Camping Food

[WoradongalMan]

yeah dehydrated meals for me, lick the spoon and the washing up is done, those breaky bars are good and a fruit and nut mix, bit of biltong or jerky, few packs of durrys and a port and rum mix

oh yeah and some coffee

[Miss Jane]

Originally Posted by klr_dude

What does everyone think about these new little protable camp stoves ?
my bro in law bought one, and it was pretty good, he used only 2 of the butane cans and which lasted for 3 days of cooking, incl. brekky, lunch and tea, and to boil the water for a fresh hot coffee in the mornings. Big W and Kmart sell them for around $17, and $6.50 for a 4 pk of butane cans. I have been tossing up weather to get on or not, as i am limited on space, not havin any panniers. .

Looks big and cumbersome.

I favor MSR, expensive but I had my Whisperlite International for 15 years and only sold it because I worked in an outdoor gear shop and up graded to the Simmerlite, which is an awsome little stove. By the way, the whisperlite International runs on shellite, colman fuel and at a push unleaded petrol. Using the latter it burns dirty and needs frequent cleaning.

IF YOU GUYS WANT TO KNOW ABOUT GEAR, GO TO REPUTABLE OUTDOOR GEAR SHOPS, EG. PADDY PALLINS, MOUNTAIN DESIGNS, BOGONG / THE WILDERNESS SHOP (THE LATER 2 ARE THE BEST ONES IF YOU ARE IN VICTORIA) AND FORGET THE REST. Make sure you get a staff member who knows their stuff, quiz them about what they do in the outdoors and if it's basket ball, talk to someone else. Not all the staff are great, but there will be one or two who have good advise.

LEAVE YOUR BLOODY CHAIRS BEHIND, the are bulky, and add weight. What are you, soft arses? Sit on your rolled up sleeping bag, clothes bag or something if you can't cope with the ground!!!

[Rosie!]

Clintnz and I spent about 4 weeks touring in Australia in March and April. We camped and prepared our own food most of the time. I'm a bit of a foodie, so tried to put some effort into coming up with interesting meals. I was impressed with the range of camping-friendly food available, even in really small towns.

The most useful kitchen items we took with us were: MSR dragonfly multi-fuel cooker, stovetop espresso maker, and some plastic screw top containers - for holding stuff like coffee grounds, and for making up milk. A container with graduations up the side is useful for measuring out water for dehydrated food.

Here are the sorts of things we ate:

Part One: Breakfast and Lunch.

We usually had muesli and powdered milk for breakfast. Powdered milk tastes best if you get the proportions right, and shake it. Porridge sachets were good in colder weather.
We'd often make up a bit more milk than we needed at breakfast, so we could brew up a coffee mid-morning, and not have to put dry powdered milk in it.
We took a stovetop espresso maker with us. If you like good coffee, and plan on being out in the wops for a while, it's a useful bit of kit.

Lunches were Lebanese bread wraps, or crackers (which were easier to find in the outback, and kept better). The wraps would usually have some combination of salami, cheese, mustard and sliced carrot in them. Carrots would keep ok for 4+ days in my panniers, and made a very nice addition to the wraps. We had peanut butter, salami, or kraft processed cheese and mustard with the crackers. The masterfoods squeezy bottles of mustard are very good. We carried normal tasty cheddar cheese in coastal/cooler areas, and switched to kraft cheese in the outback, where it was hotter. A small plastic chopping board made food prep on the side of the road much easier.

[Rosie!]

On the coast we'd usually only plan 1 or 2 meals ahead, so were buying food every couple of days. This meant that we could use fresher or bulkier ingredients than in outback areas, where we usually carried 3-4 days food. We tried to avoid foods that need a lot of extra water to cook, or were going to make cleaning up difficult. We carried one cooker, and two pots.
A lot of less-than-exciting camping food can be perked up with a bit of extra flavouring. Our staple flavourings were little plastic jars of McCormick garlic powder and chilli powder, and various 'Gourmet Garden' small fresh herb sachets (from the produce section of the supermarket). These kept well without refrigeration, and the packaging was suitably rugged.

Pasta and tomato is a good base meal. Tomato flavoured 'pasta and sauce' sachets can be livened up with a bit of tuna, or salami and some extra flavouring, and they don't take up a lot of space.
For a more gourmet pasta dish, you can cook up short pasta shapes, leave them in their water to keep warm, then make a sauce with flavoured tinned tomatoes and a few other tasty additions (small jar of olives, chunks of salami, tin of tuna, onion (fried in a little of the tuna oil), fresh herb sachets etc). Although we never ate it in Australia, freeze-dried mince is one of the few freeze dried products I would buy, and it would probably go well in a pasta sauce. If you are carrying all your water, serve all the pasta sauce first, then drain the pasta water into the sauce pot to clean it out.

Ready made pouches of dhal are very good. They just need to be heated, and served with rice or couscous. We cooked up some dried peas, and a packet of pea and ham soup with the couscous one night to stretch it out a bit. Being squishy, the packages look a bit dodgy and fragile, but we found them to be pretty rugged.

Couscous is a useful grain when you don't have a lot of water. Either serve it like rice, or add it to a watery mixture of cooked dried veggies, tinned chickpeas, fresh herb sachets (mint and parsley) and a soup mix (spring vegetable, from memory). Give it a quick boil, then take it off the heat and keep warm for 10 minutes or so.

We made a thoroughly excellent vege nasi goreng on the Barry Way: Boil up slower cooking veg (carrots, dried sliced mushrooms, dried peas etc) with two pouches of 'boil in the bag' rice. Fish the rice out when it's done, and drain the veggies. Take the rice out of the bags, and return to the pot, add quicker cooking veggies (sliced fresh mushrooms, spring onions, anything canned) and a sachet of nasi goreng seasoning (can't remember the brand, but the instructions were in Indonesian so it must have been authentic), and heat through, stirring continuously.

