Recipe ideas for easy cooking

[Deleted member 29041]

Just back from Santiago, I've started planning my next wee walk.

One thing I've noticed frequently when shopping, is other pilgrims just standing there looking at all the food on the shelves, short-circuiting, unable to come up with ideas for cooking their own meals. This led me to the thought of starting a thread with simple, quick recipes for use on the way.

On my next walk, I intend to carry a bit of oil for cooking, garlic, some Sambal Oelek and a few bouillon cubes, and pick everything else up locally. I always carry a Fiskars tomato knife (37 gram), which is a pretty decent little kitchen knife. I prefer to use whatever cooking gear I find in the albergue kitchens, but have been known to carry my titanium cookpot along. The weight, a whopping 152 gram with bag (yep, it's one of the larger, wide ones), is almost negligible.

A very simple meal, is a packet of olives, some bread, a handful of pimentos to fry (add a little salt), and perhaps a bit of cheese. If you like, you can fry some sliced tomatoes as well. Goes nicely with a glass of red wine.

Another simple meal is a pork chop or chicken breast fried in the pan with some oil. Chop some vegetables and fry them with the meat. In stead of vegetables, you could substitute lentils, bulgur or rice boiled with a bit of onion and perhaps a bouillon cube.

It is quick and easy to make an omelet with tomatoes, peppers, garlic and perhaps some cheese.

The possibilities are almost endless.

What are your ideas for simple, and perhaps also less simple, meals?

 

[Anemone del Camino]

This year I discovered that the grocerystore pizzas in Spain are quite good, and some are about 2€, that Dia sells an excellent pisto and other prepackaged/precooked vaccumed packed meals, gazpacho in a box as recommend by Peregrina2000, and that the rice with veggies and seafood found in the freezer, also for 2€ or so, all make excellent pilgrim meals. Add to that crates of strawberries with a bit of cream or red wine, and you are good to go. Frozen lazagna was discovered a few years back, and also makes for a great pilgrim meal for very little money.

Leave the olive oil and sambal at home. Lots of much easier options.

 

[Deleted member 29041]

Lots of much easier options

Yup, that's easy alright, as well as cheap, but I like to cook and I generally find pre-cooked meals rather tasteless and lacking in both substance and quality.

Even easier is eating out (del dia, pilgrim menu), but I usually get tired of that rather quickly, if I don't alternate with self-cooked meals.

This thread is meant as inspiration for others that may suffer from the same affliction

 

[Anemone del Camino]

Yup, that's easy alright, as well as cheap, but I like to cook and I generally find pre-cooked meals rather tasteless and lacking in both substance and quality.

This thread is meant as inspiration for others that may suffer from the same affliction

What I am saying is that even for this girl who will enjoy all sorts of real meals off the carta and not the menu del dia, there are excellent options right out of the grocery store that require no assembly. Not "tasteless and lacking both in substance and quality". None of the options I mentioned fit that description. Don't knock it until you've tried it.

 

[notion900]

The vacuum packed tortillas (with or without onion) you get in the chill cabinet are amazing value and feed 4 people for about 2EUR. Tinned fish and seafood are always nice too.

 

[Anemone del Camino]

The vacuum packed tortillas (with or without onion) you get in the chill cabinet are amazing value and feed 4 people for about 2EUR. Tinned fish and seafood are always nice too.

Absolutely, forgot about the tortilla. And have you noticed how it isn't served everywhere on VDLP like it is in the North? So picking it up once in a while at the grocery store is fun.

There are now cans of tuna with veggies mixed in, cans that open with a tab, so good to have in the backpack in case of emergency. With a can of tonic for a bit of liquid, sugar, and cramp prevention.

I also picked up blocks of cured ham. Not the decadent iberico, bit the price is right, and lasts forever outside of the fridge.

 

[JennyH94]

Terrific thread Nekodemus - thanks for starting the discussion. Here's my contribution:

The weekend before last, at the beautiful Glenella Guesthouse (owned by Margaret and Rowan Boutell who have cycled and walked the Camino and also been hospitalero at Grado) at Blackheath in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney, I volunteered in the kitchen for a couple of days as part of a crew preparing a pilgrim dinner for the Blue Mountains Camino Supporters Group. Our lunch for all who helped in the kitchen, on the day of the dinner, was easy and it was delicious. It was halved baked potatoes, still in their skins, topped with caramelised onions and two kinds of melted cheese - mozzarella and sharp cheddar cheese. Ailin, from Argentina, who cooked the lunch, rubbed the halved potatoes in a small amount of olive oil and baked them for half an hour before the caramelised onions and cheeses were added and put back in the oven for another 10 minutes so the cheeses melted and the caramelised onions were hot. With the potatoes we had crusty bread, home-made tapenade (olives crushed to a paste) and a plain salad. The quantities fed 12. This recipe could be used on the Camino very easily as all the ingredients are available at most tiendas. Spanish cheeses such as Manchego cheese could be easily substituted for the mozzarella and the cheddar.

