Barney's Bimbles and Adventures

“So, err Daz, where did you put the tent poles?...” Hmm, sounds ominous! I’ll come back to that question in a moment. A camping trip that has been in the diary for a little while now has been a night out with a group of lads, most of whom I’ve been good friends with since nursery school. We’ve grown up playing football together, raced our matchbox cars around race tracks that we made from clothes pegs, we’ve drawn blood after many a tumultuous race on our skateboards down the alleys. We even built a memorable ‘camp’ up the woods out of sticks and discarded junk which we called ‘smelly camp’ because we once found a dog poo outside the entrance. Alas, that was all a long time ago. I could also regale a tale or two of the more colourful teenage years in which we discovered girls and alcohol but they’re probably not appropriate for this blog! Nowadays the lads enjoy far more sensible pursuits such as football, DIY, football, spending inordinate sums of money on craft beer and foo...

Hand’s up…who likes fish and chips? Yep me too! Recently I wondered if I could take one of the nation’s favourite takeaways and cook it over a camp fire. I also wondered if I could make it a little healthier but without losing that great taste. So here’s what I did: Ingredients: 1 x Potato  1 x fillet of fish (I used smoked haddock) A spoonful of butter or cooking oil A pinch of salt and pepper for seasoning Optional extra’s: A tin of mushy peas A dollop of tartare sauce Before cooking get your fire established and leave it to burn down to a reasonable bed of coals. Sometimes I like to keep the fire going and then drag some of the coals out to one side for cooking so that I can replenish the coals when the heat dies down. Alternatively you can just as easily cook this meal on a camping stove, I imagine it will work really well on a trangia as the heat is not quite as focussed or intense as a gas stove and can also be dampened down. ...