Wild Camping, food?

liamo333

Hi all,

Goin off to the Comeraghs next weekend. Theres four of us in the group, we have 2 MSRs.

Could anyone recommend some high calorie, quick cook meals (not the ones in the bag, homemade). I'm thinking of some sort of pasta/chicken/beef concoction.

Don't really want to carry sauce, we will be walking for around 6-7 hours a day so weight is a big issue.

I'm thinking of cooking up a load of chicken or beef on the Friday so we only have to heat it up and cook the pasta. I'm worried about how long the meat will last, only gonna need dinner Saturday so it should be ok?

Has anyone got anyone got any reccomendations? Not really looking for flavour, just simple, easily cooked food with plenty of enegry. I'm pretty new to all this stuff.

Thanks!

irishlostboy

i would bring dry pasta, a bit of chorizo (chorizo is the best camp meat. lasts ages, and is full of fat) , a tomato, an onion, a pepper, a courgete, some mushrooms, and my own pinch pack of cooking herbs and spices, and some suger.
carmelize the onion. the cook the veg and chorizo in with it. cook the past. mix the lot together. of course i would only do this in summer when i have long evenings and am taking it easy. for winter i use various freeze dried, short cooking timed meals i find in the supermarket. erin golden veg rice meal is good. and you cannot go too wrong with koka noodles. in winter, at altitude, and after a day walking, you really do not care enough to faf around with a home cooked meal. you just want calories and carbs. quick. in fact, mostly i find when we get to camp we just all go to sleep till around 11-12, wake up briefly to cook as quick as we can, then sleep more. maybe thats just us being lazy and sleepy though. lol.

liamo333

irishlostboy wrote: »

i would bring dry pasta, a bit of chorizo (chorizo is the best camp meat. lasts ages, and is full of fat) , a tomato, an onion, a pepper, a courgete, some mushrooms, and my own pinch pack of cooking herbs and spices, and some suger.
carmelize the onion. the cook the veg and chorizo in with it. cook the past. mix the lot together. of course i would only do this in summer when i have long evenings and am taking it easy. for winter i use various freeze dried, short cooking timed meals i find in the supermarket. erin golden veg rice meal is good. and you cannot go too wrong with koka noodles. in winter, at altitude, and after a day walking, you really do not care enough to faf around with a home cooked meal. you just want calories and carbs. quick. in fact, mostly i find when we get to camp we just all go to sleep till around 11-12, wake up briefly to cook as quick as we can, then sleep more. maybe thats just us being lazy and sleepy though. lol.

Thanks for the advice!

I think I should have made myself a bit clearer, when I said home cooked meal I meant it literally, cook the meal at home and reheat it on your stove.

Evil Phil

Unless its really cold out or the food is really, really salty then bringing cooked meals might not be a good idea. Food poisoning out in the wilds would be god awful, just as bad as finding that your food has spoiled after a days walking.

If you want to make it really easy then bring some dried pasta and few of those dolmio stir-in pots, something tomatoe-ish as apposed to carbonara, plus chorizo as mentioned and maybe some other fatty salami type sausage. Chop up the sausage and add it to the cooked pasta with the stir-in sauce. Some dried chilli-flakes add a welcome bit of heat if you're not using choizo, or even if you are . Not exactly organic but for a couple of nights out it will be good.

You could also bring a small bottle of olive-oil with chili-flakes in it, adds heat to any meal.

For breakfast mix about 150g muesili, 75g chopped nuts, 2 tsp brown suger and a couple of tablespoons of milk-powder into a ziplock bag. In the morning you just have to add water and stir for a calorie packed breakfast.

And never underestimate the humble cheese & ham sandwich and a hot cup of tea for lunch.

If you do want to cook something before heading out I've heard that Claire Macleod's Gingerbread is a winner. Its what got her husband up Rhapsody apparently.

fergalr

Evil Phil wrote: »

For breakfast mix about 150g muesili, 75g chopped nuts, 2 tsp brown suger and a couple of tablespoons of milk-powder into a ziplock bag. In the morning you just have to add water and stir for a calorie packed breakfast.

I've eaten muesli a lot for breakfast camping, great stuff. Have made muesli with hot water a few times, gives a hot breakfast, but more varied and balanced than plain porridge. Camping near lug there over the summer (above fraughan rock glen) my brother and uncle gathered a load of bilberries (the aforementioned 'fraughans', as gaeilge), and they were delicious mixed with the hot muesli. Best camping breakfast I've had

irishlostboy

for breakfasts, i bring porrage. when i cook it i throw in a handfull of my trail mix. i make my own trail mix and include a lot of dried fruit. apricots, bannanna, coconuts, etc. then i make up some milk from dried milk in another pot, so when i mix them i get the cold milk/warm porrage combo i remember from being a kid. sprinkle with suger, and i am good.

the down side to cooking at home and carrying with you is like phil said, food poisoning, and also weight. to manage food poisoning you need to think about storage, and keeping a low temp for the food, so put the food as far away from your body in the pack. also, what ingredients you use will make big difference. thats why chorizo is my no.1 camp meat. but even vegetarian option can give you food poisoning if the food has been kept at too high/variable temp for too long. food poisoning while up a mountain sounds like a really really bad day out!! lol. still, it is good to see people thinking outside the box a bit for camp food. too often people think you have to buy the viciously expensive backpacker food from the outdoor supplies shop.for me, the most important foodish stuff is tea and chocolate.

liamo333

Thanks for the advice guys, have it all sorted out now. Got the chorizo, its vacumb packed, butcher said to boil it for a few mins just to heat it up . Thanks for all the advice!!

irishlostboy

with the chorizo. i buy a hoop of it in lidle. i just whap a section of it into a zip loc bag. i never heard of boiling it. interesting idea i suppose. seems like extra work and water wastage though. but try it out maybe and let us know how you get on.
bcuk has great section on food. worth exploring. its a good resource.
http://www.bushcraftuk.com/index.php/Forums.html

liamo333

Well I have around 600g's of chorizo, 1kg of pasta, 4 dolmis stir ins, I reckon that would do us for dinner:)

Evil Phil

Let us know how you get on.

Tells

liamo333 wrote: »

Well I have around 600g's of chorizo, 1kg of pasta, 4 dolmis stir ins, I reckon that would do us for dinner:)

Mmm.. Sounds nice..

Hot chocolate is another thing i'd never go to the hills without..

liamo333

Evil Phil wrote: »

Let us know how you get on.

Will do, thanks for all the advice lads!

robp

Jerky dried strips of beef make a real good high energy snack that keeps indefinatly. Its not very popular in Ireland strangly. Its so easy to prepare.

GG66

suggest chopping the chorizo into very small pieces and cooking it up. gets nice and cripsy before you add it to the pasta. you can cook pasta in the same pot afterwards

Overblood

Bring a few beef jerkys too!