View Full Version : Most Elaborate Meal on the Trail
Has anyone made a really good/extravagent meal on the trail? I'm planning on Chicken Alfredo about every 3 weeks, and a Roasted Apple with Caramel Sauce. I've got a few other ideas. I just know I'm going to get real sick of rice, noodles, and pasta, and I could make these meals for the same price of going out to a restaurant, and I could eat all I wanted. I'm just curious if anyone has tried a special meal before in the woods.
Wine marinated steak tips is as fancy as I get. Plastic bagged, I like to bring them to share with other hikers on winter hikes.
A few skewers and we're good to go!
when i use to hike all the time i enjoyed buying a t-bone, an onion, garlic, a big baking tater, and corn on the cob if i could get it, along with an avacodo or a tomatoe. I always carried foil with me and the first night back on the trail i would wrap the garlic, onion, and steak in foil and then the corn and tater in foil and bake these next to the fire. my drink would be a good cup of coffee usually. the avacodo was for desert dashed with a little lemon pepper salt.
when i use to hike all the time i enjoyed buying a t-bone, an onion, garlic, a big baking tater, and corn on the cob if i could get it, along with an avacodo or a tomatoe. I always carried foil with me and the first night back on the trail i would wrap the garlic, onion, and steak in foil and then the corn and tater in foil and bake these next to the fire. my drink would be a good cup of coffee usually. the avacodo was for desert dashed with a little lemon pepper salt.
I forgot about the 'taters. I used to use them in the White Mountains while snowshoeing - (I remember) looking down at fire in three foot+ deep pit in snow, rolling in a couple of foil wrapped pre-buttered 'taters, cooking up that beef, life was never better.;)
Nicksaari
02-12-2009, 23:39
frozen spicy italian sausage, green pepper, onion & garlic, frozen prefab homemade tomato basil sauce over bowtie pasta. add any libation for deglaze and sweetness. not too heavy and oh so goodness. enough to share. sit back and listen to everyone fart.
Nicksaari
02-12-2009, 23:42
yeah and i second the avocado. THE BEST trail dessert. its a blank canvas, you can manipulate with any seasoning: texas pete, S+P, cinnamon sugar, with crackers and cheese, with beer.
SunnyWalker
02-13-2009, 00:23
The best meal I ever had camping was stew, simmered over fire for hours. Hiking, can't do that of course. Hiking I think the best was same as Wanderer: foil, meat, etc.
Boiled dinner - cabbage, ham, potatoes, carrots. Takes a long time to cook, so best for a low-mileage day.
Ham Steak, mashed potatoes, red-eye gravy, green beans. Quick, easy meal actually.
Ox97GaMe
02-13-2009, 00:57
I have sometimes carried the 'bakepacker' attachment that goes with my cook ware. Take along your favorite muffin mix and bake up a tasty bread or cake as part of your dinner. Tasty. And the leftovers make a great breakfast treat as well. :)
Feral Bill
02-13-2009, 01:26
I have sometimes carried the 'bakepacker' attachment that goes with my cook ware. Take along your favorite muffin mix and bake up a tasty bread or cake as part of your dinner. Tasty. And the leftovers make a great breakfast treat as well. :)
I've used the bakepacker to cook small fresh trout in Idaho. Delicious.
Farr Away
02-13-2009, 09:49
Our most elaborate meal involved marinated steaks, portabella mushrooms, summer squash, baked potatoes, corn on the cob, and dinner rolls. That was obviously on an overnighter.
There was the time that we added lobster tails to that menu, but that was on a canoe camping trip with a cooler.
most elaborate was an avacado, roasted red pepper and flax seed 'salad', which accompanied the main course of smoked Trout (from Cloud 9) on top of sauteed onions over pasta and shaved Parmigiano Reggiano. It was wonderful! And I shared the rest of the smoked trout with a few others at the Muscrat Creek Shelter since I figured it would not last long in my pack! :)
shelterbuilder
02-13-2009, 10:04
First night out: steak, mashed potatoes, peas, and a fresh-baked "quick-bread"-type desert. If it was the first night out from home, I'd freeze the steak (for summertime), wrap it in newspaper and a zip-loc, and bury it in the middle of my pack. By evening, it would just about be thawed out.
I've also done wok cooking and some of those meals were great, but it's been years since I did any of that. (I had a little mini-wok that worked well outdoors on my Svea stove.)
First night out:
Shish kebabs (sp?). Nice beef hunks, green peppers, onion, tomatos, garlic and pineapple skewered on bamboo and marinated in Terriyaki. Placed in plastic bags & frozen, wrapped in newspaper for insulation and transport. Thaws out by dinner time in summer. Roast over coals from campfire with greenstick bread. Apples and cheese as dessert.
Dangit, now I'm hungry!
Nearly Normal
02-13-2009, 10:59
Grits and shrimp gravy.
