MSR gourmet meals

[Gary_Yngve]

My parents are visiting in two weeks, and I'm taking them backpacking through the Enchantments (if we can get permits). They got $50 from a friend to purchase gourmet camping food. I've never bought the stuff because it's just too pricy for me... I stick to the couscous and HC.

 

Anyone have any favorite entrees? Doesn't have to be MSR... there's also Mountain Gourmet?

[allthumbs]

Be sure to pick up some of Dave's Insanity Hot Sauce.

1,000,000 Scoville Units

 

[ 08-27-2002, 10:58 AM: Message edited by: trask ]

[allison]

The Mountain...something or other...rations are good, especially the chicken stew and the Kung Pao, and Beef Strogy.

 

I prefer to carry junk I got at Ballard Maket with a few home-dried add-ins, but always sample the stuff that costs $7 a pack my buds get. They save no weight and they $pend more $ but hey, it's easy!

 

If it says 'serves 2' it serves 1, unless you're recreating around the campsite looking at the scenery.

 

Your folks should blow through that $50 in about 2 days.

 

Here's a little tune about dried...watermelon! You think I'm kidding, try it.

 

[ 08-27-2002, 02:28 AM: Message edited by: allison ]

[fredrogers]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gary Yngve:

My parents are visiting in two weeks, and I'm taking them backpacking through the Enchantments (if we can get permits). They got $50 from a friend to purchase gourmet camping food. I've never bought the stuff because it's just too pricy for me... I stick to the couscous and HC.

 

Anyone have any favorite entrees? Doesn't have to be MSR... there's also Mountain Gourmet?

---

Alpine Aire Sierra Chicken, Backpacker's Pantry Lasange and Black Bean Tamale Pie (good, but tough on the gut the next day), Mountain House Honey Lime Chicken and Chicken Pot Pie. Ditto the thought that it actually serves one- but I have found that trading halves with some one else makes the meal more palatable.

 

Try also buying ramen and adding freeze dried beef and your own spices. Lighter and cheaper but more time consuming. Lipton makes lots of really easy freeze dried noodle dishes (garlic, stroganoff), that are pretty tasty when combined with a little cheeze and/or freeze dried meat. My latest discovery is Idahoan freeze dried potatoes- butter/herb and four cheeze are the best. Serves two heaping helpings for each package.

[forrest_m]

If you’re just backpacking, I’d say (mostly) screw the freeze dried and carry some real food, or at least more real. I took some european friends backpacking last summer and I couldn’t believe how light my pack was without climbing gear… so I promptly loaded it back up with good eats and booze. I wanted to make it a memorable experience for them, since they’d never been more than a mile from the road in their whole lives. I recommend: 1) Tasty –Bite meals (indian food dishes in foil retort packs, you put the unopened package in boiling water, open and eat, make some instant rice to go with it and eat with pita bread or naan), 2) Cook pasta with some real veggies, then for a sauce squeeze in a whole tube of that salmon pate-in-a-toothpaste tube you can get at Bavarian Meats (across from the Pike Place Market) or Trader Joes and stir until it’s a creamy sauce. 3) Cook pasta with some real veggies, then for a sauce bring real homemade or storebought pesto, make sure you pack it in a very tightly sealing container like a small threaded bottle or it will end up in your pack. Throw some sun-dried tomatoes in with the pasta water, they will rehydrate and be very tasty. 4) Those semi-dried Bear Creek soups you can get at the supermarket with some sausage or something in it. I particularly like the “potato cheddar” flavor. Bring some real bread. 5) Make couscous, but substitute 1/3 grated parmesan cheese, cook like normal, and add canned chicken, curry powder and some diced green onions. This one is actually pretty darn light, I carry it a lot on climbing trips, but it’s tasty and filling also.

