Post sponsored by Volkswagen.
There is something intensely satisfying about cooking outdoors over an open wood campfire. The experience of cooking the meal is almost, if not more, pleasurable than the experience of eating it, in my humble opinion.
A few summers ago we took the children south to the mainland for the very first time. We loaded up our old knackered vehicle with all the provisions we’d need for a fortnight’s travelling and glamping, and headed to the mainland via the overnight ferry.
From Scotland and a drive through the scenic Cairngorms, we drove South to the Lake District and glamped for five nights in a camping pod in the centre of the picturesque popular tourist destination. Fortunately, the English schools hadn’t yet broken for the summer holidays like our Scots schools had, so the campsite (during the week) was quiet and relaxing.
I don’t know if you’ve ever gone on a road trip with your family, but feeding a family can quickly become very expensive if you’re eating at cafes and restaurants for three meals a day. In an attempt to keep the expenditure down I’d packed a few kitchen essentials with me. Namely, one cast iron skillet, one cast iron pot, and a BBQ grill to act as a stove top when placed over an open fire.
I can’t even begin to tell you how much fun I had cooking over this fire. Regular readers will know that I live on a treeless, windswept island in the middle of the North Sea, despite my rural Canadian upbringing. I miss trees. I miss campfires, and sleeping in the woods, so this trip to the Lake District was my idea of heaven. Cooking over this fire was something I’d really looked forward to, so I planned a few meals, including this sausages with puy lentils and kale one.
We’d chosen this particular campsite for its location and that it allowed open fires, as long as you purchased bags of wood from the campsite owner.
Given that we were in the heart of Cumbria we purchased some mighty fine Cumberland sausages at a local shop, and I set to cooking. The children played, my husband and I sipped the rest of the bottle of wine after a splash went into this dish, the sun shone and the birds sang. Summer holiday bliss.
The resulting meal, I have to confess, was rather hearty and delicious. Cooking outdoors on wood imparts a delicious wood-smoke flavour to a meal, and after a day spent adventuring at a nearby Go Ape facility and walking some of the trails in the area, we had hefty appetites.
Ok, it might not be the most picturesque of all outdoor foodstuffs, but I tell you – this sausage dish is rather delicious, and it’s simple to make too. You could even save chopping time (and having to lug a sharp knife and chopping board with you camping) by buying ready chopped onions. Another tip of mine is to decant some vegetable oil into a small glass or plastic bottle to cook with before you leave home. Someone needs to come up with camping size bottles of vegetable oil because the smallest size I’ve ever seen is 250 ml, and that’s an awful lot of oil to carry around for a fortnight’s camping.
You could use a tin or two of ready cooked puy lentils for this recipe (because who wants to faff around with soaking and boiling pulses for ages), or use a sachet of ready cooked.
I find pork sausages work really well with this recipe, but feel free to use beef if that’s your preference. A good few handfuls of kale or spinach stirred in at the end make for a rather nutritious dish too, I think.
Now, for a few of my favourite holiday snaps…..
This holiday was a once in a lifetime experience for us. As it was the first time our younger two children had ever been to the mainland we made sure we gave them as many new experiences as we could. They’d never seen a real forest before, so a visit to a nearby Go Ape facility was a must. They’d never been on a train before then either, so the first train trip they ever took was on a steam train in Haverthwaite. Not many children can say that these days, can they!
Ah, memories. That’s what road trips are all about, aren’t they.
What’s your favourite outdoor cooking dish? Do you have a family favourite? If you’re looking for more travel-inspired recipes do visit the Volkswagen Pinterest community board – Food Bloggers for Volkswagen.
Sausages with Puy Lentils & Kale : a Campfire Recipe
Ingredients
- 2 tbsp sunflower oil divided
- 1 onions finely chopped
- 1 clove garlic finely chopped
- 500 grams ready-cooked puy lentils I use Merchant Gourmet sachets x 2
- 400 gram tinned plum tomatoes
- 75 ml red wine
- 8 good quality pork sausages
- 2 handfuls kale or spinach
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Instructions
- Get a fire going in a fairly deep fire pit. Lay a grill across the top to use as your hob, and heat up your cast iron skillet. This can be made, even quicker, over a gas camp stove, but the wood smoke really adds a unique flavour to the dish.
