By: Blonde Two
Over the last year of expeditions, I have developed an evening meal system that kind of works and kind of doesn’t.
EXPEDITION COOKING SUCCESS: I don’t know if you have seen ‘Look What We Found’ meals at your local supermarket. They are really yummy, use carefully sourced ingredients and are designed to be cooked in a microwave or scooped into a pan, but can also be boiled in their bag. I have tried a fair selection and never been disappointed, so they are definitely a camp-cooking success. The only issue with these real-meal-at-camp dinners is that they are less calorific than an army ration meal (most things are!) Less calories are usually good, but when you have been walking all day in the rain, calories, particularly carbohydrates, are what give you the guts to do it again the next day. So I had an idea …
EXPEDITION COOKING FAILURE: I thought that I had very cleverly solved the Blonde-needs-calories issue, not by having two ‘Look What We Found’ meals (very tempting); but by sticking a bag of Uncle Ben’s microwave rice in to boil at the same time. This works to a degree; both packages fit in a BruKit boiler, and you can tip the rice in on top of your stew/korma/chilli without any spilling. The only trouble is that the rice doesn’t really heat up quite enough; I think this is because of the lack of liquid.
So this Blonde system is not quite the success I had hoped it might be. It works in that you get a tasty, nutritious warmish meal; but warmish just doesn’t cut the mustard on a chilly winter night. I love ‘Look What We Found’ (they are also really friendly people) and will keep on eating their meals, but the rice just isn’t the way to go (sorry Uncle Ben).
During my extensive research for this blog post, I found this fascinating insight into what different armies around the world put in their 24 hour ration packs. Guess who has Marmite?!?
Mmm. It worked for us. Try it the other way round. Put a small amount of water in the pot and then the rice and because its already cooked it should heat up pretty quickly. Then add the meal and heat it up stirring as required.
We do this method but using a meths stove set up and we have success.
Hmm, maybe the BruKit is a bit too quick, rice might need a slower heating. Will try again (any excuse to go and cook a meal outside!)
I’ve taken to using Quinoa because you can warm it through very easily in one or two minutes, or eat it cold from the bag. You don’t need to add water, which saves on weight. You can bung it in with whatever you are cooking because it is already cooked. Quite often take a bag with me for emergency rations, too.
Funnily enough, have just been camping with a friend and she brought along a bag of bulgar wheat with quinoa and chick peas. It was a bit lacking in taste but would work really well mixed in! Funny stuff quinoa, but a good idea!
I can’t find the marmite!
Ooops – Vegemite (which is much nicer!) and it was the Aussies.