Heyup,

I do the meets for SUSS at the mo and I always struggle for recipe ideas to cook on a big scale. I have a bit of a recipe book to work with, with the likes of chilli, toad in the hole, potato curry etc. We can cook for anywhere between 5 and 40 people. Any out there got good idea of meal for weekends at huts?

Cheers, Louise.

All my club meals (for ICCC) are based on a tomato stew cos canned tomatoes are cheap and delicious. Here's three variants. All in pot pasta is the most popular at the moment, we even made it a few times on expedition! They're all vegetarian so we don't have to cook two meals (plenty of bacon at breakfast anyway) so I try and include beans or eggs for protein.

Cavers' Shakshuka
Serves 16
8 red onions, sliced
2 bulbs garlic, mashed
8 bell peppers, sliced
4 chilli peppers, sliced with seeds
6 cans tomatoes
1 tube tomato pur?e
Smoked paprika
Chilli powder
Cumin

Fry the onions and garlic with salt, adding the chillis and bell peppers when soft. Split into four frying pans. Add chopped tomatoes and pur?e, simmer, adding spice to taste. When the sauce is well cooked (30 minutes), make an indentation in the stew, crack eggs into from some height so that they penetrate deeper into the stew. Use a fork to gently mix the white of the egg into the stew so it cook well. Cover and leave to simmer until egg white is cooked. Serve with crusty bread, cous cous and plain yoghurt.

All in Pot Pasta
Serves 16
3 onions diced
1 bulb garlic smushed
3 cans chickpeas drained and rinsed
1 tube tomato puree
Cumin
Smoked paprika
2 L vegetable stock - boullion powder or cubes
2 kg pasta - ?shells? (conchiglie) are best

Fry onions and garlic in oil until soft (10 mins). Add chickpeas, a fair whack of cumin and smoked paprika and tomato puree, cook to a thick paste (10 mins). Add stock, bring to the boil, add pasta and cook until al dente (slightly chewy). Serve.

Generic Tomato Based Stew
Serves 16
4 big onion diced
Bulb of garlic smushed
6 big sweet potatoes, diced to 1-2 cm cubes
4 bell peppers, diced to 2 cm
Other veg: carrots, courgettes
6 cans chopped toms
Tomato puree

Fry onions and garlic in oil for 10 mins. Add sweet potatoes and fry for 10 minutes. Add bell peppers and other vegetables along with chopped tomatoes and tomato puree. Bring to a boil and then simmer until all the veg is cooked (sweet potatoes take longest, hence a small dice is preferable). Serve with cheap white bread heavily discounted in Morrisons.

We've got a doc with loads of other recipes but I'll let the others decide if they want to share their culinary masterpieces.

Our club is small so we can be a bit more creative and a big homemade pie is often well received, however its logistically a pain as you really need to slow cook stuff.  Simple one pot things could be:

Corned Beef hash.  Fry some onions, add some carrots, potatoes, a tin of corned beef (will do 4 people), some water and an oxo cube. Cook until you're bored. Add as many pickled food items as possible as a side dish. And brown sauce. My wife adds red sauce but shes weird.

Generic coconut curry. Fry onions with a full jar of any type of curry paste until the kitchen smells awesome.  Add 3 - 4 cans of coconut milk and then basically throw whatever you want in; meat, fish, veg. Chop some extra chillies for the brave. Boil some rice.  Probably serves 4 - 6.

I like these suggestions, but as regards corned beef hash, I find that if you add the diced-up corned beef too soon, it goes all mushy, so I leave it to add at the last minute (give it just enough time for it to warm through).

Spaghetti Bolognese is easy - you can change to meat\veg ratio to suit tastes.

Baked potatoes can work if you get back from the trips early-ish. A few toppings give you an selection of meals.

Fulk said:

I like these suggestions, but as regards corned beef hash, I find that if you add the diced-up corned beef too soon, it goes all mushy, so I leave it to add at the last minute (give it just enough time for it to warm through).

Click to expand...

See this is where it gets quite polarised; one side is the pro-"multiple bits in a gravy" type and there's those that prefer a more "wet cement" type of consistency.

Don't ask york. 
Curry TvP,
Chinese TVP.
Thai curry TVP.

