Breakfast cooked in a campervan by me! (with update)

Location - VW Big Bang @ Santa Pod Raceway

Date - 7th May 2011

Opening hours - Depends on how bad hangover is but anytime between 6am and noon is a possibility.

By far the best seat on offer but with nowhere to put the plate of food except your lap probably not your best option.

This is your best bet, if you sit to the left you can eat using the work surface by the cooker, not perfect but it will do until I fit a table.

Before the cooked breakfast I decided to have a coffee.

Yes everything matches nicely and yes the coffee was good!

This is what I was going to be cooking, I did have a gammon steak I was planning to use instead of bacon but I decided to save that for the bbq later as it would take up too much space in the frying pan. I didn't bother with tomatoes as I would have wanted tinned and with cooking beans too there would have not been enough rings on the cooker.

I started to cook the Heinz beans early on nice and slowly so they went really stodgy.

The mushrooms needed to have gone in 2 minutes earlier as they were a tad undercooked.

It may not have hash browns, bacon or tomatoes but it was the 1st thing I had ever cooked in my campervan and I enjoyed it!

Yolks just how I like them and not bad considering I forgot the egg slice and had to use a fork to turn and pick up the fried eggs.

Im not a fan of square plates but I ended up using a square frying pan as it fit on top of the cooker so well, I didn't find it too disturbing luckily and shall be using it again.

Last time I was at Santa Pod I ate at the Pitstop Restaurant which at the time seemed the only way to get a fry up unless you have a campervan or cooker. Now I do have a campervan with cooker I decided to see how I got on cooking my own, I had visions of fat spitting everywhere and smoke pouring out of the windows but cooking everything on a low to medium heat prevented this happening...

Upon entering - As you step through the opening by the sliding door you notice the kitchen is located straight ahead, there is a twin gas cooker and in a cupboard underneath the cooker is a 12v fridge. The theme throughout the van is black and white and care had been taken to ensure the mugs, kettle etc all matched, I couldn't help noticing how the plates didn't though. There is a very comfy captains seat towards the front but no table, the best seating option was the left seat on the rock n roll bed as this had some work surface to put your plate onto. A table will be added soon and is much needed as eating your food at a right angle was a tad tricky. 6/10

Service - I cooked the food when I was hungry and made sure it arrived nice and hot and presented well, I even did the washing up afterwards. 9/10

Contents - 4 chipolata sausages, 2 fried eggs, 2 slices of black pudding, 5 mushrooms, baked beans. Hmm.. I could have scored higher here by adding more items but didn't so... 6/10

Presentation - Everything sat nicely on the plate, I did consider trying to make a face out of it but didn't so.. 7/10

The food - The chipolata sausages were cooked to perfection (MD take note!!) and had a really nice texture and taste to them, I really enjoyed the black pudding which also was cooked really nicely. The fried eggs were spot on with yolks that were runny but not at all snotty though flipping and serving them with a fork was a bit tricky. The beans couldn't have been better, Heinz and slow cooked with stodgy consistency. The mushrooms were a tad undercooked so didn't go down as well.. 7/10

Value for money - It cost me £2.17 in ingredients and a little bit of gas, it took me about 15 minutes to cook so based on minimum wage that is about £1.50 so in total about £3.70. Not bad but a few items were missing though so.. 7/10

Veggie option - N/A

Overall - The whole experience turned out much better than I had expected. There was no facilities for making toast but I could have easily added fried tomatoes and even hash browns which I may well do next time. There is a definite need for a table which im hoping will be sorted by next time but overall a decent fry up can be cooked and eaten before even stepping outside the van in the morning! 7/10

*******Update*******

Another VW festival, this time Alive and VDubbin in Stonham Barns near Stowmarket and I was quite eager to improve on my previous attempt at cooking a fry up in the campervan. This time I went for nice fat Black Farmers cumberland sausages and decided to cook bacon instead of black pudding as space was something I didn't have much of so some items had to be left out. I also included some sweet tasting vine tomatoes this time and dealing with fried eggs was much easier too as I remembered the egg slice. I was cooking for two with one frying pan and a small saucepan, it was a tight squeeze but it turned out well and tasted good, I'm looking forward to attempt number 3 though!

It was a tight squeeze in that frying pan.

It tasted bloody good and I was quite happy with it!