I have read a lot of blogs and forum posts about camp cooking that assume you are building a fire and suspending pots and pans over it like some kind of Robin Hood style encampment. I get the feeling the people who do this think anything less than a full spit roast is just not 'camp cooking'. Well we don't go in for that kind of cooking for several reasons. Firstly we go camping in the UK on designated campsites, most of which do not allow you to build open fires, which is perfectly understandable. Secondly we don't spend all our time sat by the tent we go off for the day and when we get back we need to feed hungry children NOW not in 2 hours time. Thirdly we have small children who (bless 'em) are highly likely to run. cycle, wander or fall into an open fire. Finally burnt food sucks.

So what do we eat when we go camping? Well we're on holiday so we have 'special' things that require at little effort as possible.

For breakfast: croissants, brioche, pain au chocolat, danish pastries, pancakes or cereal (chosen from one of the collections of mini boxes). We're vegetarian, so bacon is not really our kind of thing although it's obviously a classic camping breakfast and a popular one too based on the smells that waft over the campsites we've stayed at in the mornings.

We usually eat lunch out, because we're out and about anyway. If we're really organised we'll make a simple picnic, a few sandwiches, bags of crisps, chocolate bars, fruit, biscuits, drinks and so on. Usually however we'll have a pub lunch or eat at the place we're visiting if we've gone somewhere for the day.

In the evening we're back at the campsite and we go in for one of the following options. A barbeque if we have one with us (I am considering buying one like the pictured at the top). As you can probably gather we're not fancy barbequers - burgers, sausages, buns, ketchup, sliced cheese, a few pre-packed salads and not much else. Another option we go for is a take away (I know what a total cheat!). It has to be said though that take out pizza tastes so good after a long day out with the kids. It's hot and filling too with minimal washing up.

One other option which we tend to go for on our first night is pasta and sauce or pesto. We usually arrive mid afternoon and so we're finally set up around dinner time. The kids by then are starving and in need of food FAST. Something like pasta is easy and fast to make, but is hot and filling. In order to cook simple meals like this we've got a Camp Chef, but to be honest it gets used mostly for boiling the kettle to make tea (we're British after all it's not camping if we don't drink copious amounts of tea).

So that's how we do camp cooking. We do very little and even that is real simple stuff. We're on holiday, getting away from it all. That includes getting away from cooking the dinner too if possible.