If you're staying at an albergue that has a couple of baking trays and a frypan, (and an oven most importantly!) this is a recipe that can feed a reasonable amount of people as a shared pilgrim meal. Note: after the half hour cooking time for the potatoes, test them before you add the caramelised onions and the cheeses to ensure the potatoes are soft. If not, cook for another 10 minutes before adding the caramelised onions and cheeses. This version is a vegetarian one, however, sliced, fried chorizo can be cooked separately and anyone who would like to add chorizo to their meal could add some to the top of the spuds. This is not the quickest meal that one can cook, but wow, it's worth the relatively short wait! Here it is, just as lunch was starting to be served - that first tray of potatoes didn't last long! :




For a lunch meeting the next day, Margaret and I cooked Minestrone - the Italian chunky soup with heaps of vegetables and canned butter beans, with a tomato puree as its base. We had crusty bread with it, plus more of the olive tapenade - beautiful! Here it is:



None of the ingredients in either of these dishes are expensive and they will easily feed a group when one adjusts the quantities to allow for the numbers being catered for. They're sustaining and they're nutritious.

I hope to be cooking both these dishes at albergues when walking across the Meseta next month. If you see and hear someone with an Aussie accent cooking away happily in an albergue kitchen, chances are that it could be me. Come and share the meal! Good food and wonderful conversation (which is another story entirely!) are guaranteed!

Cheers from Oz - Jenny

 

[hecate105]

Many stoves in the albergues didn't work, so I was glad I had my little gas stove. Used it often and always have olive oil, garlic, onion, bouillon and spices, so whatever food is available can be made into a good meal.
It also makes other pilgrims v happy if you can donate some bouillon or garlic for their rice or whatever...
If you are Vegis/vegan or have any dietary requirements it is easier to cook yourself and it means you can make your favourites sometimes!
For me, half a jar of chickpeas in with tomatoes and garlic, with fresh asparagus is ace, especially when you mash the rest of the chickpeas up next day, (with garlic and lemon juice) to make hummus! Yum!

 

[peregrina2000]

You can also find ideas on this older threads:

https://www.caminodesantiago.me/community/threads/how-to-be-more-like-koilife-in-the-kitchen.25231/

As well as a discussion of what kind of equipment you might want to bring along if you are going to be cooking. (This is way above my pay grade, I am happy to chop but am not going to carry kitchen gear -- I will say that koilife's little bags of spices were almost weightless and did really add a lot to his meals).

https://www.caminodesantiago.me/com...es-the-ideal-superlight-mobile-kitchen.25116/

 

[rorygilmore]

i plan to try to cook a fair bit on my camino.

one idea i had was to bring a few different homemade spice blends with me in ziplock bags- should be fairly lightweight and would hopefully make getting a bit of flavour easy. a few different blends for variety.

 

[Geodoc]

As a vegan/pescatarian (i.e., I'm mainly vegan, but eat fish a few meals a week), I plan on doing most of my own cooking along the way. Toward that end, I've got a small titanium pot with cover, a small stove (propane - I'll buy a canister in SJPdP like last time), and a Sea-to-Summit cutlery kit (durable, very lightweight knife, fork, and spoon).

A real simple meal for me is lentils, some chopped onion, chopped carrot (or other root veggie), olive oil, and salt and pepper . Simple, filling, tasty.

Then there's pasta, made with marinara sauce and a salad.

I'm in the process of developing simple meals I can make for my upcoming trip (who knows, maybe I'll turn them into a Vegan Camino cookbook).

 

[hecate105]

I always take a few spice mixes, a curry, an Asian mix and a smoky paprika. My Thai friend (who lives on her bicycle) has a huge bag in which she pours in whatever spices she comes across - then she uses it liberally on everything....!

 

[Davey Boyd]

Noodles, one piece of chicken and add a sachet of soy sauce I carry. Add any veg you can get locally. Can be easily expanded to cater for multitudes, is simple and tasty. Can easily be veggy or vegan. To make many Korean friends add chilies (I always carry a hot chilli sauce at least). Serve with a salad. Yum.

Make friends with any Italian you meet in albergues who cooks. Buy the wine and eat very well for next to nothing. Pasta is cheap, but them Italians can sure cook it well!

Walking food of the Gods: Banana and chocolate. You will become popular! My banana and chocolate bocadillo's caused initial suspicion until tried. Serve with 1 Euro boxed wine and the smell of Galician cow dung while sat in the middle of nowhere for best results.

Davey

 

[JillGat]

As a vegan/pescatarian (i.e., I'm mainly vegan, but eat fish a few meals a week), I plan on doing most of my own cooking along the way. Toward that end, I've got a small titanium pot with cover, a small stove (propane - I'll buy a canister in SJPdP like last time), and a Sea-to-Summit cutlery kit (durable, very lightweight knife, fork, and spoon).

A real simple meal for me is lentils, some chopped onion, chopped carrot (or other root veggie), olive oil, and salt and pepper . Simple, filling, tasty.

Then there's pasta, made with marinara sauce and a salad.

I'm in the process of developing simple meals I can make for my upcoming trip (who knows, maybe I'll turn them into a Vegan Camino cookbook).

Do it! I bet it would be popular.

 

[JillGat]

The best albergue kitchen meals I had were when there were Italians, Koreans, Germans, etc cooking and I came in with a bottle of wine and said, " That smells great!" Almost always got invited to join them. People from other places combine ingredients in novel ways that I appreciate.

 

[David Tallan]

The best albergue kitchen meals I had were when there were Italians, Koreans, Germans, etc cooking and I came in with a bottle of wine and said, " That smells great!" Almost always got invited to join them. People from other places combine ingredients in novel ways that I appreciate.

In keeping with the thread title, that also sounds like the easiest cooking.

 

[naplesdon]

Or two bottle of wine is even better.
I always fall back on carbonara; it takes a few eggs, some grated cheese, piment to taste and spaghetti and it doesn't always have to be bacon it can be sauted vegetable instead.