How do you cook in camp?

[Connie]

I think food is all about context. If you're cold, hungry, and tired enough Ramen and scrambled eggs can be to die for. On the whole though, an excellent view should be accompanied by an excellent meal. This doesn't necessarily mean heavy prep and clean up. A lovely brie or pate with a nice wine for example. I love to buy those little decadent extras we don't normally go for at home.

As for the clean up my favorite cleaning tool is a little nylon wedge scraper thingie that I got from Pampered Chef. I use it if the food is stuck to the pan or there is a lot of sauce. Then I take a paper towel to wipe off all of the dishes before putting them in the washing water (thus needing less water and soap). Then wash the least grubby stuff first. If there are a ton of dishes I like to do a prewash with maybe a cup of water to get most of the gunk out.

If you have a fridge and a stove anything is possible.

 

[Tomas Tierra]

Hey Tomas! Welcome to ExPo! :beer:

I hope I sent you a link to this site awhile ago. If I didn't, forgive me. I can almost guarantee you'll like what you find here.

I hope you'll share some of your great photos and impressions from your trips south of the border. Good to see ya!

Short hijack...
Thanks for the welcome KC...Haven't had to much time to look around here yet. Looking forward to :088:ing my way through the site in the near future..

TT

 

[OS-Aussie]

"Did the primary buffer panel just fall off of my Goram ship?"

Only if you have a Firefly Captain tight pants.

 

[Connie]

Originally Posted by OS-Aussie
Only if you have a Firefly Captain tight pants.

Shiney!

 

[calamaridog]

We use heavy duty paper plates and bowls and the reuseable lexan utensils.

Last couple trips I have cooked in the pressure cooker. Amazing stew or soup in like 30-40 minutes.

I love to eat well, so my vote is spend a little more time and effort on the food. A good meal boosts morale big time.

I do preparation ahead of time. If I know I'm using onions for a couple meals, I have them chopped up and zip locked in the cooler. Same with all the other stuff that won't get ruined right after you cut it up.

I can pull all the raw ingredients for beef stew out of the cooler and toss it in the pressure cooker, no fuss at all. How simple is that?

 

[rusty_tlc]

I love good food, good drink, and good company. There are few things that compare to sharing good food and drink with friends in camp.

Just wanted to get that out of the way.

There is also a lot to be said for simplicity. <Insert Walden speech>

Some times I like to enjoy the wilderness without distraction. Simple food with little or no fuss, lots of solitude and time to contemplate. When it's just the two of us we eat very simple meals, grilled meat, salad, corn or taters for dinner. Cold cereal for breakfast. Cheese and crackers for lunch.

Eating salami, cheese and crackers for lunch in Joshua Forest outside Saline Valley this November was a feast.

They say you eat first with your eyes.

 

[big sky trapper]

If its just me and the Blue Pig, then things get pretty simple, Find a stick, find some mystery meat and put on stick, put in fire till done. eat from stick throw stick in fire when done

Anything that needs boiled goes in the HBC trade kettle

Now if everyone is there then all the goodies come out....

 

[alvarorb]

If they're clean/indiginous, and not full of beer bottles & burned plastic utensils... what's the harm in burying them? (genuine question)

In some ecosystems, buying may work. But here in the western US, were humidity is very low, if you bury something today it will stay there for a long time. The best approach is to pack it in/ pack it out.

Regards

Alvaro

 

[akphotobob]

One thing that makes clean up easier is a pump-up garden sprayer. You can buy these at Walmart and you pump them up to gain pressure and they have a hose with a sprayer on the end. Buy a new one so there is no possibility of their ever having been chemicals in it. Spray paint it black and mount it on the roof rack. By the end of a hot day you will will have hot water, pump it a few times and it will be under pressure. After dinner put the dishes in a tub and add some hot soapy water, spray them down with the sprayer, scrub, and rinse with the sprayer.

It also helps to keep your hair and body clean. It's easy to wash your hair and body with a wash cloth and small tub of soapy water, but it is hard to rinse that off. The pressure of the sprayer makes it easy to rinse the soap out of your hair and off your body. If it isn't hot from the sun, just warm the water on your stove. Bob

 

[Clark White]

I'm a big fan of good food, but I hate dishes! The solution I use is I take the grill off of my grill at home and use that to good meat over the coals of my camp fire. If car camping I have a Coleman two burner that I use for boiling water, making eggs/grits in the morning. Car camping, with weight not being the concern like backpacking, I also carry my cast iron. With cast iron clean up is limited to usage of a scraper and paper towel that can go in the fire after. As far as dishes, it depends on how many people are along. If its a large group, I prefer paper, less clean up. If its just a few of us, I use SS. When I use paper, I either save them for starting the next fire, or just throw them in the fire soon as were done. I didn't see anyone mention doing this, is this not kosher? I only throw the paper in there, not the plastic ware.