- Heat half the sunflower oil in the skillet and fry the garlic and onions until they begin to soften. Depending on the strength of your fire this might take a while.
- When the onions have softened, transfer them to a deep sided cast iron pot and keep cooking them at a lower heat further away from the middle of the fire (as pictured).
- Add the remaining sunflower oil to the skillet and fry the sausages until browned and cooked through.
- While the sausages are cooking, add the puy lentils, tomatoes and red wine to the onion mixture and cook over a low heat until it reduces and forms a lovely rich gravy.
- When the sausages are cooked, add them to the puy lentil mixture along with a generous handful or two of kale or spinach, stir until just wilted and serve immediately.
OTHER CAMPFIRE RECIPES YOU MIGHT LIKE
Middle Eastern Spiced Campfire Chickpeas {vegan}
Chocolate Orange Campfire Cake
OTHER ADVENTURES WE GOT UP TO ON THIS ROAD TRIP
To the trees! Our adventures in the Lake District
Cullen skink at the top of a mountain
Mountain biking in the Cairngorms
The National Trust: Tarn Hows
This is a sponsored recipe post commissioned by Volkswagen, although all thoughts and opinions expressed are our own. Thank you for supporting the brands who make it possible for me to do what I love: mess up my kitchen and share recipe stories.
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10 Places to Eat & Drink in Aberdeenshire, Scotland
Wow it was very delicious and amazing for us. Good tips are given in this article which make it very easy.
Hey, I love reading your blog. I’m a fan of sausages and I really ate them quite often, but never thought of this way to prepare them! Amazing, I really need to start focusing on cooking more – it’s so much fun!
My parents would love this. They love eating sausage and do so a lot unless I am coming over for super as I don’t eat sausage. Lol.
Oh wow! This is something I would really, really love! I haven’t tied camping before, I should give it a try.
I love going on camping trips and cooking my meals with fire is a must. I haven’t gone camping in a few years and would love to go and try out your awesome sausage recipe.
Looks a yummy recipe and I can’t wait to try this on weekend I bet my family would love this too.
This is so awesome! I can’t cook for several days now because of my morning sickness but I will definitely save this recipe to try it soon. This looks so tasty and delicious!
What an amazing recipe! I love how beautiful food looks in your pictures – you are a true artist! I love eating sausages, and would like to try making this when we go camping – this will be so exciting!
I miss camping with my kids, it’s always fun to have them around. It’s one of the best ways to spend time with them as well. I’m sure my sons will praise me for a recipe this lovely when we go camping in the future.
It’s been a while since I last went camping and this is the perfect season for it. I think this recipe is great for campers, it has all the things that they need to energize them.
I love this post, mainly because of the use of the VW! We are a VW family (my FIL was the sales distributor between Germany and the SE USA) so it was great to see how you incorporated it into this post! It must be fun traveling around in it, brings back so many memories!
I have never eaten kale, but this campfire sausage sounds awesome! Definitely adding this to my list of things to try!
Sounds delicious and super easy to make sausages are my favorite to prepare different entrees with.
The trip and the forest looked awesome. That’s so great that you had such a good experience with your family. And the food looked pretty amazing as well.
Those sausages look so tasty. What a great recipe, I can’t wait to try it.
I can see why this would make a great campfire recipe! My husband and I want to take our boys to their first camping trip so I’ll have to add this to our list of recipes!
As a person who loves camping, this recipe looks just fine to me! What I also find so appealing about it is the fact that it is easy to make, showing that I am not the world’s greatest cook – and I would rather spend the time enjoying the food and the outdoors, rather than preparing it. Really nice photos too!
I don’t eat pork, but I think this recipe will go so well with chicken too. I love outdoor cooking, and your clicks are beautiful.
That meal looks very hearty and filling. My family loves sausages so I bet they would love it. Your trip looks so fun too. Love those tree bridges!
Oh man, I can totally eating this after a long walk in the outdoors. Oh so good!!! Yum!
Looks Yum! My kids have never been camping, just last night they were talking about cooing on a camp fire. We may have to try it one day
I like the way you make it! Most of ingredients are from vegetables and they are really good for health. I like garlic and onions which can help me avoid flu. And, yours looks also great, it sounds the most suitable after running.