| Cooking Wild: Backcountry Meals | « Back |
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Author: By Foss Davis
Photos by Jeff Davis
Traveling light and without creature comforts is a mainstay of backcountry hunting and camping. This can make meals hard to enjoy because limitations in weight and the inability to keep things cold rarely improves one’s chances of making delicious food. On overnight backcountry trips, eating is usually designed to sustain life and keep up your energy—not for pleasurable, fine-dining experiences. I’ve cooked a lot—both in my well-stocked kitchen and over a fire miles from civilization—and I can safely say, there is nothing you can cook in the field that you can’t make better at home. But that doesn’t mean you have to totally sacrifice taste and enjoyment when you head into the field. A lack of refrigeration and the unwillingness to carry unneeded weight are the two primary concerns when making a backcountry meal plan. The three meal ideas featured here are compact, lightweight, can be stored in a gear bag or backpack at any temperature, and need only hot water to prepare.
There is no shortage of high quality, premade, commercially available backpacking meals. They come in a wide variety of offerings and can be quite good; however, they can be expensive. Almost all store-bought backpacking meals follow the same basic formula: a dried or freeze-dried protein, freeze-dried vegetables, and dried noodles or rice thrown into a bag with a spice mixture. Because none of these ingredients are difficult to find, and home dehydrators are relatively affordable, there’s no reason why a budget-conscious backpacker can’t make their own. I like to prepare mine in heavy duty vacuum sealer bags, which keeps the meals secure and sealed from moisture. Making several all at once makes sure you have plenty ready to go for your next backcountry trip.
Beef stroganoff is a divisive dish. People seem to either love it or hate it, and I’m in the first camp. There are many different recipes, but what they all have in common is pieces of cut up beef, mushrooms, sour cream, and mustard. Fresh beef and sour cream aren’t really workable options in the backcountry, but we can get creative and work in some substitutes. Boiled beef jerky may not sound the most appetizing, but jerky does rehydrate enough in boiling water to give this (and other dishes) the beefy punch that stroganoff is known for. Mushrooms respond very well to both dehydration and room temperature storage, and disposable single-use mustard packets and half & half single-serve coffee creamer round out the main ingredients. All of these ingredients can be mixed into a quart size zip top bag or sealed in a vacuum sealer bag. (If using a vacuum sealer bag, just seal the top without vacuuming out the air, as the egg noodles will crush.) This ends up being soupier than a normal homemade beef stroganoff, but after a long day in the woods, sometimes a warm, hearty, soupy mess hits the spot!
Ingredients:
• ½ cup uncooked egg noodles
• 3 ounces beef jerky cut into 1-inch pieces
• ½ cup fresh mushrooms
• 1 tablespoon powdered butter
• 2 cubes of instant beef bouillon
• 3 small packets yellow mustard
• 2 small containers unflavored half & half
Slice the mushrooms ¼ inch thick and place on a dehydrator rack at 120 degrees for 6 to 8 hours until the slices are crispy. Store all ingredients in a bag until ready to cook. Bring two cups water to a boil and add all ingredients except the mustard and half & half. Boil for 6 to 8 minutes, stirring frequently to dissolve the bouillon cubes, until noodles have cooked and beef jerky has softened. Remove from heat and add mustard and half & half, then stir to combine. Allow 3 to 5 minutes to cool and thicken. Enjoy.
I read somewhere that problem prisoners who have lost their normal meal privileges because of throwing their food at guards, are sometime fed a less messy ‘loaf’ made of mixing all of the day’s meals together. While this recipe is more appetizing than prison loaf, the general idea is the same. This makes a sloppy meal that combines all the favorite flavors of Thanksgiving into a warm, hearty, stick to your ribs meal—perfect for ending a long day of hiking. The main ingredient is a shelf-stable foil packet of cooked chicken, which isn’t exactly a Thanksgiving feature, but chicken in foil is a lot easier to find than precooked turkey. I also like this recipe for camping in parks and wilderness areas that prohibit the use of cans and bottles because everything is either in foil or a vacuum bag. This meal is easiest to make ahead three at a time because each meal requires 1/3 of the normal package size of instant stuffing and gravy mix. This meal is on the larger side and serves two hungry campers.
Ingredients:
• Contents of 1/3 box of sage flavored instant stuffing
• 1/3 packet powdered turkey-flavored gravy mix
• 1/3 cup instant mashed potato flakes
• 1 tablespoon powdered butter
• 1/4 cup dried cranberries
• 1 3-ounce pouch cooked chicken
Bring 2½ cups water to a boil. Add all ingredients and mix well. Cover and let sit for 8 to 10 minutes. Enjoy.
Catching fish is one way to get good, fresh protein that isn’t dried or prepackaged in foil. While there are lots of ways to cook fish at a campsite, this is one of the simplest. Even though boiling fillets of fresh caught fish is one of the easiest ways to cook your catch, it’s certainly not the tastiest, though it can be improved with a little help from the college student’s favorite thirty cent meal. Ramen noodles are cheap, lightweight, and already come with a seasoning packet to get the flavors started. Adding fillets of fresh fish and dehydrated vegetables can turn that simple meal into a feast. Another perk of this meal is that a successful fishing experience is not a requirement; even if you strike out fishing, there is still a vegetarian dinner to remind you of your college days as a broke student.
Ingredients:
• 1 large or 2 small fillets fresh fish
• 1 packet ramen noodles (shrimp flavor works best)
• ¼ cup frozen pea, corn, and carrot medley
At home, place vegetables on dehydrator rack at 120 degrees for 6 to 8 hours until vegetables are crispy
When at camp and ready to make, boil 2 cups of water. Add the dehydrated vegetables and boil for 4 to 5 minutes. Stir in the contents of the ramen noodle flavor packets and add the fish fillets and noodles. Boil for another 3 minutes until the fish gets flaky. Let cool and enjoy.
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