easy, tasty, nutritional dinner ideas for backpacking?

[twochordcool]

please!

I can't dehydrate food and I'm not a big fan of the "just add water and heat" things!

Any ideas would be tremendously appreciated!

[oldsmores]

Mix things with noodles. Use your imagination. Now there are a lot of choices of things available in foil packs: tuna, salmon, clams, etc. Thin rice noodles (oriental style) just need to be soaked in hot water for a few minutes, then drained. Or dress up ramen noodles with your favorite ingredients (though the packaged ones are high in sodium).

[Hobbitling]

try to find army rations (MRE's). Look on ebay or in Army and Navy stores. they arent light, but they come with a heater and they will fill you up.
they also have some ok rice meals in plastic envelopes. no refrigeration, no cooking. I think Zatarains makes some, and ricearoni. or you could just cook your own rice or couscous, and bring spices and stuff to mix in. just remember to try it at home. There is nothing worse than finding out your recipe is disgusting out in the backcountry. yuck.

[Kevin]

Try the inertia meals instead of the usual freeze dried stuff, you may like them more.

[adkfun]

I 2nd Enertia Trail Foods. Very tasty and no prep. I can't eat the freeze dried food - yuck.

http://trailfoods.com/

[Hollywood]

Make some goulash (to your taste) a day or two before you hike and freeze it in a boil & serve bag around your nalgene bottle (or whatever). By the time you're ready for dinner (boil the bag) it will have thawed.
You can eat it right out of the bag and enjoy a cold wine or even a martini if that floats your boat!

[percious]

Chicken with Dumplings. One of my all-time winter favs. I use dehydrated veggies and chicken, but that is just me.

http://www.ziplink.net/users/24601/recipes/bprecipe.htm#CHCKDMPL

[fvrwld]

As far as the freeze dried meals, some are very good while others are terrible. Don't count them all out. On a recent backpack one night I had an Alpine Aire Fettuchini Alfredo wich was terrible. The next night I had Mountain House Turkey Tetrazini which was extremely good...probably one of my favorites. Other good ones are Mountain House beef stroganoff and Mountain House chicken teriyaki. I am a picky eater and for the most part don't like much pre-prepared and processed food.

[lumberzac]

As far as the freeze dried meals, some are very good while others are terrible. Don't count them all out.

I have to agree. One of my favorite backpacking meals is the Mountainhouse lasagna. The dehydrated Enertia meals are also very good.

[AdRegion]

This is all making me hungry. Again.

An ingredient I like to use is Couscous. It is easily packed, doesn't readily spoil, cooks up quick with hot water, and is edible hot or cold.

Most of my trips around here don't require freeze-dried as duration is not a factor. A little dab of olive oil, fry up some garlic, veggies, chorizo, whatever, add water, boil, dump in the Couscous. This becomes a cold salad for lunch/snack.

[Little Rickie]

A Boy Scout buddy told me this just last weekend: stove top stuffing and can chicken. Make the stuffing with boiling water and toss in the chicken (juice from the can & all), mix, then eat. Simplicity!

[twochordcool]

Thanks guys - I'm also gonna get that Hamburger Helper brand "Chicken Helper" and add a can of Hormels chicken or 2 - should be highly edible!

[Sasquatch]

Try googling "Freezerbag cooking" You should get a decent site that's full of pretty good recipes for backpacking/canoeing. I tend to like the one mentioned above with the stove top, canned (or foil packed) chicken, but add some gravy and possibly mashed potatoes. Good and salty to boot.

[wbwells]

Nope

Nothing is as good as Hot Pizza.... Yup....

Little alum foil and ya got a perfect oven.....

Bring the pre mixed flour yeast ect in ziplock bag
sauce in zip bag...some cheese..peperoni...ouh nice in the outback!!!

Worth the effort!!! When ya eat it!!!!!

Wowwwwwwww...ya Gotta try it!!!!

WB

[danceswithflies]

On a five day canoe trip last month, we used the freezer bag cookery technique exclusively for our breakfasts and dinners, and pronounce the system an absolute unqualified success.

I hate camp chores, and the most onerous of these is trying to wash a cookpot encrusted with glop, and to do it in the LNT approved manner, that is, well away from water sources. The only way I've been able to figure out how to do that is if I brought along a second, larger pot, and even then it always required several shuttles back and forth with rinse water, and I was always left with two pots that were less than antiseptic. The freezer bag system allows your cookpot to be used for nothing other than boiling water.

I made a couple of cozies out of a cheap closed cell foam pad, cut to the proper size by trial and error, and held together with duct tape. A separate piece of foam was cut to wedge into the top. This system apparently is extremely well insulating, as the food was still too hot to eat after ten or even fifteen minutes in the cozy. The cozy also makes an ideal container for holding the freezer bag while eating. Simply boil the water, add additional ingredients, stir very well, wedge the foam top into place, and wait ten minutes or so.

Our dinners were mostly based on Lipton/Knorr pasta sides, to which we added dried veggies, and dried whole milk powder (Nido brand, often found in the ethnic foods section in the supermarket). If they called for adding margarine, we added olive oil from a small plastic bottle just before cooking.
We boosted the protein of these meals in various ways. To the Pasta Parmesan, we added a foil packet of shrimp, to the Beef, we tossed in a small freeze package of Alpine Aire diced Beef that I'd had hanging around for a few years, and we added a small can of white meat chicken to the Cheddar and Broccoli. Our other dinner was a concoction of Instant Mashed Potatoes, powdered spinach soup, freeze dried veggies with some jerky on the side for protein. The dried veggies we got at a health food store, where they were sold by the ounce as soup additives.

We found that after about ten minutes in the bag, the pasta had cooked to the same consistency as if it had simmered for the same length of time, and the veggies had reconstituted well, as had the freeze dried beef from Alpine Aire.

Our breakfasts were Quaker Quick (not instant) Oats with some brown sugar, raisins, walnuts, whole milk powder and a dash of salt.

After eating, clean-up consists of placing the used bags into a gallon sized ziplock and rinsing the spoons. If we were having a campfire (which we rarely do) I might consider burning the bags, though I have mixed feelings about the ethics of doing so. Foil bags from the shrimp and chicken can would, of course, be carried out.

Additional benefits from the system include reduced fuel usage, and since much of the prep work is done at home, the chances of forgetting key ingredients is reduced.

The Freezer Bag Cookery website has lots of additional recipes, and we intend to experiment with other ingredients, including (real) bacon bits, tuna,
cous cous, etc.

Try it, you'll like it!