Slow cooked lamb stew

We recently went camping with a group of friends and it was awesome eating outdoors in the fresh air while toasting marshmallows over a wood fire. Cooking was a little simple, a little rustic, but still tasted incredible.

Looking back, the lesson for next time would be to keep things as simple as possible. The fading daylight made it hard for us to see what we were doing, so I think one-pot wonder meals, with minimal prep-work, work the best. For one of our dinners we had a slow cooked lamb and vegetable stew.

Ingredients
- 1kg lamb, chopped in 1 inch cubes
- 2 medium brown onions, chopped
- 2 carrots, chopped
- 2 large potatoes, chopped
- 100g chopped mushroom
- 420g can diced tomato
- 1 small serve of tomato paste
- 1 cup water

In a cast iron pot, sweat the onions for about 5 minutes, then add the lamb to brown for another 5-10 minutes. Add all the other ingredients and season with a little dried basil, salt and pepper. Put on the lid and hang over a wood fire. Simmer for 2 hours and you have melt in your mouth lamb stew.

To accompany the stew we threw in some foiled sweet potatoes into the fire to roast. Maybe it was the log fire, or the fresh air, but it tasted great and was easy to make.

You can do this at home in any sort of pot on a low heat. We use fresh tomato as well as a tin of tomatoes for extra sweetness.

-Sai