 

[Mike S]

I like to eat well. I like to feed others well. I do option three - a good workspace and stove, proper ingredients, utensils and prep. If you use non-stick, and quality plastic plates and bowls, clean up with a little Dawn and HOT water is really pretty simple.

Simple = sandwich and a beer. OK for lunch, but breakfast and dinner deserve some attention.

Breakfast = Crisp hot bacon, hot (sand free) scrambled eggs that are not too hard, not too runny, hot grilled sourdough toast with Irish butter, GOOD coffee, etc.

Dinner = Chile Verde, grilled tenderloin of pork, grilled quail/chukar/sharptail/ruffed grouse, mixed seafood grill, pasta, cassoulet, whatever strikes your fancy. Red wine is normally required as well as something for 'after'.

I mean you're out there to have fun, right? What's more fun than a good dinner, a drink, and something for 'after'?

Mike

 

[pathfinderdriver]

For clean up I've been using an old refillable fire extinguisher. It has a removable top to refill it with water, and a shrader valve on it to pressurize it. I use my ARB compressor and hook it up till the pressure switch shuts it off. (right around 100psi) Works great for washing hands, dishes, windshields, whatever. You can use it for it's designed purpose to if you need to. The other nice thing is you can fill it from a river to "recharge" it if you need to.

 

[TxRider]

I do one burner backpacker stove, a SVEA that burns white gas or gasoline, but I also pack light as I'm usually carrying my food on my back or on the back of a light motorcycle and only cooking for myself. No beer, no wine but I don't drink those anyway..

I use one non stick pan and a small pot, but it's enough to cook fresh pan bread in and a hot meal to go with it, hot oatmeal for breakfast with coffee.

The freeze dried backpacker stuff is usually pretty bad IMO, you can get better instant foods that are easy to cook at a good grocery store, and some brands of packaged pre cooked chicken etc. store well and cook good..

 

[TeriAnn]

Its been interesting reading this thread, seeing how various people cook on the trail.

Most of the places I camp do not have fire rings. A lot of the time my camp site is just a wide spot on the trail. I practice leave almost no trace camping. I bring a porta pottie and I eat in instead of setting up and cooking outside.

Here is my kitchen in food preparation mode:

The propane stove has two burners and a broiler. The stove top just fits my Magnalite grill. All this is in the back of a 1960 Land Rover​

Here is my kitchen in clean up mode:

One sink is soapy dish water the other sink is rinse water and the dish rack folds up to the size of a one inch binder.
​

I can fix and eat elaborate meals without stepping outside the Land Rover. A plus during rain storms and when evening temperatures drop below freezing.

I'm poor at knowing what I'm going to be in the mood for later so instead of planning and staging specific meals I tend to stock the refrigerator with certain stuff and have other standard items stored in the pantry.

If I run out of fresh garlic or mushrooms I consider that reason to head into a town for resupply.

I know its kinda asocial, but when I travel with others and am not doing shared cooking, I'm normally buttoned up inside a warm well lighted Land Rover with a good meal, glass of wine or tea, music playing softly or a good book. Of course if there are others around a campfire I'll join them. Most of the time I travel alone. When I leave a camp spot, there are the wheel tracks going in and out, a few foot prints and sometimes a wet spot from gray water. I pack out the black water, all trash and try to leave each spot as I found it.

On the trail I schedule one day a week as a maintenance day and spend it in a campground with camp table and black water disposal facilities. On maintenance days I check all fluids & examine the underside of the Land Rover for anything loose. I repair any gear that needs maintenance, run a clothes line & do laundry and give the inside of the Land Rover a good cleaning making sure everything is in its proper place. That's also the day I normally fill the water tank, the fuel tanks, restock the food and get propane if needed. That's the day I'm most apt to use a fire ring or get down a portable charcoal grill and do some outside cooking.

 

[MaddBaggins]

Having been a backpacker for so many years before I ever owned a 4wd, I take the simple approach. Instant oatmeal or bagels or Mountain House scrambled eggs with tortillas is a typical breakfast. Lunch may be sandwiches or soup and dinner is usually Mountain House. Now that we have the trailer we are slowly leaning toward a little more cooking. Like maybe some grilled salmon and steamed veggies one night and Mountain House the next. I think we'll continue the trend toward actually cooking something now that we have more space for cooking gear and food.

But the best thing about simple cooking is the time left over for drinking and smoking cigars with my feet up around the fire.