TRAIL CHOW
4 Apr
When prepping for this one-month adventure, one big emphasis of mine was FOOD, and in particular – dinners. With our large group, I wasn’t about to spend all that money on prepackaged freeze dried dinners that add so much waste with individual packs, and have such little flavor. (We did bring along a few as backups as we had no idea how hungry we’d actually be on the trail, but they were never used.)
Although Durand added copious amounts of cayenne to everything anyway, I tried to give us options that had flavor, protein, veggies & tons of carbs.
There are wonderful resources for backcountry cooking and menus on-line, my favorites being:
http://shop.maryjanesfarm.org/store/c/3-Food-Pantry.aspx
http://www.harmonyhousefoods.com/
I was also surprised at how much you could find in the regular grocery store aisles.
A few of the groups’ favorite meals from the trail:
•Deconstructed Pizza
•Double Potato Chowder
•Black Bean Burritos (Mary Janes Farm’s beans rock!)
•Cranberry Drop Biscuits
•Pasta with Homemade Sauce (My personal favorite. It took 3 days of dehydrating it in the oven, but worth every minute.)
One note I’ll make about the trail menus: a “portion size” varied between the different recipes, and I tended to err on the higher side with 4 guys in the group. But no matter how ravenous we were at dinner, we always had leftovers for lunch (except on deconstructed pizza night), which turned out be a huge blessing when one of our lunch drops didn’t make it.
It was a challenge to cook and (yes, actually, bake) everything in the Jet Boil, but it so sweet to feed everyone with only 1 pot. Add another small pot for the ramen appetizer and/or coffee and we were set.
I was proud of my “Iron Chef of the Trail” title, but even more proud that I didn’t have to wash a single dish the entire trail. Sometimes, it pays to be the cook.