Have I missed any?

Surely it depends what you get out of the local shops bins that evening

as long as you don't do what Newcastle do. The amount of grease and meat involved is quite sickening to behold. Bins are obviously the way to go. As long as you buy some basics (onions, potatoes, chopped tomatoes, cumin, salt, pepper, garlic, other good spices, then pasta) you will be able to make something good with anything coming from the bins.

alastairgott said:

Don't ask york. 
Curry TvP,
Chinese TVP.
Thai curry TVP.

Have I missed any?

Click to expand...

Only on expo! [emoji14]

There's lots of recipes in our expedition reports (not all are TVP, honest). I'll post some links later when I have better internet.

Sent from my Moto G (5) using Tapatalk

Textured vegetable protein or Thames valley police?

Is York a vegan club? Sounds the place to be!

Ian Ball said:

Is York a vegan club? Sounds the place to be!

Click to expand...

Not at all!
(But nor are we cannibals mikem )

When up a mountain with no access to meat though, TVP is a good substitute. As far as we could tell it's the product with the highest protein to weight ratio... An important consideration when you have to carry all your food for several hours.

Sent from my Moto G (5) using Tapatalk

CatM said:

When up a mountain with no access to meat though, TVP is a good substitute. As far as we could tell it's the product with the highest protein to weight ratio... An important consideration when you have to carry all your food for several hours.

Click to expand...

Especially in dehydrated form.

Decades ago when the YHA had a shop on John Adam Street in the West End of London they were one of the first places to sell the stuff, in 7lb bags. I soon graduated to using it as a base for curries and chilli con carne at home. (sans carne I suppose technically).

.

I've heard sausage casserole is tasty

We do some sweet potato-coconut-spinach-chickpea curry a lot of the time, it's ideal. What's even better is if you substitute in some squash you can roast the seeds while you're cooking for an extra snack (thanks to Ryan for having the initiative to do that first time).

A little reminiscent of "Generic coconut curry...Probably serves 4 - 6" but last time I just about managed to serve 25 people from one pot.

It's a fairly easy recipe to just wing on the day but we usually do 1 tin of chopped tomatoes, 1 tin of chickpeas, an onion, significant amount of mild curry powder, tin or so of coconut milk, and a reasonable number of sweet potatoes/butternut squash and finally spinach for...I'd say 5 people after the last time I made it (initially tried doing those numbers per 6 people and pretty much ran out for the last couple).
It's cheap enough that leftovers won't matter so you can make extra to be sure, it's vegan. Very tasty.
Obvious how to make it too - soften the onions, tip in the curry powder, add tinned tomatoes and chickpeas (maybe some chickpea water too) and then add the (pre-boiled for speed) veggies, the coconut milk and leave for an hour or two to soak in the flavours and reduce down. Add the spinach near the end (we always grab baby leaf because it's easy to find).

What I'd also want to try to make sometime that is definitely not vegan is Bobotie - a quite sweet curried mince thing from South Africa and it's delicious and easy to make, although it needs a baking dish which seems to be a rare commodity in caving huts.
General ingredients - Onion, garlic, mince, any mild to medium curry powder is probably fine, chutney (Mrs Balls is the best, or mango will do), sultanas, eggs and bread. I might make some tomorrow and check my lazy recipe works ok.

SqueezyPete said:

What I'd also want to try to make sometime that is definitely not vegan is Bobotie - a quite sweet curried mince thing from South Africa and it's delicious and easy to make, although it needs a baking dish which seems to be a rare commodity in caving huts.
General ingredients - Onion, garlic, mince, any mild to medium curry powder is probably fine, chutney (Mrs Balls is the best, or mango will do), sultanas, eggs and bread. I might make some tomorrow and check my lazy recipe works ok.

Click to expand...

I am intrigued..

Squeezypete, welcome to the forum.

A baking dish? Wha, like Pyrex or something? I'm sure we can make it happen if there's people to eat it.

If we think that a club hut is going to be crowded, making it a tad difficult to cook, we sometimes make, say, a bean stew, freeze it and let it thaw out in the journey to save having to cook when we get there.

Sausage & Mash with Onion Gravy.