Three day menu

[alick]

OK gang -

To encourage your creativity, my cookery and a little drooling over your favorite recipes, I'd like to invite people to recommend a menu for 3 full days out and about in the hills or woods.

It should start with an evening meal for a friday night, and end with something for midday on a monday.

Rules are: I like my food. I have to be able to carry all of it. If you include wild ingredients to be found by foraging please make them things I could be fairly confident of finding - say on the BushMoot weekend. And lastly - if you recommend dehydrated meals, MRE's and the like rather than "real" food, just tell us which versions and why.

I can have any or all of a stainless billy with lid, a steel bowl (no lid), mini wok, and crusader mug to work with in creating your culinary masterpieces.

Thanks :biggthump

[arctic hobo]

Just one evening meal idea:
Mince, chilli beans, onions, tomato & lots lots of chilli. Fry the onions briefly, then add the mince until grey. Add everything else, quantities to taste, and heat for 20mins. Dry it out in the oven, put it in a bag.
Then add water, and heat it up, eat!
It's absolutely gorgeous and can be lived off for ever - I just don't get bored of it! And it has plenty of good things in it too (esp. protein).
:biggthump

[Andy]

Caryy a bag off direct food sosmix. It's light, goes far and tastes good on it's own and oyu can eat it with just about anything. It's great with tomatoes or anything that you find. Instant noodles would cover at least one meal. I would also have a packet of bread rolls. You could take some marmite if you like. Bread can be toasted if you have time

[alick]

...Dry it out in the oven, put it in a bag.
Then add water, and heat it up, eat!...

Hmm - a good chilli always goes down well. Like it. I take it that you prep this the day before you go, and it lasts a couple of days unrefridgerated ?

On my last BCUK jaunt, I took toms, raw mince, onions, papricka and some yoghurt and made a rough hungarian goulash. That was good, but because of the uncooked meat it had to be same-day.

Other ideas - chapati's are practical on a camp fire and don't need yeast like proper bread. I've tried bannock but it was very dense and quite chemical tasting so more practice needed. Squeezable honey to go in a drink or on the camp cooked bread.

Lemon and chilli seasoning powder gives chicken a real kick

Some of the new thai and similar style cook in sauces are very concentrated foil wrapped pastes that give lots of taste for little space / weight. They need coconut milk to be added, but creamed coconut can be bought and carried in blocks so you're not lugging a big bottle of sauce around.

I figure bacon should keep well if it's cooked first. Crispy cooked bacon has got to be something like beef jerky for keeping surely ? That should go well with a pasta and tomato puree based dish.

Any more ?

[arctic hobo]

The day before I go, but it lasts a long time - I have used it up to three weeks and it's been fine all the way through. However you might argue that the conditions did the refridgerating for me :chill: :super:
If you dry it well enough (I go round my mother's and steal her Aga, it's perfect for the job) it can theoretically last as long as you like.

[zen]

Good question.......

This will keep you healthy and happy for the weekend. (Well it would me anyway :rolmao: )

Friday PM
1. Brown rice, simmered in twice it's volume of water until all the water's been soaked up.
2. Whatever fish / fowl / meat you manage to catch, either roasted over the fire, or fried once the rice is done if you only have one stove. Or if you prefer veggie then soak some freeze dried tofu and fry it, or as Andy said Sosmix sausages / Burgamix burgers.
3. Wild greens either as salad or steamed over the cooking rice.
4. Bring small bottle (or sachets) of soy sauce and chili sauce to taste.

Sat breakfast:
1. Porridge oats with wild fruit & nuts (or just bring meusli with you and simmer it with 2 x it's volume of water).
2. If it's really cold you can include eggs and / or bacon or jerky in the porridge instead of fruit and nuts.

Sat Lunch:
1. Boil then simmer dried lentils or beans with dried onions and garlic, add curry powder or curry sauce, or even better Miso (salty fermented japanese soy bean paste. It's really good stuff and provided you buy it live not pasteurised - full of "friendly bacteria").
2. Bring pitta bread with you or make something with flour.

