How do YOU cook on the trail?
There's no right way, but what is your strategy when it's dinner time? Everyone has their own method with its quirks. Cook it right in the pot? Ziplock it? Sit on it until it's warm?
pocket rocket stove. 1 pot for most meals. fry pan for bacon, eggs, stir fry, etc.
Good place to start & figure out what will work for you. http://www.trailcooking.com/trail-cooking-101 .
For my typical short trips (3-5 nights), I "Ziploc it" for breakfast and supper-- assuming you mean boil water in a pot, pour it into dehydrated food in a freezer bag, then let it steep while it rests in a thermal cozy. Lunch usually doesn't involve cooking, unless I'm in the mood for tea.
When I put in a solid 3 weeks on the North Country Trail, I fried a lot of fish in a small, nonstick skillet; it was supper 75% of the time, I'd say. That let me eat whatever I could find in town for breakfast and lunch, and I cooked it up in a 900 mL soup pot (whatever it was).
"We can no longer live as rats. We know too much." -- Nicodemus
pocket rocket, mostly freezer bag meals, knorrs sides,mac and cheese, spam,and ive recently discovered microwave bacon will keep for a week. better than bacon jerky.
ive almost mastered the art of boiling water. i keep it simple.
Car air freshener tin/with carbon fiber wick. Knor sides with salmon,pesto with noodles.
Cat can alcohol stove, Snow-Peak titanium cup (holds 21 ounces of water), zip-lock freezer bags for: instant mashed potato's, rice, stove-top stuffing, etc.
Cook dinner in the pot, bake dessert right in the 2nd pot. Yeah, that's right, I carry 2 pots. I am not one of the gram weenies that worries about how much every little thing weighs.
And i use an MSR stove with flame control for the baking, plus car a Bakepacker Oven. Oh, the extra weight, the HORROR!!Originally Posted by Different Socks
My homemade alcohol stove is made from an Altoids (breath mints) "Minis" container. I carry one pot--with a lid that can double as a small cup or second very small pot.
When possible, I tend to cook dehydrated food of some kind--ziplock bag cooking or manufactured dehydrated meals--like Mountain House. I also go with no-cook meals. Most of the time--I try to not do much more than boil water in my pot.
I will sometimes cook other kinds of foods in my pot--but I REALLY hate doing dishes. So, I avoid real cooking in my pot when can.
Especially on loner trips with resupply possibilities---I am also pretty good at cooking over (or in) a campfire. Give me some aluminum foil and/or some sticks to serve as a spit or tripod--and I will cook many things---normally using fresh food on my first big meal after a resupply. (My favorite: Put some hamburger on a sheet of aluminum foil. Add some sliced carrots, potato--maybe sliced onion. Wrap up the foil. Set in the coals for 45-60 minutes--similar to having pot roast. I have also been known to substitute chicken breast, beef steak, stew meat, or pork chop for the hamburger).
I have bought canned goods at a resupply point--and cooked the food right in the can and eaten out of the can. (Either in a campfire or over my stove). I just crushed the can--and packed it out. I once cooked a whole canned ham for a group of us--right in the can! Plus baked potatoes wrapped in foil and a couple cans of vegetables heated right in the fire. People though that I was nuts--but they didn't seem to mind eating lots of ham, baked potatoes, and green beans out in the woods.
Are these fresh and canned foods heavy? Of course--but they can add variety on a long hike.
"A vigorous five-mile walk will do more good for an unhappy but otherwise healthy adult than all the medicine and psychology in the world." - Paul Dudley White
Here are some campfire and/or aluminum foil cooking ideas. Good for variety--when you don't mind a little extra weight in your pack.
http://www.cooks.com/rec/search/0,1-...n_foil,FF.html
http://eartheasy.com/play_campfire_cooking.htm (Recipes are at bottom of page)
"A vigorous five-mile walk will do more good for an unhappy but otherwise healthy adult than all the medicine and psychology in the world." - Paul Dudley White
heat water with alcohol stove.
soak rice/pasta food 10 min in freezer bag.
add tuna, chicken,salmon, beef jerky
Not gourmet, just basic eating.
Caldera Cone for freezer bag meals & coffee/hot chocolate. Use pot only to boil water.
