Two clever recipes to make over a campfire

For Dutch caterers Arno and Mireille Van Elst, road trips represent long roads, good conversation and a roaring engine. They also mean making friends, cooking together and sharing meals.

"You can make tasty and nutritious meals in a simple way, even when you don't have a fully equipped kitchen or well-stocked supermarket nearby," they write in their book Road Trip Cooking.

Here, the couple share two campfire recipes that can be easily adapted for a barbecue or stove in the case of fire restrictions and the variety of ingredients on hand.

Campfire nachos

This nacho pizza with chips for a crust is superb! You can literally top it with anything. Also handy for when you're on the go and need to finish up your leftover vegetables, meat and fish from the last meal.

INGREDIENTS

• 12g (1½ tbsp) butter
• 7ml (½ tbsp) olive oil
• 2 garlic cloves, pressed
• 100ml (⅜ cup) cream
• 100ml (⅜ cup) milk
• 75g (⅔ cup) parmesan cheese
• salt and pepper
• red chilli flakes, to taste
• 1 bag tortilla chips
• 1 onion, finely diced
• 75g (⅔ cup) chorizo, in cubes
• 50g (¼ cup) pitted black olives, in slices
• 1 capsicum, in cubes
• 1 spring onion, in rings
• 75g (⅔ cup) grated cheese

Equipment:

• Lidded cast-iron pan

METHOD

1. Make a good fire.
2. Melt the butter with the olive oil in a pan and gently fry the garlic.
3. Add cream and milk and bring to the boil while stirring.
4. Add the parmesan, chilli flakes and salt and pepper, and simmer and stir to a sauce consistency. Remove from the fire.
5. Put the tortilla chips in a cast-iron pan and pour the sauce over. Scatter the remaining ingredients over the chips and top with cheese. Put the pan on the fire. Warm up with the lid on for five to 10 minutes until the cheese is melted and the vegetables are warm.

Note: Distribute the ingredients over and between the tortilla chips so you can taste all the flavours with each bite.

Serves 1

S'mores with marshmallows and strawberries

I would have sworn that the word s'more is originally Scandinavian. It sounds incredibly Swedish, right? While making this book I discovered that the s'more is American and comes from "some more", which is, of course, difficult to pronounce with a mouth full of sticky sweetness. We thought up some different versions of s'mores that are even better than the original.

INGREDIENTS

• 1 big bag marshmallows
• 1 packet plain, sweet biscuits
• 1 large bar chocolate, grated
• 1 punnet strawberries (or raspberries), sliced
• 1 banana, thinly sliced
• fudge, in small pieces
• 1 jar of peanut butter

Equipment:

• aluminium foil
• long twig/skewers

METHOD

1. Make a campfire.
2. Lay the biscuits out on a piece of aluminium foil and add a generous amount of chocolate to each one. Top with fruit, peanut butter and fudge.
3. Thread the marshmallows on a stick and hold them over the fire. They're ready when they puff up and turn light brown.
4. Use a biscuit to slide the cooked marshmallow onto another biscuit. Gently squeeze the marshmallow down and sandwich together with one of the prepared biscuits. The hot marshmallows will melt the other ingredients, which tastes divine.

Note: Use leftover wraps instead of biscuits. Place all the ingredients over one wrap and place a second one on top.

Serves 4

This is an edited extract from Road Trip Cooking by The Holy Kauw Company, Arno and Mireille Van Elst, published by Hardie Grant Travel, RRP $29.99.