No refrigeration needed

[JaSAn]

Had my fill of Mountain House, et.al. in my mountaineering days. Too much starch and sodium. 'Freeze dried farts' are wicked after a few weeks of the stuff.

But with all the dried fruit and veggies packaged for backpacking and all the canned fruits, veggies, and meats, why eat FD swill? Expensive for what you get unless you are carrying it on your back.

 

[trae]

Had my fill of Mountain House, et.al. in my mountaineering days. Too much starch and sodium. 'Freeze dried farts' are wicked after a few weeks of the stuff.

But with all the dried fruit and veggies packaged for backpacking and all the canned fruits, veggies, and meats, why eat FD swill? Expensive for what you get unless you are carrying it on your back.

What brands would you suggest for canned stuff?


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[CSG]

Agreed mountain house is good. I got an amazon lightning deal for a bucket it’s great to have. The convenience for backpacking is outstanding.

For car camping I don’t mind bringing a bit extra though. Cooking real food on an open flame is pure pleasure.


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Except the clean-up which requires even more water. That said, I do cook eggs in a small non-stick pan from time to time but as my travels almost never include more than a stop for one night, I have other things I want to do than cook. I do get the desire that many have to try to make great camp meals, I'm just not one of them.

 

[CSG]

Had my fill of Mountain House, et.al. in my mountaineering days. Too much starch and sodium. 'Freeze dried farts' are wicked after a few weeks of the stuff.

But with all the dried fruit and veggies packaged for backpacking and all the canned fruits, veggies, and meats, why eat FD swill? Expensive for what you get unless you are carrying it on your back.

Like I said, no more than one a day. And if you buy it from places like Costco in the buckets, a two serving bag ends up just under $5. Not too expensive IMO (or "swill"). *Most* canned food is no better tasting or better for you. Besides, a real mountain man would kill and grill his fresh catch and make salads from local greens...

 

[VikingVince]

Barilla Pronto Pasta
Just pour in a pan, add a little water, and cook. No boiling excess water in advance, no straining.
Then add whatever you like...olive oil, sun dried tomatoes, seasoning and parmesan cheese (the container kind/no fridge needed) works for me. Easy meal.
https://www.barilla.com/en-us/product-results/pasta/range/pronto?sort=alpha

 

[dwh]

In the field I always cook pasta that way. True, the Pronto is faster and uses less water, but any pasta can be cooked as a one pan.

Except vermicelli. Trust me, just don't. Comes out as a lump of goo.

 

[MaxYedor]

This has probably been covered, but "just add water" pancakes are shockingly good. Bisquick sells the batter in a bottle so you don't even need a bowl, not space efficient, but simple. Tried them last weekend because I was cooking for 16 and they seemed easy, and everybody was happy. Alternatively you could pre-portion the dry batter into zip-locks and shake it up in a Nalgene bottle.

 

[RandomAbstract]

This has probably been covered, but "just add water" pancakes are shockingly good. Bisquick sells the batter in a bottle so you don't even need a bowl, not space efficient, but simple. Tried them last weekend because I was cooking for 16 and they seemed easy, and everybody was happy. Alternatively you could pre-portion the dry batter into zip-locks and shake it up in a Nalgene bottle.

I no longer eat grains or sugar. However, when I did, this was my favorite "just add water" pancake mix. Light and fluffy.

https://www.krusteaz.com/products/pancakes-waffles/buttermilk-pancake-mix

 

[AbleGuy]

Tasty Bites
Powdered Peanut Butter
Powdered Milk
Fruit cups
Non Refrigerated Milk
Anything in single serve pkgs
Seal A Meal food saver packaging of your own stuff
..............X2 to all of the above...especially the tasty bites (buy them in bulk at Costco)

Not so much X2 to canned meats though, due to sodium content but you can drain and rinse these to lower that a bit.
Canned oysters and mussels are a less salty option.

Low Sodium V-8 canned vegetable juice (your daily veggie servings in one can), comes in two sizes.

Learn to make bannock or pilot bread (or even hardtack). Try the Easy to Cook on Stove Top recipes.

 

[AbleGuy]

And regarding the stale MRE’s post....I would not be too afraid to use these. Remember, what won’t kill ya makes you stronger!