Alcohol stove, single pot.
Usually bring to boil, stir a bit then remove from flame and place in homemade pot cozy to "simmer". Usually make a hot drink in single wall mug while meal simmering.
Cozy also makes it easy to hold and eat out of. Have one for mug as well - can use mug only to make soup.
Pretty well all my hot meals are dehydrated - add boiling water. Close to my cooking talent limits to do that.
Where a fire etc possible, may have sausages (and some aluminium foil to cook them on) first night out of resupply.
All of my trail cooking is done for 2-3people – I never hike solo. We are slowly sectioning the AT 3-4 days at atime, so resupply is not a factor. In additionto the pot that came with our stove, I usually bring a small frying pan. I’ve never liked the backpacking frying pansI’ve tried, so we took the handle off of an ordinary pan. It’s heavy, but I carry it anyway.
Food that I have cooked on the trail in the frying pan that Icannot cook in the pot – because it’s too deep, or because it can’t withstandthe higher temperatures of frying – include: pancakes, quesadillas, hashbrowns, fried cornbread (cornbread mix, add water, forget about the egg, frylike pancakes), and fried meat substitutes (we’re vegetarian).
I try to plan variety into our meals. I will often heat a starchy food in the pot (pasta,rice, potatoes), set it aside to hydrate/simmer while I fry something else. Then I put the pot back on to finish up,reheat the fried food for a minute, and serve.
Foods that are heavy or require specialhandling (delicate/frozen/perishable) are included in the first day or two of atrip. For our next section in mid-March,I may bring a small container of frozen strawberries, a real fresh apple, asmall container of chili, a packet of shredded cheese, a couple of fake hotdogs and/or some fake bacon, a half dozen frozen sweet potato fries, and maybea half pound of frozen peas or corn. Throw in some noodles, mashed potatoes, and rice, and we’ll feast!
SP Giga canister stove or Esbit, depending on time of year, duration of hike, etc. All my "cooking" is just boiling water.
My one indulgence is a one gallon Aluminum pot, so whatever I have to throw in it, and others have to throw in it we will eat.
03/07/13 - 10/07/13 Flip flop AT thru hike "It is well with my soul"
I use a jet boil combined dried meals sometimes prepared at home in freezer ziplocks & sometimes store bought. Its been on my mind to make a stove out of an aluminum beer bottle/can & try that as well as to just carry a cook pot & use that over an open fire.
Take Time to Watch the Trees Dance with The Wind........Then Join In........
Pocket rocket , freezer bag cooking. I cook mostly knorr sides and Lipton sides with packets of tuna or chicken added. I try to keep it simple. It's hard to mess up boiling water. I typically only boil water for morning coffee and again for dinner.
All I ever use is a white gas stove and my current fave is the MSR Simmerlite with between 32 to 44 ozs of fuel for a standard 2 to 3 week trip. On my last 18 day winter trip I used around 25 ozs of fuel out of 38 ozs, mainly because it wasn't frigid cold. A standard 22 oz fuel bottle will most of the time last 17 days. In deep cold like 10F or below it would last around 9 days---big difference.
I try to keep my cooking implements very simple since washing stuff clean sucks especially in the winter, so I go with one titanium MSR .85 liter pot and two spoons. Gotta always have 2 spoons since one WILL BREAK eventually, even the long handled Sea to Summit alum or titanium things. Broke one once using it to cut hard frozen cheese. Oops.
All my cooked meals are dehydrated-at-home stuff like spaghetti or mac and cheese or tomato soup or butternut squash soup, etc. So, I boil up a portion in my pot, turn off the fuel and wrap the pot in my old Ridgerest pot cozy for 30 minutes as it "cooks". This system works well and uses minimum fuel. Often I cook oatmeal.
I have two main foodbags---a Cookables and a Snackables. Ray Jardine says backpackers should carry 2.5 lbs of food a day and this is true for me. Another avid backpacker, LAWTON "DISCO" GRINTER, says---
"It took me the bulk of 10,000 miles of long-distance hiking to really grasp the concept that junk food and carrying less food to save overall pack weight works against you both in the short-term and the long run." From SectionHiker.com.
In other words, don't listen to the guys who say they get by on 1.25 lbs or 1.5 lbs of food per day.
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