Ali Williams spent minutes, not hours, hovering over a hot stove to whip up the delicious chicken gumbo she served to hungry diners. All Williams had to do was boil water on a compact backpack-style stove.
Book For Camp Cooks
“The One Pan Gourmet; Fresh Food on the Trail” by Don Jacobson is a handy cookbook for anyone who enjoys camping.
The book features 175 recipes that can be prepared in one pot or pan on a one-burner stove. Recipes use fresh ingredients, such as vegetables and meat, so they’re suitable for short backpack trips, or any trip where a it’s possible to carry fresh food. Campers will find breakfasts, dinners and desserts that are easy to fix at the campsite or at home.
Source: Staff report
Quick and fast meals are welcome on a hike through the back country. They're handy at any campsite when it's a pain to cook with fresh ingredients, like on a rainy day.
If the electricity goes out at home, a camp stove can be the difference between a hot supper or something cold out of a can.
The ease of fixing satisfying camp meals came to delicious light on Feb. 22 during a seminar on back-country cooking presented by Williams and other camp chefs at the Pack Rat Outdoor Center in Fayetteville. Hearty breakfasts and suppers are as simple as lighting a match. On some stoves, even the match isn't necessary.
Williams got the gumbo going on a Jetboil brand stove that has its own igniter. No match needed. It brings two cups of water to a boil in two minutes and is one of several types of compact stoves on the market.
The cooking crew showed the nuances of different stoves. Some burn white gas (Coleman fuel) and use a refillable fuel bottle. Others use non-refillable fuel canisters.
The show of camp stoves and food drew a bevy of customers to the outdoor demonstration. Camp stoves hissed with heat. Breakfast came first. Miriam Daniel opened a package of bulk oatmeal she bought at a a natural foods store.
Instant oatmeal is an option, she said, but tastier whole-grain oatmeal takes only a couple of extra minutes to cook on a backpack-style stove. After the match is struck, the oatmeal is ready in 5 to 10 minutes.
"In the morning, it's good for your spirit to have a hot meal," Daniel said. Campers can add peanut butter or fruit, just like at home.
Quick meals like the ones prepared at the seminar all start with boiling water. Grits, oatmeal or pancakes are good breakfasts. Rice or pasta are the main ingredients for all kinds of dinner recipes.
Meal In A Pouch
Williams took a different route for the chicken gumbo. She used one of the brands of lightweight, freeze-dried backpacker meals that come in a pouch. Just tear open the top and add boiling water. The feast may be enjoyed right out of the pouch or spooned on a plate.
Can't eat the whole thing? Pouches are resealable and the contents keep well.
Convenience comes with a price, and this is the case with backpacker meals. They run $6 to $10 per meal, but the variety of food is impressive. There's lasagna, beef stroganoff, chili, gumbo and more. Breakfasts include scrambled eggs with hash browns and sausage, all in one packet, or biscuits and gravy. There are ready-to-eat desserts as well.
These backpacker meals are fine on their own. Or, they make great backup meals if the weather turns nasty on a canoe or car camping trip.
"A lot of these meals say they serve two, but it depends on a person's appetite," Williams coached.
Backpackers can burn 3,000 to 6,000 calories per day depending on terrain, pack weight and temperature. Long-distance trekkers may readily eat a whole backpacker meal and then some.
If there are leftovers, the pouches can be resealed. The contents keep well.
These meals are tasty right out of the pouch, but Williams showed a nifty trick to jazz up the feast. She added a spoonful of vegetable soup mix to the pouch. Packets of sauce saved from fast-food meals can be added.
There is freeze-dried fare that caters to dietary needs. A pouch chili shown at the seminar touted the contents as low in sodium and gluten-free.
All three camp chefs are enthusiastic backpackers, but Williams said she uses her compact stove at outdoor music festivals, anywhere a quick meal is needed. They're a great addition to an emergency kit in a car or boat, she said.
Long-Distance Dining
Compact stoves and meals are handy on short or long trips. Dennis "Hete" Heter of the War Eagle area cooked on his backpack stove for weeks at a time when he hiked the Appalachian Trail, all 2,180 miles, years ago.
The stove Heter carried was an MSR Whiperlite brand that served him well. The stove burned white gas (Coleman fuel) stored in a 22-ounce bottle. The bottle hooked quickly to the stove and he was cooking in no time.
It was easy, Heter said, to find fuel whenever he was in civilization on his long hike. He didn't need to carry fuel canisters that some stoves use. Two lighters in his pack, plus some waterproof matches, ensured he always had flame. An aluminum windscreen let him use his stove when it was breezy.
Before his trip, Heter dehydrated lots of vegetables and fruit with a home dehydrator. For dinner he'd fix a packet of rice or pasta side dish.
"With that I'd toss in some of the dehydrated vegetables. It made a good meal," he said.
Dehydrated bananas were his favorite. "They were a snack food mainly. They were kind of like eating banana concentrate."
For breakfast, Heter carried instant oatmeal, Carnation instant breakfast, hot chocolate powder and instant pudding.
Powdered milk was a staple, but Heter found a kind that was fortified with extra calories and nutrition.
He managed to meet his daily calorie needs on the long hike, thanks to his trusty stove and easy-to-fix meals.
All Heter had to do was boil water.
Outdoors on 03/06/2014