Jars/cans of curry sauce can be added to cooked veggies (boiled, or tinned), tinned legumes (we used lentils) etc and served with rice or couscous. You could use tinned stew, or tuna etc for a less leguminous option.

[theMISSIONARY]

Originally Posted by Miss Jane

Looks big and cumbersome.

I favor MSR, expensive but I had my Whisperlite International for 15 years and only sold it because I worked in an outdoor gear shop and up graded to the Simmerlite, which is an awsome little stove. By the way, the whisperlite International runs on shellite, colman fuel and at a push unleaded petrol. Using the latter it burns dirty and needs frequent cleaning.

IF YOU GUYS WANT TO KNOW ABOUT GEAR, GO TO REPUTABLE OUTDOOR GEAR SHOPS, EG. PADDY PALLINS, MOUNTAIN DESIGNS, BOGONG / THE WILDERNESS SHOP (THE LATER 2 ARE THE BEST ONES IF YOU ARE IN VICTORIA) AND FORGET THE REST. Make sure you get a staff member who knows their stuff, quiz them about what they do in the outdoors and if it's basket ball, talk to someone else. Not all the staff are great, but there will be one or two who have good advise.

LEAVE YOUR BLOODY CHAIRS BEHIND, the are bulky, and add weight. What are you, soft arses? Sit on your rolled up sleeping bag, clothes bag or something if you can't cope with the ground!!!

yay some who knows how to camp/bush walk......... only you forgot the best camp food 5min Noodles so easy to clean and you get a warm drink all in the one meal

I like Trangia's

[Wilmo]

Originally Posted by OldOzy

Please post video of cooking with petrol...

Actually works well, I used my MSR with Avgas out of the Cessna I flew up north in with my wife on our honeymoon. You aren't allowed to carry flammables in the cabin.....it did soot up though and you have to keep turning it up to maintain the flame height.

[Nick H.]

Bring on the freeze dried neopolitan icecream! ...or is it just me who thinks its the best desert known to man?

[dirtbikeslob]

Originally Posted by Rosie!

On the coast we'd usually only plan 1 or 2 meals ahead, so were buying food every couple of days. This meant that we could use fresher or bulkier ingredients than in outback areas, where we usually carried 3-4 days food. We tried to avoid foods that need a lot of extra water to cook, or were going to make cleaning up difficult. We carried one cooker, and two pots.
A lot of less-than-exciting camping food can be perked up with a bit of extra flavouring. Our staple flavourings were little plastic jars of McCormick garlic powder and chilli powder, and various 'Gourmet Garden' small fresh herb sachets (from the produce section of the supermarket). These kept well without refrigeration, and the packaging was suitably rugged.

Pasta and tomato is a good base meal. Tomato flavoured 'pasta and sauce' sachets can be livened up with a bit of tuna, or salami and some extra flavouring, and they don't take up a lot of space



For a more gourmet pasta dish, you can cook up short pasta shapes, leave them in their water to keep warm, then make a sauce with flavoured tinned tomatoes and a few other tasty additions (small jar of olives, chunks of salami, tin of tuna, onion (fried in a little of the tuna oil), fresh herb sachets etc). Although we never ate it in Australia, freeze-dried mince is one of the few freeze dried products I would buy, and it would probably go well in a pasta sauce. If you are carrying all your water, serve all the pasta sauce first, then drain the pasta water into the sauce pot to clean it out.

Ready made pouches of dhal are very good. They just need to be heated, and served with rice or couscous. We cooked up some dried peas, and a packet of pea and ham soup with the couscous one night to stretch it out a bit. Being squishy, the packages look a bit dodgy and fragile, but we found them to be pretty rugged.

Couscous is a useful grain when you don't have a lot of water. Either serve it like rice, or add it to a watery mixture of cooked dried veggies, tinned chickpeas, fresh herb sachets (mint and parsley) and a soup mix (spring vegetable, from memory). Give it a quick boil, then take it off the heat and keep warm for 10 minutes or so.

We made a thoroughly excellent vege nasi goreng on the Barry Way: Boil up slower cooking veg (carrots, dried sliced mushrooms, dried peas etc) with two pouches of 'boil in the bag' rice. Fish the rice out when it's done, and drain the veggies. Take the rice out of the bags, and return to the pot, add quicker cooking veggies (sliced fresh mushrooms, spring onions, anything canned) and a sachet of nasi goreng seasoning (can't remember the brand, but the instructions were in Indonesian so it must have been authentic), and heat through, stirring continuously.

Jars/cans of curry sauce can be added to cooked veggies (boiled, or tinned), tinned legumes (we used lentils) etc and served with rice or couscous. You could use tinned stew, or tuna etc for a less leguminous option.

bloody hell,i'm coming adv'ing with you 2,that food sounds better'n i
get at home.
you had better give us a demo at the next adv gathering at toddys

[Doctor]

If you need a stove to cook in any climate or wind try these

Colman Max




Max's brother






Or this one in high wind ! look mum no flame !

[digga1111]

show us how and what you do to feed yourself on the road. How do you keep it (if its fresh) how long can you keep it (mmm chicken). video is good.

[sidetrack one]

[davorallyfan]

[Sean-0]

hows about a jerky vid mate ...show us ya secret's

[digga1111]

Originally Posted by Sean-0

hows about a jerky vid mate ...show us ya secret's

now thats what iam talking about jerky vid on the way
was kinda hoping some one was going to do a rabbit or some thing bear grylis style, you know, learn us some stuff. but alas back to the tin o beans

[digga1111]

grill off the side of the exhaust, T bone in a bag

maybe criovac it, get a couple of days in winter