Eat Sleep Wild
Routes Recipes and Wild Experiences from the West Coast of Scotland
Makes 6 Ingredients 100g oats 40g ground almonds 10g chia seeds 1 tsp baking powder 1/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda pinch of salt 4 medjool dates (or 8 dried apricots) 1 small ripe banana 150ml almond milk (or other milk) 1tsp vanilla extract (or zest of a lemon) 100g blueberries (or other fruit – chopped …
I was a little late to the lockdown banana bread trend, but a bowlful of ripe bananas during lockdown #3 finally brought it to the fore. In truth, I’d caught the dreaded virus. Mild symptoms, fortunately, but it did send my taste buds out of whack. Foods I usually liked were suddenly unappealing. I often …
I now have nettle burgers to add to my lexicon of favourite nettle recipes (which also includes nettle pesto, nettle pizza, and nettle spanakopita!). These burgers are mega tasty, super nutritious, and easy to make with a food processor. The ingredients: nettles (of course), your favourite bean (chickpeas or any white bean work well), cumin …
When I saw this recipe for gooseberry and elderflower cordial in Fiona Beckett’s book How to Drink Without Drinking, I knew I had to try it. Elderflowers are a highlight of my early summer foraging routine and I’m always looking for new ways to use them. Elderflower cordial is always the first thing I make. …
This elderflower cordial cocktail is affectionately called “the bump start” by me and its friends. Feel free to read the origin story below, a tale of adventure of a different kind than you’ll normally see on this website. Or scroll to the bottom for the recipe (mocktail suggestion included). If you made elderflower cordial this …
Wild elderflower cordial is a spring foraging classic, one of my first go-to recipes when the elderflowers start to appear in the hedgerows in May. But this cordial isn’t just for drinking with sparkling water; it’s endlessly versatile. You can use it to make cakes, ice cream, cocktails, and more. That said, it’s worth making …
Dandelions are proliferous in spring and this dandelion jam recipe is a great way to encapsulate their cheerful yellow petals into a delightful jam. The resulting dandelion jam has an almost honey-like quality. Springtime in a jar. Dandelion jam is super easy to make from foraged dandelion heads. The most laborious part is picking enough …
This tasty dehydrated butternut squash soup is amped up with red lentils and ras el hanout, a North African spice mix. This soup is hearty, easy to make, rehydrates quickly, and is chock full of warming flavours. It’s a great option in the middle of a tough day out when you want to warm up …
These pickled blackberries have become an autumn ritual with the autumn blackberry glut. The original recipe comes from All Good Things Around Us by Pamela Michael (copyright 1981), recommended to me by Tim from Homewood Cheeses. This book is a great source of inspiration for all kinds of “good things” found in the wild. Sick …
Mexican food is my ultimate comfort food, especially when camping, and these dehydrated refried black beans totally make my day. Forget that homogenous store-bought gloop that you can buy in a tin. With a dehydrator, you can make sensational dehydrated refried black beans to bring on your backpacking trips. Tent tacos, here we come… This is …
These campstove fajitas are based on Erin Baker’s wonderful portobello mushroom fajitas recipe in her book The Veg Table. I’ve adapted it for the camp stove so that you too can enjoy tent tacos on your future backpacking and wild camping trips! This is definitely a recipe for warmer months. Don’t get me wrong, tacos …
Everyone should have a good granola recipe in their repertoire, be it for backpacking and wild camping, or just to have at home. This orange, apricot and pecan granola has become a favourite of mine. Of course, you can use any combination of fruit, nuts, seeds, and grains that you’d like. The key is in …
This red lentil dal is one of my favourite recipes of all time and one of the first dishes I turned into a dehydrated backpacking meal. I relish the flavours and aromas of Indian food, wherever I am, but especially out in the wild after a long day’s trek. The spices in the dal make …
This wild camping food guide offers some guidelines and ideas for what to eat on a backpacking trip. Specifically, what to eat if you want to eat well. This guide avoids processed prepackaged foods and focuses on real food high in both flavour and nutrition. I wrote this for people like me who want to …
This dehydrated red lentil soup with carrot and cumin is easy to make at home and quick to rehydrate on the trail. I’ve gotten into pureed soups like this for lunches on my backpacking trips, particularly on long arduous days. An afternoon break for something hot and wholesome can provide a welcome boost in both …
Shrimp and grits is a dish that hails from America’s “low country”. It’s filling, delicious, wholesome, and easy to make with a camp stove. This is perfect comfort food after a long day’s hike when all you want is something hot, tasty and substantial. I first discovered shrimp and grits during a summer I spent …
This recipe for dehydrated spring greens works for any robust leafy green vegetable: curly kale, cavolo nero, collard greens, spinach, and chard. This is a great way to get green vegetables into your wild camping meals, adding nutrients, flavour and variety to your existing repertoire. Or if you’re like me, they simply satisfy the psychological …
I’ve experimented with lots of energy bar recipes for hiking and backpacking trips and I’m pretty sure these are the very best! They’re essentially a slightly-sweet granola bar made with good-for-you ingredients including rolled oats, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, walnuts, almonds, banana and dried fruit. No sugar, no weird stuff. This energy bar recipe combines everything …
Indian dhals are a great dehydrator option for wild camping meals. They dehydrate well, pack down nicely, and rehydrate very quickly at camp. Whenever I make dhal, I make a huge batch – some I freeze for lunch leftovers or quick meals, the rest I dehydrate for my next adventure. This Tarka Dhal is super …
One of my favourite all time uses for foraged nettles is this recipe for nettle spanakopita. This Greek filo pie is traditionally made with spinach, but we’ve used nettles which work amazingly well here. To make this spanakopita you’ll need quite a lot of nettles, so involve your friends in the picking if you can, …
If you want to try your hands at baking bread outdoors, this campfire flatbread recipe is a great place to start. No fancy wilderness oven required; the flatbread gets cooked straight on the coals! Seriously, cooking bread on coals is a game changer. The char adds the most delightful smoky flavour. And it’s not hard: …
This sprouted buckwheat dehydrated granola (literally and figuratively a mouthful) might sound like hippy food – which it kind of is – but also happens to be super tasty and a great camping breakfast option for those who happen to be gluten free. Despite containing the word “wheat”, buckwheat is a actually a seed, not …
This lentil ragu with kale and parmesan is hearty, healthy, and full of deep umami flavour thanks to the inclusion of parmesan rinds during the cooking process. In case you’re not already saving your parmesan rinds, now is the time to start! When added to soups or stews, parmesan rinds elevate the flavour – like …
Veggie chilli has to be one of my all time favourite camping meals and I’m constantly inventing new variations. This sweet potato and black bean chilli is inspired by my friend Abby who cooked this up after a very cold day spent cross country skiing in Wisconsin. There is something so enormously satisfying about a …