Sat PM:
1. Pasta with pesto (could be chopped wild nuts, oil and herbs), dried tomatoes and the leftovers from yesterday's roast.
2. Whatever leaves or roots you can find, boiled in the same pot as the pasta.

Sun breakfast:
Same as Saturday.

Sun Lunch
Pub on the way home :biggthump

[alick]

mmm - pesto :biggthump

Good ideas there - cheers

[Danzo]

Whole chorizo are excellent because they last indefinately and when sliced into a hot pan they release their own fat and paprika. Then toss in chopped onions and uncooked rice, stir until the rice soaks up some of the oil and juices and then add some water or stock and any other veggies or beans you have and with a lid firmly on your pan you will have an fifteen minute risotto or paella!

:biggthump

Most other salamis and smoked sausages with a high fat content work equally well and you can replace rice with couscous.

The chorizo is also perfectly good cold, with eggs, potatoes etc and as well as lasting for months is pretty much indestructable, easy to pack anfd can be used to beat off the woodland critturs in emergencies!

):

Danzo

[Wink]

Venison sausages and Dragon 3 minute noodles (Won Ton flavour) always go down a storm. I usually take the small wire rack from a caravan grill pan with me. Hangs on the outside of my pack, so takes up no room, but invaluable for grilling over the fire, as sausages always burn the pan! Can also cook chicken/rabbit pieces or fillets on it, add curry sauce (decant from jar into something lighter before leaving home), serve with rice and garlic and coriander or peshwari nan bread. Prop the nans on stones next to the fire to warm, smokey and sensational!

If near water, then fresh fish stuffed with whatever you can find and grilled/skewered. Sadly I'm allergic to mussels, but when in france one year we caught fresh water crayfish which were delicious.

Breakfast can be bacon and boiled eggs with an open fire (no messy washing up). If cooking on a stove, then I take Ready-Brek pre-mixed with sugar and milk powder, just boil the water and add the mix. Warming, filling and easy. I tried porridge once, but my "pocket rocket" stove burned it.... disgusting to eat and hard to clean up.

For cleaning up forget the foam scourer things, they always end up getting greasy and useless. Spagnum moss is the daddy, or failing that just a handfull of wiry long grass, perhaps with a bit of soil still attached to the roots for stubborn bits.

[NickBristol]

Talking of pesto, a nice solution without taking up much space is the tubes of red or green pesto available from the supermarket. For some reason it's not stored with the pasta sauces but instead it's always with the tomato puree and the tinned tomato. It's cheap too at under a quid for 4 or so meals for two per tube. Couple of spoonfuls mixed with cooked pasta, or with anything that is a little bit bland or bitter, really lifts a meal. The tube says that it needs to have olive oil added but i reckon it's perfect without it.

At home I chuck in a handful of pine nuts for added texture. Incidently, I wouldn't touch pine nuts for years as my dad told me they came from the pine martin...

[maddave]

Can't think of a menu off hand.. I usually 'wing it' with whatever is available at the time, but I do recommend a small selection of items that will make anything into a tasty dish. I carry several small medicine tubs about the size of a 35mm film cannister 1 with curry powder 1 with chilli powder and 1 with mixed herbs. Also I carry some oxo cubes a small bottle of tabasco and a small bag of dried lemon and herb Couscous :super:

These few items can make the blandest bushcraft stew into a dish that will be that well received, you won't even have to wash your billy :biggthump

[alick]

Nice !

I tried some slices of pepperoni sausage the other night. Fry gently and the oil comes out just like you describe Dan. Good one. Love some of the other ideas too.

For the readybrek trick, can anyone tell the difference between the different brands of milk powder ? You can use Alpen like this too, but it's a bit thin unless you add extra milk powder.

In France and Italy I got a taste for salads of tomato or tomato and onion just served sliced with a good dollop of Extra V Olive Oil and sea salt. Plan to try these with the wild salad - beech & dandelion leaves etc in the spring.

Cheers,

[faca]

Yes chorizo is tasty and it lasts till you eat it,;-).
Enjoy