This post is a bit belated, I have been waiting for photos from my daughter and been busy with other things too. Look at this beech tree it’s fantastic, one of my favourites in the woods. Well it was my birthday recently and my close family wanted to see the woods in it’s spring glory, so it seemed a nice idea to spend the day with them there. Following on from my last post’s theme of connection with nature and the woods, I wanted to give them a taste of that by having a campfire and cooking. I planned a risotto, cooked in my dutch oven pot along with salmon steaks and a sort of banana split for afters. I set them to, gathering firewood and let some of them have a go at using a flint and steel to ignite it. We soon had a nice fire going and the kettle on.

I showed them the blackbird nest which now had three chicks , then a tour of my woods.

Time to start the meal. I’ve said before that I’m not a good cook and cooking in the woods over a fire is a lot more challenging than at home in the kitchen. But it’s a lot more fun and my repertoire and confidence is increasing, having done quite a bit of campfire cookery now. The cast iron dutch oven is a fantastic piece of kit for a fire. I sweated down some onions, celery and garlic then added the rice. I’d made up some stock which was gradually fed into the mix and near the end added some peas and parmesan cheese. Two cast iron skillets were used to fry the salmon steaks. Miraculously it all came together at the same time and tasted great.

Dessert was the banana split thing. I got the recipe from an excellent little book I bought recently The wilderness Cookbook by Phoebe Smith. You slice the banana skin down one side, open it and stuff it with mini marshmallows and chocolate chips. Wrap it in foil and cook in the hot embers for about 8 minutes. Add a few more marshmallows and some squirty cream and you have a delicious but very naughty dessert. Sorry no photos of that.

After lunch we took a walk around the outer rides to see what other parts of the woods looked like. I’ve never seen so many of the neighbours in on one day and we stopped and chatted to most of them. The afternoon was soon gone and time to pack up and leave. A memorable birthday and one hard to improve on.