Pasta and smoked sweet Italian venison sausage.
Collard greens and a cake of corn bread.
Well seasoned white beans with bulk hot country venison sausage.
In cold weather, lots of stuff keeps.... a while.
Eat and drink well.
Not really elaborate but was given 2 marinated steaks at Thousand Island Lake on the JMT by 2 guys camped near me and Doodah Man.
Chocolate layer cake with blueberries. Boxed cake mix (triple fugle) with ready made frosting. You'll need two eggs. Make the cake layers like you would a pancake. Put the blue berries inbetween the layers along with the frosting. Cover the whole thing with the rest of the frosting and sprinkle on more blueberries. You can delete the eggs, but it may fall apart and not look as pretty.
puddingboy
02-13-2009, 20:53
In oregon my uncle got a small styrafoam box and put a steak in it along with snow. On the second night of our adventure we made a campfire and balanced a flat rock on top of it. We cooked the steak on it and it was the most delicious steak I have ever had. They say everything tastes better in the woods.
boarstone
02-13-2009, 20:56
Has anyone made a really good/extravagent meal on the trail? I'm planning on Chicken Alfredo about every 3 weeks, and a Roasted Apple with Caramel Sauce. I've got a few other ideas. I just know I'm going to get real sick of rice, noodles, and pasta, and I could make these meals for the same price of going out to a restaurant, and I could eat all I wanted. I'm just curious if anyone has tried a special meal before in the woods.
Hey! I wanna' hike w/you, ........any meal as long as I"M not cooking it!:D
Cornish Hen. They come frozen and they are small. Weather temp will determine how long you can carry it, but even in the summer you can get 6 or 8 hours before you need to prepare it. You will need a medium sized pot to cook it this way. The hen has to fit into the pot with room to spare. After you have pulled out the little bag of inards and spiced it up or marinated it the way you want, you ram a green stick up the opening and stand it up over a bed of hot coals. Get the picture? The hen looks like it is standing up in the middle of a bed of coals. Cover it up with your pot so the pot is sitting upside down with the top of the pot in contact with the hot coals.
Hey! I wanna' hike w/you, ........any meal as long as I"M not cooking it!:D
Your welcome to join me, I have a degree in culinary arts and plan on putting it to good use on the trail. I'm starting out in mid-March, meet me there
1st night - hot sausage, peppers, onions in pita, scotch
1st morning - pancakes, advil
2nd night - steaks slightly browned over a campfire, mashed taters, cabernet
2nd morning - omelets, canadian bacon, cheese on english muffins, advil
3rd night - chicken quesadillas, scotch
3rd morning - breakfast bars, advil
4th day - hit the roadside cache
4th night - lip spanking hot chili, scotch
4th morning - pancakes, advil
5th night - rice/soup/chicken special recipe dish, scotch
5th morning - breakfast bars, advil
6th night - pasta/special sauce/tuna dish, polish off scotch
6th morning - polish off advil
car - advil resupply
boarstone
02-14-2009, 07:57
...I wish I could join you, but my hike doesn't start until June 27, according to my plane ticket. I've only got until the 4th of July then I leave back out of Asheville NC for home, but I am going to maul around the Smokey's I think, meeting another WBer to walk the wilds of the woods with. Have a great hike and check in here every now and then to let the rest of us know how it's going. I've got some dehydrated squirrel:D I'm gonna' take and try, along w/the regular jerky...
Dicentra
02-14-2009, 16:03
Omelets with fresh eggs, tomatoes and green onion. Topped with Parmesan
Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Pancakes
Kendall Katwalk Chicken N Dumplings
Queets Valley Shephard's Pie (tofu, mushrooms and taters)
Dungeness Blue Gnocchi
Caramel Apple Cheesecake
Margarita Cheesecake
Butter Rum Cheesecake
Toolshed
02-14-2009, 17:16
Best Breakfast out on the trail - While Bacon & Eggs is usually pretty damn good. I had Cinnamon Raisin Oatmeal with a big scoop of Peanut butter in it and it was absolutely phenominal and is now a standard.
Best Dinner - Tri-Color Rotini, Black Olives, Red Peppers, Hot Italian Sasage, Green Peas, Olive Oil, Garlic, Capers, Basil, and Parmesan Yowie!!!!!!
Just hot dogs cooked over a small fire, fresh buns and tear open packets of ketchup. Good but also easy to prepare as long as you have a small campfire.
Panzer
Best Dinner - Tri-Color Rotini, Black Olives, Red Peppers, Hot Italian Sasage, Green Peas, Olive Oil, Garlic, Capers, Basil, and Parmesan Yowie!!!!!!
Yummy. This recipe is coming with me this year. Thanks FTS!
