[forest gnome]

hey is this the thread about where to eat in wenatchi????...ummm leavaanworth???.... where is my thread on "food you used to take vs. food you take now"???????

[BirdDog]

It's baggies for me. Reasonably tasty, and pouring hot water in a bag is a cooking chore I can actually handle.

[Dante]

Backpacker Joe and I did a four day trip on Powerbars and Exceed once. Our load was super light (no stove, pot, cups, bowls or utensils), the cooking and clean-up was non-existant, but the dining left a LOT to be desired

[Hulksmash]

OK forest gnome here comes "food you used to take vs. food you take now". Once upon a time...... So when i was young and dumb...now i'm no longer young I used to pack an ice chest along with the folding lawn furniture, for short "backpacking" trips. Places like Ashland lakes, Bordman lake. I'm talking three days worth o fresh food in da ice chest. That was when i was back in the days of being 18, 19 years old. Then one day we decided to venture further. Well day one was Lake Valhallia day two is Janus Lake. Tell you what..waking up on day three and cooking bacon, eggs, hash browns with bell peppers, and onions..was an experience i don't regret. I'm sure the PCT through hikers will ever forget it either. Two things happened after that trip. One. I did not find a back packing partner for 15+ years. Two. I switched to freeze dried. I am slowly improving my backpacking menu. It started with picking up a copy of sarbar and dicentra's books.

[Navy salad]

I tried the freezer bag thing a couple of times and like it ok, but I prefer eating out of a plastic pint or 3-cup size disposable ziploc food storage thing. Only weighs 0.7 ounce and cleanup consists of a quick rinse, followed by a rub with a paper towel, followed by another quick rinse.

[dicentra]

This one's not in a baggie. It's a One PAN Wonder!

[RokIzGud]

Unless I can start a fire I generally stick to bags. My buddy John making toast;

[slickhorn]

At home, my partner is the gourmet and will spend hours in the kitchen, which I hate. Outside, she wants minimalist food and I make everything a production. The best middle-of-the-road solution we've found is to cook full dishes at home from scratch and get them dialed in to your tastes, then dehydrate. This gives you food you know you enjoy, while minimizing work in the field. Dehydrated seasoned ground beef can be used to make tasty tacos by adding tortillas, cheese, dehydrated salsa (a staple!), dehydrated cabbage slaw rehydrated with a little lime and salt. Delicious! Make a bean based chili. add dehydrated ground beef if you want. Make it a special meal by steam baking some cornbread and take some honey stix from Cost Plus. (basically straws filled with honey and sealed at the ends.) Many of the indian dishes sold by brands like Tasty Bite dehydrate very well. Uncle Ben's make's a boil-in-bag rice that cooks very fast and is very light. pan fry up some thin bread to simulate naan. Soup -- a veritable cornucopia of nutrition and flavor. Make dumplings with the soup to make a special meal. Pasta is another classic that can be shaped any way you want. Very easy to make your favorite sauces at home and dehydrate. Many hot dogs are shelf stable until opened -- this is a nice way to take meat that isn't in a pouch or dehydrated. I find baked goods are a real treat. Most of the rest of it, if I cook it at home and know it is flavored how I like is still pretty easy to prep on the trail. Include a basic spice rack in your kitchen supplies. As well as salt and pepper, I take garlic salt, cheese powder, butter powder, jalapeno powder and the mini 4 pack of Dave's insanity sauces from Cost Plus. Can make something tasty out of unseasoned dry mashed potatoes with all that.

[nuclear_eggset]

I do the bag thing because I hate cleaning the camp kitchen. Of course, it's all homemade stuff... if I were using storebought stuff, I might rethink the cost/benefit tradeoff.

[Allison]

Like I said, looking for non-bag inspiration. I am somewhat overwhelmed by the FBC cult at the moment. It's kind of like when Cate Blanchett was in EVERY movie out there. Cate, love ya, now get off my movie screen. I like the idea of dehydrating the Tasty Bite. They are yummy but on the heavy side. Vegetarian Indian dishes have the added benefit of being really good with trout added to them, should any trout make its way to hand.

[dicentra]

Anything you can do FBC anc be done in your pan too. Just sayin.

[Backpacker Joe]

"FBC"?

[dicentra]

[sarbar]

[Allison]

Hey Cate Blanchett, I'm talking to you! Vamoose!