backpacking food

[hacimsaalk12 10]

does anyone have any ideas for lightweight hiking food. right now, we eat mtn house meals for supper, we are looking for an improvement. anyone have any ideas?

[DugNevius 10]

As i said in MeritBadge.com

 

Lipton makes "side dishes" that you can find in any major food store. Stuff like Spanish rice, taco rice, beef teryaki, pastas like creamy garlic shells or broccoli and cheddar pastsa... Its very light weight. Add a package of tuna or chicken (instead of cans it now comes in packages) to the pot and you have a filling, and light weight! one pot meal.

 

i just added a quick list of backpacking food ideas to our troop website. http://www.troop21maplewood.org/37%20One%20Pot%20Backpacking%20Dinners.txt

[Greeneagle5 10]

Try this site for some good choices in low-cost, high energy backpacking meals (they're good tasting and easy , also) . This "not for profit" company is operated by a Venture Crew using the net procedes for High Adventure Trips.

 

www.wildernesschef.com/

 

G5

 

[FScouter 24]

I've eaten some of those Lipton things and they're not bad. Check the cooking times. "Boil 9 minutes" weighs more than "boil 3 minutes" when you consider the extra fuel you need to carry. Freeze-dried things are fuel efficient; they say "add boiling" water, but they cost 5 times as much.

[orennoah 11]

I advocate using a home dehydrator as much as possible. A cheapie from your local Target will work just fine.

 

Some applications:

 

Brown 5 lbs of ground beef until no pink is left. Put into a large mesh strainer and run plenty of hot water through it. Place in roughly equal amounts on 5 dryer screens. (If your holes are too large, make finer screens out of fiberglass window screen material.) Dry.

 

You'll end up with nasty looking dried bits, looking a lot like old coffee grounds. Place the contents of each screen into a resealable baggie and mark as "1 lb. ground beef." Keep in the freezer darned near forever and will keep at room temp for months.

 

To use, simply add to warm water and wait. For more flavor, add the dried sauce mix to the water at the same time. (Dried mushrooms work well at this stage, too.)

 

You'll be very surprised at the moist, rich tasting results.

 

This way, you can convert Hamburger Helper into backpacking food.

 

Another idea:

 

Dry spinach, bell pepper slices etc. Along with store-bought dried mushrooms, onions and tomatoes, as well as a cheese stick or two, you have the ingredients for awesome omelettes.

 

Simply bring some water to a boil. Put a bit of each of the "fixings" that you like into a freezer quality baggie. Add a couple of spoons of hot water and wait ten minutes or so. Add a couple of eggs (or egg powder and hot water). Mix and place the whole baggie in the boiling water. When the eggs are almost done, add the string cheese and return to the water.

 

Viola. Gourmet omelette in a bag and, best of all, very little KP.

 

- Oren

[Its Me 10]

Tuna fish in the foil complete with crackers and mayonnaise has worked for us. Cheap Manchurian noodle soup. Easy Mac-n-Cheese is another good economical choice. For back packing a stove, a spork and a SS Cup is pretty much your entire kitchen. I like those cheap Wal-mart SS cups over any I have seen at REI and the likes.

 

Back packing food is pretty much just heat water and rehydrate. No cans or even those microwave ready made meal as they add too much weight, but I bet you knew that.

 

I like to add dehydrated S-hitake mushrooms to the Lipton ready-mades and other meals. It just adds some character to the meals. The Mountain House meals are very tasty but a tad on the expensive side for youths. Grits for the southerners and oatmeal for the northerners make for a good breakfast. And of course Folgers pouch coffee packets for the adults.

 

For me the staple in-between meal snacks during hiking are beef jerky and snicker bars. Yummy!

 

REI and Campmor both have huge selections of back packing food. Even dehydrated ice-cream sandwiches.

 

Can I come?

 

 

 

 

 

(This message has been edited by Its Me)

[CA_Scouter 11]

I gave up on freeze dried food years ago. There are many choices available in your supermarket, you just have to take the time to look. Any of those Lipton items previously mentioned are great and easy to fix, and can easily be enhanced with these new foil pouch chicken/ham/tuna items. I usually bring along some garlic, shallots ( as opposed to a large heavy onion ), and plenty of fresh herbs from my garden... even managed to keep a yellow bell pepper edible after 3 days on the trail.

 

Some of these 'instant' packages say to add a cup of milk, but on the trail, it really doesn't matter, you're so darn hungry anyway, you won't notice any taste difference. :-)

 

I hit up the deli down the street for a handful of those little packages of mayo and mustard, and they even have hot sauce too... nice and light, and these things have a longer half-life than uranium.

 

However, I draw the line at coffee. I pack in the grounds, and pack 'em back out. There is nothing like waking to the sun peeking over the mountain, the mist over the lake, a little chill in the air, and a hot cup of really good java in your hand.

 

ahhh... I wanna go!!!!

 

:-)

 

[OldGreyEagle 5]

I like using a mixture of couscous and foil packed protein. Couscous are great, you boil water, put the couscous in, add the flavor pack and its ready. The grain is so small, it cooks virtually instantly and a variety of flavors, such as pine nut, herb chicken, basil, are available. The I add a 4 oz pack of tuna, shrimp, crab, spam, etc and voila, a great tasty trail meal, in the same pot as you boiled the water. Now, to be sure, you take the couscous out of the box and put it in a ziploc bag which becomes the garbage bag to pack out the foil container. The couscous provide a warm meal packed with carbos and protein, as they used to say, try it, you'll like it

[TheCheat 10]

http://www.freewebs.com/freezerbagcooking/index.htm