YoungMoose
02-14-2009, 20:53
a patato with a bunch of seasoning in it. Easy and simple but great
Your welcome to join me, I have a degree in culinary arts and plan on putting it to good use on the trail. I'm starting out in mid-March, meet me there
So what kind of kitchen will you bring with you? If you plan to get serious I would think that you would need some extra stuff like a small cutting board, grater and mixing bowl, maybe more than just one pot and one fry pan. Think you will be working with lots of vegtables and sauces.
You can do alot with AL foil!
So what kind of kitchen will you bring with you? If you plan to get serious I would think that you would need some extra stuff like a small cutting board, grater and mixing bowl, maybe more than just one pot and one fry pan. Think you will be working with lots of vegtables and sauces.
I'm not bringing my extra. I'll cut the apples in my hand, the chicken I'll try to buy precut, I'm going with 2 other guys, so for the alfredo, one guys makes the sauce, one guy cooks the chicken and the last guy noodles. In all 3 guys with 3 pots. Anything is possible with a little imagination.
When I taught with NOLS, we were known for heavy packs (partly because of elaborate kitchens) and shorter miles (6-8 mile days were about the max.) Because of this, cooking became a very important part of the curriculum.
My fanciest was a lasagne of sauce with bits of summer sausage, quick rise flour with bow-tie pasta, and heavy layers of cheese. In a 12-inch wide, 2-inch deep fry-bake, rotating it a quarter-turn every minute for 20 minutes, you'd get a lasagne good enough to make your tongue slap your brains out.
Other favorites included hash-brown fritters at breakfast time, shepherd's pie, cheese biscuits, and fresh fried trout.
On weekend trips, I still occasionally make such fancier meals, though with more mileage, my meals get simpler.
I'm not bringing my extra. I'll cut the apples in my hand, the chicken I'll try to buy precut, I'm going with 2 other guys, so for the alfredo, one guys makes the sauce, one guy cooks the chicken and the last guy noodles. In all 3 guys with 3 pots. Anything is possible with a little imagination.
Are you using dry alfredo mix? Or from scratch? If from a powder you can mix the powder in with the drained sauce and use one pot. Heck, you can cook the chicken first and stash it in an insulated mug for the 15 minutes it takes to cook your pasta....
As for cutting apples, etc....items like Orikaso or Fozzil dishes spread flat make great chopping boards and are a lot safer. Lets just say I have had two accidents while cutting in hand :eek: Both were very owwwwwwieeee!
Toolshed
02-15-2009, 19:48
Yummy. This recipe is coming with me this year. Thanks FTS!
Thanks for the note.
I now make this in large quanties for the parents at Cub Scout camp (sub in Sweeet Sausage), while the boys get spaghett and meatballs.
Because of this one dish, the parents think I am an extraordinary chef (Little do they know) :D
YoungMoose
02-15-2009, 19:50
Pasta in thai sauce as well as fresh ground beef burgers. amazing after a few days lol
wystiria
02-16-2009, 15:18
I am known for making elborate meals....its fun for me especially on shorter trips.
I have done everything from steaks and chicken dishes (think cold weather camping) to baked potatoes, carmel brownies, calzones (with the sauce inside)
I even once baked a cheese cake from scratch. you can search my posts for pictures of that. it was a winter trip obviously. and it used a lot of fuel but its do able
From Bearpaw:
"a lasagne good enough to make your tongue slap your brains out."
Best food description ever beating Bryson's description of a restaurant served lemon meringue pie with enough sugar to "make your eyes roll back in your head".
If you leave home with it frozen, any nice meat or fish with a little olive oil, seasoning and tin foil. Great over a fire. We call them "hobo packs" over here in the mid-west. We have done this also with hommade meat spaghetti, meat loaf, many combinations of beef, chicken, etc. Unless it is really hot, cooked frozen food keeps awhile. Cook it at home, freeze it, throw it in a cooler with ice, take it out at trail head and have a niiiice dinner that first night out with no effort.
For the stove or baggie cooker I recommend our best meal our our AT section:
Stove top stuffing packet cornbread flavor(ditch the box at home) and pouch of shredded chicken.We seasoned ours with butter buds, dried onions, (would be good with ramps) and freeze dried morel mushrooms picked from here. Yum. Maybe I remember this because it was our first day, nine miles for us newbies and we were hungry. Euphoric recall.
If you leave home with it frozen, any nice meat or fish with a little olive oil, seasoning and tin foil. Great over a fire. We call them "hobo packs" over here in the mid-west. We have done this also with hommade meat spaghetti, meat loaf, many combinations of beef, chicken, etc. Unless it is really hot, cooked frozen food keeps awhile.
Admittedly, left to my own devices I am a cold camper, but I do love “Hobo Cooking”. Wrap up a tasty meal in heavy foil and chill it before leaving, then toss it on the coals at dinner time - yummmy… But this is coming from a guy who has cooked pot roast on an exhaust manifold, so take it with a grain of salt – so to speak :)