What did you cook along the camino?

[Yallah]

A just-for-fun question.

I know many people (including me) do a lot of cooking along the camino, either to save money or to get out of the "pilgrim menú" rut. I'm feeling nostalgic for the many pasta dinners and bottles of cheap red wine, as well as the impossibly rich Greek yogurt I used to buy for breakfast, and the chocolate-dipped cookies I carried as a snack.

What did you cook along the camino? Any advice of cheap and/or delicious meals you whipped up in an albergue kitchen? What do you miss from Spanish grocery stores?

 

[NoQ]

Those cheap tins of beans, with the bits of black pudding and blood sausage in them. Easy to heat up and yummy.

 

[Kiwi-family]

It's the wee bags of olives we miss. And the tetilla cheese.

 

[Deleted member 3000]

Pasta, yogurt, and cookies makes me yearn for lomo and merluza...

 

[piogaw]

traditional spanish recipe of alubias blancas con chorizo
white haricot beans with chorizo
buy a tin of cooked white haricot beans, some chorizos, pepper, onion, garlic.
heat, saute and cook.
and you have a very heavy hearty meal with very little expense.
buen provecho!!!

 

[blessedtraveler]

One day we found cayenne peppers so we bought tomato sauce, rice, onion, sweet red pepper, a can of corn, and some halibut and made an amazing stew. And it had a kick.

 

[JasonEnLondon]

I cooked Spanish sausage stew, various salad, pan fried fishes, grilled aubergines with salsa.

Raw ingredients are aplenty in Spain, great for cooking!

 

[nidarosa]

I have to say I didn't actually cook very often - for one thing the kitchens were often full of people already cooking and for another I love, love, love! the black lentil stew with chorizo and always hoped it would be on a pilgrim menu somewhere ... or oven baked chicken in beer, yum ... things I couldn't have made myself. But what I loved and still miss for lunch, as I was permanently baffled about the opening times of the cafés and eateries along the way and always seemed to arrive when it was shut, was those little cartons of gazpacho! One of those in my cup, some bread and maybe a tin of tuna or sardines, or a bag of olives, made for a gorgeous and healthy meal in the middle of the day. It sure beat those big, dry bocadillos! In fact, next time I will have a slightly bigger pack to be able to carry more/lager bits of food - I often didn't because I had no room for more than tiny tins and cartons.

 

[KinkyOne]

Nidarosa have already mentioned that the kitchens were full and my experience is the same. At home I cook a looot. And many different meals. But on Camino for me the fastest and most enjoyable was:
- cook some pasta (spaghetti or else) al dente!
- 1 onion, half chorizo (if there's no oil, chorizo has enough of fat), some garlic, tomato in a pan,
- add al dente pasta, bit of wine (white or black), spices (whichever are there)
- stir well for another 5 min and there you have a "masterpiece"

It smelled sooo good that a cook from Japan asked me if I was a professional cook, hahahahahahaha

Buen provecho!

 

[scruffy1]

Spanish tuna fish can we wonderful especially that which comes from a jar will turn a salad into heaven or use it with a creamy sauce for pasta. Most afternoons in many small places a white van comes through apparently deaf to the sound the horn of that vehicle is able to produce. Bread? No thats usually morning/noon. Newspapers? Really! Vegatables and fruits? Sometimes. Fish! Wonderfully fresh fish of several kinds on ice cleaned whole or filleted, whole octopi if you are up for the challange, shellfish, prawns. Sure its not cheap but strangling yourself or the cook who prepared yet another plate of pasta topped with thined out tomato paste will prove to be be far far more expensive.

 

[Anniesantiago]

Sauté an onion and a few cloves of garlic in olive oil. Add a chopped tomatoe and cook to a thick chunky sauce. Salt to taste. Now add any meat or pasta on hand. Yum!

Or... Open a can of Tina in olive oil. Add two chopped cloves of garlic. Eat with good fresh bread. Double yum!