Here are a few basic meal ideas:

• Breakfasts - bagels or English muffins with peanut butter and jam, instant oatmeal, cream of wheat or rice, cheese quesadillas, cereal or granola with milk, fruit leathers, scrambled eggs, couscous or rice cakes.

• Lunches - stopping for lunch is not always feasible or opening the hatches and digging out stoves and pots takes too much time, so most folks rarely cook lunch. Rely on bagels, trail mix, apples and oranges, pita bread, cheese, GORP, dried fruit, nuts, beef jerky, canned oysters, clams, sardines or tuna salad on crackers, beef stick (summer sausage/dry salami),granola bars and hard candies. If you want to take a break, especially on a cold day, get out your gear and put on a pot of soup to warm you up.

• Suppers - here's where you can be a minimalist and open a can of soup or show your friends your gourmet talents. If you lack ambition or it's cold/rainy/buggy/etc., bring ready to eat one-pot meals like beef stew, soup or chili in a can. Also, packaged rice or noodle dishes such as red beans are handy and usually good tasting. If space and time are limited, use the freeze dried meals that you just add water to. On the gourmet side, the possibilities are endless - bring a frozen, one pot meal for the first night, use fresh vegetables during the first week, dehydrate entire one-pot dishes at home or dehydrate parts of the meal and assemble dinner at camp.

 

Tips and Recipes

General Tips:

• The rule of thumb for cooking with salt water is a 50/50 mixture. Use this for cooking spaghetti or noodle dishes. For rice or foods that will absorb the water, use 1:2 ratio.

• Avoid bringing too many canned foods as it creates a lot of trash.

• Repackage foods that come in bulky packages. Write the directions on the baggie. Squeeze excess air out of the baggie when packing. Double bag if necessary.

• Try all prepackaged foods at home first. If you like it at home, you'll like it on the trail.

• Add dehydrated hamburger, turkey burger, lamb burger or chicken burger to packaged noodle and rice dishes.

• Use zip-lock bags for mixing ingredients.

• Use sufficient water to boil pasta/noodles. Add salt first - oil is not needed, just sufficient water to boil. Pasta will continue cooking, so take it off the heat when it is al dente.

• Bring several spices or spice mixes.

• Watch out for MSG in packaged mixes. Also, the sodium content can be quite high, so don't add extra salt - taste before adding any salt.

• Always test your meals at home! And, remember to pack out what you bring in.

More Cooking Information