Category: Rural Touring Recipes

Rural Touring Recipes: Spice Lentil Soup

Friday, March 1, 2019

“A good stand by for promoters, especially when faced with a  range of dietary requirements and limited time to eat before a performance …”

Here it is! The first of our Rural Touring Recipes. This hearty recipe for Spiced Lentil soup comes from Highlights Promoter Sally Seed.

Sally Seed has been a Highlights Rural Touring Scheme volunteer promoter for Orton Market Hall in Cumbria for about 12 years. She’s hosted lots of one-man and one-woman shows as well as children’s theatre groups and larger bands – sometimes as many as 8 or more. Lasagne and spicy sausage casserole have been favourites for an early evening meal in the past and vegetarian versions are possible of both but, if it’s getting complicated and needs to be kept simple, she’s found that a soup recipe from her son’s cookery lessons at school is a great stand-by.

Spiced Lentil Soup – serves 6-8

  • 30ml vegetable oil
  • 2 onions – chopped
  • 2 carrots – diced
  • 4 celery sticks – chopped
  • 2 garlic cloves – crushed
  • 15ml curry powder
  • 5ml ground coriander
  • 100g red lentils
  • 1 tin of chopped tomatoes
  • 750 ml vegetable stock
  • Seasoning salt and pepper
  • 25g creamed coconut

1. Heat oil in a large pan and cook the onions, carrots and celery over a low heat for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.

2. Stir in the garlic and spices and cook for another minute or two.

3. Add the lentils, tomatoes and stock, cover the pan and simmer for about 20 minutes until the vegetables are tender.

4. Remove from the heat, stir in the coconut until it melts and adjust the seasoning to taste.

5. Liquidise or blend until smooth. This recipe also freezes well if you need to make it in advance. I’ve served this with local fresh bread (even a gluten-free bread on a couple of occasions) and cheese (vegan or otherwise) and it always seems to be appreciated with requests for seconds.

We’re looking for more Rural Touring recipes to help promoters feed casts and themselves before the show! Especially things that can be prepared in advance and cater for special dietary requirements!

Do you have a recipe for the perfect pie or hearty hot pot? We want to hear from you: admin@nrtf.org.uk

Rural Touring Recipes

Tuesday, February 5, 2019

We’ve been thinking of practical ways we can help promoters – with every aspect of hosting a rural touring event. One thing that comes up a lot when we talk about rural touring is hospitality.

Lots of Rural Touring promoters feed artists with a homemade meal before their show!
Sounds like a lovely, simple thing, right? But when you consider the logistics of this it can be quite the task…

Whatever you make has to:

  • Often feed a fairly large number of people – the artists, stage manager, the promoter, any other volunteers that have come along to help. 
  • Has to meet any dietary requirements people have – vegan, vegetarian, gluten-free, allergies 
  • Usually has to be made in advance – and easy to heat up, kitchens in rural touring venues come in all shapes and sizes! 
  • Be fuss-free – so that the promoter and the artists can eat without it getting in the way of making sure the show the show goes up on time! 

We thought it might be good to collect some easy. batch cook recipes that promoters are using all in one place… and it doesn’t have to be just promoters that send us ideas – artists what do you want to eat when you’re on tour? If you have a dietary requirement what’s an easy thing people can whip up for you that they might not have realised is suitable?

If you have any recipes or tips you’d like to share with us, please comment below. They could be links to other recipe sites, advice, or just preferences on biscuits!

Or email us admin@nrtf.org.uk – who knows maybe one day we could publish a Rural Touring Recipe Book!

Ps. obviously it wouldn’t be a blog post about rural touring and food if we didn’t mention cake, we’d also love to hear your sweet recipes!