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What a better way to spend a weekend (especially Valentines Day weekend) than out of touch with the world, completely disconnected in a relaxed and tranquil place, called Beaverlac. One of the greatest things about camping besides having to live with very little is of course, cooking with very little in the way of utensils as well as ingredients. It also doesn’t help when silly me forgets a rather vital part of that, our own braai grid.

To get to Beaverlac, the roads are not al that great and the last part has a breathtaking view but a rather steep mountain pass and the dirt road after the mountain pass would definitely be made better and easier with a 4×4. For those of us who don’t have that luxury, my car survives after dancing around the road like a bouncy ball. All that said the drive was still very pleasant and fun (probably because I was glad I was not driving)

After arriving and finding our spot for our camp and setting up we decided on a very simple and easy dinner. A packet of pasta and sauce made life very easy just adding milk and water. Although, not as easy as it would have been in the kitchen because to boil water you also need a fire, but that’s the great part about camping. Having to make a fire for every cup of tea is all in the experience.

Saturday morning we decided to take a walk up the mountain to find the rock pools at the top. A simple packed lunch of tuna mayo sandwiches and grapes were in order. We spent a good portion of the day walking up the mountain and another handy hint is when people tell you to take sunscreen it is probably a good idea.

I don’t think I have ever appreciated shade as much as I do now, and coming down from the walk at about 3pm to find our tent in complete sunlight with no shade, was a rather interesting experience too. In true MacGyver style, my other half made a plan and made shade using sheets, rope, 2 stones, a bottle cap and a cork.

After the sun finally started going down and everything cooled down we started the fire to make dinner. Trying to make a whole chicken on the braai would have been far easier to spatch-cock it on a braai grid but we had to make another plan. Our first idea was to make a spit out of a braai fork and using a stick in a Y shape to hold it. That didn’t work too well because the chicken didn’t hold too well. So the next plan was to use the pan we brought for the bacon and eggs on Sunday. So the chicken was seasoned and placed in the pan and placed on the hot coals. The fire was still really hot so the chicken needed some liquid so the juice of a lemon and a bottle of beer poured over a bit at a time as well as some water did the trick.

The chicken did take quite some time to cook but that was also because we had to keep on stoking the coals and heating them up again. On the menu for Saturday night was also whole cobs of corn and sweet potato. The sweet potato just prick and place in foil and on the coals and for the sweet corn, remove the outer layers and the strings of fibre and replace the outer layers around the corn again as this keeps the inside from burning too much and also helps create steam and cook it After replacing the outer layers, cover in foil and again straight onto the coals. All in all a very enjoyable meal that was really fun to cook too.

Sunday morning was going to be a bacon and eggs morning being valentines day and all, but the sun was rising and tent was loosing shade so I made bacon in the pan but something I should have thought of for the chicken was placing foil inside the pan and this prevents the pan from burning with the heat of the fire. Place the pan in the coals to heat up a little and place the bacon on the pan. It was a very small pan so I cooked the pieces of bacon with the fat first, and after that cook the other pieces in the fat. This was you also do not need to use any butter or oil. We decided not to make eggs but made bacon and cheese jaffles instead using the jaffle iron that I did remember to bring with us.

The whole camping experience was fantastic, and I have always loved braaing too so cooking over an open fire was so enjoyable and also because it is a very sociable way of cooking instead of being alone in the kitchen. Beaverlac was just beautiful and for some more info you can look here: http://www.capefrisco.com/beaverlac/Default.aspx For a weekend getaway that does not cost too much and that is not too far out of Cape Town I would recommend it to anyone and I know I will certainly be going again. 

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 16th, 2010 at 11:45 am and is filed under Camping, Eat In, Food, Travel, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.