier dry goods such as pasta, cereals, wraps, crisps and snacks can be stowed for easy access in the lockers.

Prep your kit

Pack it because you need it, not just because it looks nice

You probably already have a collection of items you know you always use when you are away. And a host of other things you always take but never touch. Be practical and stay focussed. In terms of pots and pans and cooking utensils, pack as much as you can fit in but can still access easily. There is always going to be a little bit of compromise when it comes to living out of a small space but no one wants to have to unpack an entire cupboard just to get a pan out. 

We use our Winkipop Island Cabinet for storing nearly of all our cooking and eating utensils. Cutlery goes in the top drawer, with plates, mugs and bowls on the middle shelf and then a set of nesting stainless steel pots and pans (IKEA 360 Series are invaluable), coffee pot and kettle at the bottom. Plus our much loved cast iron skillet - perfect for warm breakfast croissants, steaks and of course the obligatory toasties. 

Obviously much of your cooking gear and tableware will come down to personal preference. Everyone has their own favorites and each have their pros and cons. For crockery, there’s a choice of enamel (iconic, space efficient and indestructible), ceramic (classy but heavy and breakable) or bamboo (practical and sustainable but doesn’t always stack). For cooking, do you make do with a simple single burner butane stove or opt for a bigger set up like a two burner stove with a swap'n'go gas bottle? Or maybe an induction plate would be useful (these use a lot of power so best for those who frequent powered sites). When we go away for longer periods we usually take a Weber Baby Q barbeque too which is ideal for bigger groups. And of course if you will have access to an open fire then don’t forget to pack some suitable campfire cookware and a heavy duty oven glove.

Cook and serve

Celebrate the ingredients and embrace your location

If you are well prepared, cooking on the road should always be a joy not a chore. Obviously the weather plays its part but if you can set up an area outside to act as your kitchen it will be easier and more social. Try and be efficient in terms of utensils used to minimise washing up. If you are travelling with kids, maybe round up some helpers and give everyone a job. Set up in good time and do as much prep work as you can in advance and in daylight. Whilst it’s undoubtedly romantic to eat out under the stars it is not always practical to cook an entire meal by head torch.

Finally don’t forget to set the table. We carry two tablecloths - plastic for day and fabric for the evening meal. A couple of tealights in jars or a ‘chandelier’ of tangled fairy lights overhead completes the picture. Simple pleasures but well worth it. Bon appetit!