It must be summer - I'm making meatloaf

views the best pictures

Daisy in one of her favourite spots

It must be nearly summer, because I have been making meatloaf again. Not just any meat loaf – probably the best meatloaf ever, and my failsafe camping standby. I haven’t been camping yet, I hasten to add, but the Husband took Blue and Pink away for a night to check out Daisy after her long winter indoors. It froze, but they had fun.

 I had intended to send them on their merry way with one of these in Daisy’s fridge, but given the temperature, fish and chips was probably a better option, and also I ran out of time. However, I had the necessary, so I made the meatloaves the next day anyway and they are now nestled in the freezer waiting for the next trip.

I got the recipe from an old Good Food mag (August 2010 to be precise) and it’s on their website: Cold meatloaf with squashed tomato and red pepper salsa . It totally encapsulates my approach to camping: It’s dead easy. It can be made in advance and in bulk and left in the freezer until needed. I usually make 2 at a time, and line my loaf tins with foil before filling them with the mixture, leaving enough spare so that it’s easy to remove the cooked loaves from the tins and wrap them up for easy freezing once they’ve cooled down. The salsa cooks at the same time as the loaves and is truly delicious – you can add more chilli or remove it depending on the mouths you are catering for and it tastes fabulous whatever.

I usually make an enormous potato salad and may be another salad to take and we invariably end up eating this first time round on Friday night somewhere down the A303 heading for Dorset or beyond. Occasionally we’ve made it to the weekend’s location for a reasonable time, in which case it’s simply a matter of serving up – nothing more required (maybe a cup of tea if it’s chilly, but I usually find my first van G&T of the weekend does the trick – although if we’re still en route, it’s strictly a cuppa tea).

 There’s always enough left over for lunch on Saturday so provided there are plenty of rolls knocking around, there’s no need to do any more, and the salsa will last for the Saturday evening BBQ, as generally will the salads which I usually take in plastic boxes (no scurvy for us). Makes life very easy.

I often find that these ‘ideal for camping’ or ‘ideal for picnics’ recipes are never quite as ‘ideal’ as they suggest – the same issue of GF had some ploughman’s rolls which I really didn’t rate (interestingly, I couldn’t find them on the website), but this meatloaf is really the business.

I’m always on the look-out for good camping fodder so any suggestions, leave me a comment – we’ve got plenty of trips planned this summer so I’ll be waiting to try them all out!