When I was a young punk, way before fancy, expensive freeze dried food became available, my buddies and I bought for cheap outrageously out of date C-Rations at the local Army Surplus store (Bob’s Bargain Barn, in Tucson AZ) for our unrefridgerated camping/hiking expeditions. This was in the late 60’s and the C-Rats weren’t Vietnam surplus but I believe were actually Korean War surplus (hell, some of them even could have been left over from WWll !).

Obviously, consuming these old, stale canned foods so frequently back then didn’t kill us.

And if we’d expended enough energy and calories during our climbing, hiking or canoeing adventures during the day, our raging hunger made it so that we could actually anticipate, enjoy and appreciate the otherwise terrible meals that we made from these (an extra fun bonus ...the set ups usually included some ciggies and candy, sometimes salt tabs, or halazone water purification tabs, and little round, white heating tabs for cooking).

Part of the fun of consuming these nasty, old C-rats was they often had no labels on the OD cans (these were so ancient that the labels had come off of them), so each meal started out as a mystery and was a complete surprise until you opened up the cans with your included P-38, to discover whatever delight was in them.

Here’s one of my favorite recipes using them:
-Open up the “dessert” can (usually stale pound cake or a dried, rock hard hockey puck of sweet baked dough with cinnamon and walnuts),
-Pound up or break up the “dessert” product in a bowl,
-Add some powered milk and scaldingly hot water, and some included sugar or maybe some powered cocoa,
-Mix thoroughly,
-And then either enjoy it as a hot, sweet, flavored mush, or form it into small, flat cakes and heat it up like pancakes on a flat rock pushed right up against, or propped over, the hot fire!

(Hey, do any of you other old farts remember using these C-rats?)

 

[dwh]

I remember. Used to get mine from Mort's Surplus in Burbank. I had a bunch of P-38s. The hexamine tabs came in cardboard tubes. Great for making instant coffee in a canteen cup.

Came with TP as well.

 

[buckwilk]

Ghee. Surprised no one mentioned it.

 

[T.O.Mac]

https://nocoolers.com/ is what I was going to add, but it appears that Graham is already there... I have used her book for lots of rafting trips (which is basically overlanding in a hypalon and waterfilled wonderland...

 

[krick3tt]

Ableguy,
Yeah, I remember 'C' rations and also 'K' rations. We would get them at surplus stores and use them for our back yard campouts.
There is a 'C' ration cookbook put out by Tabasco Company with some very interesting recipes in there. Really doesn't work for FD type food that come in MRE's. Except for the tabasco sauce.

 

[outdoornate65]

And regarding the stale MRE’s post....I would not be too afraid to use these. Remember, what won’t kill ya makes you stronger!

When I was a young punk, way before fancy, expensive freeze dried food became available, my buddies and I bought for cheap outrageously out of date C-Rations at the local Army Surplus store (Bob’s Bargain Barn, in Tucson AZ) for our unrefridgerated camping/hiking expeditions. This was in the late 60’s and the C-Rats weren’t Vietnam surplus but I believe were actually Korean War surplus (hell, some of them even could have been left over from WWll !).

Obviously, consuming these old, stale canned foods so frequently back then didn’t kill us.

And if we’d expended enough energy and calories during our climbing, hiking or canoeing adventures during the day, our raging hunger made it so that we could actually anticipate, enjoy and appreciate the otherwise terrible meals that we made from these (an extra fun bonus ...the set ups usually included some ciggies and candy, sometimes salt tabs, or halazone water purification tabs, and little round, white heating tabs for cooking).

Part of the fun of consuming these nasty, old C-rats was they often had no labels on the OD cans (these were so ancient that the labels had come off of them), so each meal stated out as a mystery and was a surprise until you opened up the cans with your included P-38 to discover what delight was in them.

Here’s one of my favorite recipes using them:
-Open up the “dessert” can (usually stale pound cake or a dried, rock hard hockey puck of sweet baked dough with cinnamon and walnuts),
-Pound up or break up the “dessert” product in a bowl,
-Add some powered milk and scaldingly hot water, and some included sugar or maybe some powered cocoa,
-Mix thoroughly,
-And then either enjoy it as a hot, sweet, flavored mush, or form it into small, flat cakes and heat it up like pancakes on a flat rock pushed right up against, or propped over, the hot fire!

(Hey, do any of you other old farts remember using these C-rats?)

Thanks for the blast from the past. Fondly remember Bob's BB and Summit Hut from my days as a lad growing up in Tucson.

My dad was an AF pilot and he would bring home leftover C-rats from TDYs.....we thought they were the coolest thing ever.