[Cpt.Caveman]

Make em eat Horsecock

 

Pastas are great

Spaghetti with HC and cheese (can will be used for a coffe cup!)

bring back some fried chicken

Mashed potatoe mix

candy bars

Tuna in a bag

[Dru]

snafflehound steaks and caribou rotisserie

[csd345]

forrest's comment on the tasty bites was right on! they are great, very tasty (spicy)... we usually boil the water, pour some over couscous in a different bowl, and while that is cooking, dump the tasty bite package in the water... its all usually finished about 5 minutes after the water boils. trader jos carries them, as does some fred meyer stores.

 

forrest: thanks for the other great ideas.

[Dwayner]

Here's an outdoor recipe that's sure to please!

 

Stuffed Camel

1 whole camel, medium size

1 whole lamb, large size

20 whole chickens, medium size

60 eggs

12 kilos rice

2 kilos pine nuts

2 kilos almonds

1 kilo pistachio nuts

110 gallons water

5 pounds black pepper

Salt to taste

 

Skin, trim and clean camel (once you get over the hump), lamb and chicken. Boil until tender. Cook rice until fluffy. Fry nuts until brown and mix with rice. Hard boil eggs and peel. Stuff cooked chickens with hard boiled eggs and rice. Stuff the cooked lamb with stuffed chickens. Add more rice. Stuff the camel with the stuffed lamb and add rest of rice. Broil over large charcoal pit until brown. Spread any remaining rice on large tray and place camel on top of rice. Decorate with boiled eggs and nuts. Serves friendly crowd of 80-100.

 

The beauty of the whole thing is that you don't have to carry it in to the mountains because it walks on its own. It will also carry your pack, at least on the way in! If it's a female, you can milk her a few times before she becomes real food.

 

Getting rid of the bones is a pain in the butt..they're big and heavy but I suppose if you're discrete, the rangers will never know. Myself...If I'm up at Camp Muir, I usually toss them in a convenient crevasse (after dark) or if in the woods, I put them where bears will do the job.

 

- Dwayner

[Dru]

dwayner you stole that recipe from T. Coraghessan Boyle, fess up!

[Cpt.Caveman]

Eat Camel toe

[lizard_brain]

Ted Nugent Essence of Life Gonzo Recipe

 

1) Go hunting, breathe deep, feel the air, take the Spirit inside, and kill a critter.

 

2) Remove the hair. Immediately clean and cool the carcass. Butcher flesh into family-size portions.

 

3) Start fire. Heat good fresh vegetable oil to boiling point in an iron skillet.

 

4) Fill zipbag with flour, salt and pepper, and good seasoning mixture. Add small, manageable chunks of meat; shake and slide coated pieces into hot oil to sizzle.

 

5) As brown crust forms on edges, remove onto paper towel. Salivate. Surround yourself with family and friends. Put on plates next to smashed potatoes with skins on. Cut, eat, grin, sip Vernor's Ginger Ale, burp, enjoy.

 

[ScottP]

Slim Jims, Twinkies, Grape Kool-Aide and a quart of 100 proof Stolichnaya Vodka.

 

Oh, and Rolos and pistachios for breakfast.

[iain]

And gummy worms. Make great abalakov cord when things get grim. You can also signal down a plane by spelling help with them. (but snaffles will devour in short order, but then you have new source of food (see above for snafflehound steak!))

[Dwayner]

Who? That camel recipe's been around for ages. I worked for a long time in the Middle East (mostly Egypt) and used to go to the camel market occasionally to admire the sight of many hundreds of camels who had been marched up for weeks from the Sudan. Some collapsed when they reached Cairo and there were piles of smoldering caracasses laying here and there (apparently they tried to burn them in place). You can also see their bleached bones out in the desert near some of the caravan routes. The camel herders are really wild lookin' buggers, with frizzed out kinky hair and curved knives strapped to their arms...you don't want to mess with them.

 

The meat of the big camels is usually pretty tough so they use them as beasts 'o burden and such...but the real young ones, the baby camels...go for a high price because they're extra tender and tasty. Never eaten one of them small ones.