I used to be an avid camper, and my kids loved it  – and I’ve already told some of the stories about what we got up to. These days, though, the mere mention of camping puts my wife into a bad temper, so I’ll avoid any more of my personal exploits.
Instead I’m going to write about the favourite thing I liked to cook on my trusty gas stove.
It’s a simple dish  – liver and onions served with bacon. Lamb’s liver  – or lamb’s fry as it’s also known  – is a great delicacy in the north of England where I was born, and in fact down at the Bays Club in Brown’s Bay where I like to quench my thirst from time to time.
A lot of people will turn their noses up at the first mention of liver, but it is in fact a great source of protein. Further, it’s an excellent food to ensure you get lots of iron  – good for people with low blood pressure as well as pregnant women and growing kids. It’s also low in sodium, has no sugar, and is high in zinc and vitamins, including A, as well as trace elements such as phosphorous.
However it’s not recommended if you suffer from high cholesterol or gout, and should be avoided in either case.
And it’s cheap!
So if you’re still interested, here’s how I cook it.
First chop up an onion (or two if you like a lot) into rings.
Then take the liver and slice it into pieces about 10-15mm thick (but make sure they’re all more or less the same thickness for even cooking) and about 15cm long (not too long or they’re difficult to cook) across the breadth of the liver.
Cut the bacon into pieces about 10-12cm long.
Now put a fairly deep frying pan onto the stove, on a medium heat, and pop in a thin covering of oil. I prefer rice bran oil since it has been proven to lower cholesterol, so negates some of the effects of the liver in this regard.
Once the oil is hot put in the onions and fry them until lightly caramelised. Take them out and put them on a plate, turn down the heat for a couple of minutes, then pop the bacon into the pan and cook it until it’s started to shrivel up, but not yet done to your liking.
Finally pop in the liver, watching out that there’s no splash from the oil in the pan (by now a mixture of rice bran oil and bacon fat) and cook the liver for a few minutes on each side. You need to only cook it so no juices are coming out, not for too long or it gets tough (which is why so many people don’t like it). It should be lightly bronzed.

By now the bacon will also have been cooked, so cut up the liver into cubes, mix it all up in the pan and serve it with the onion rings.
If you need some carbohydrate to go with it you can eat it with bread and butter, or if you’re really not worried about your waistline, pop a slice of bread or two into the sizzling pan and cook them each side until light brown.
Mine is a two-ring stove so I also like to warm up baked beans as a nice easy-to-cook complement to this meal.
However, if you don’t like my recipes, there are a couple of excellent books on the market which will help you find something you DO like. Two we refer to quite a lot are a companion pair from Australians Viv and Ron Moon: Viv Moon’s Travellers’ Cookbook and Viv Moon’s Outdoor Cooking. We reviewed them in our December 2008 issue; if you’re interested you can get more information at 222.guidebooks.com.au