Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Backpack Hunting What are some of your staple and/or favorite foods?

Dry roasted soy beans.

Mulie backstrap on a stick....and yes, we gave mike [bleep] for packing in a full bag of chips....I think he had the last laugh though as we begged for him to share.

Number One would be Power Bars and Cliff Bars in equal numbers. If I were to take nothing else, it would be those.
Oatmeal, second. Plain, mixed with the dried fruit packaged instant types.
Whatever carb meals I care to take. Couscous, rice, etc. Whatever dried, jerked, or even canned meat/fish I feel like. I'm not impressed with the packaged stuff. For one, they have few calories. Those that do usually rely on fat which isn't nearly as important as complex carbs. E

Nothing can top that SS. E

That is mouth watering.....

(hope this isn't a hijack) so aside from the packed in foods.....curious how many people cook up some of their game in camp? My buddy throws in some Johnny's just for that reason.... I've had mulie heart and backstraps, that's about it. We usually cook up a little something, but not always.

Any good backpacking game recipes (i.e. Johnny's) or methods such as above?

I'm sure it's been covered so skip it if it has...(not exactly staple foods but...)

I tend to overeat when I'm hunting, mainly because when I'm sitting and watching, I'm snacking. So, I carry a bunch of peanuts - in the shell. They're bulky, but not heavy. Having to shell them as I eat slows down the eating considerably.


One time I was backpacking with a friend who took along his 2 small kids (7 miles in on an old mine road). He looked like a giant snail with all the stuff piled on top of his pack including 3 sleeping bags. The finale came after supper when he whumped up a cheesecake - graham cracker crust and a huge can of cherry pie filling. That boy's pack must have weighed 120 lb. We made sure he didn't have to carry it all out.

Most of the time I get dried food (soups, bean dishes, trail mix, pasta, etc.) from the bulk section of our hippie food store in Missoula and take that with sausage, jerky, a couple of bagels, some wraps, a tube of peanut butter, coffee and snack bars. I always have a small squeeze bottle of oil for grouse, backstraps, etc. When I get organized and plan ahead, which is rare, I prepare stuff from one of these:
Mary Bell's Complete Dehydrator Cookbook, or
one of Linda Yaffe's backpacking cooking books,
which beats the hell out of the storebought stuff.
Incidentally, Walton Foods in ID, kind of a survivalist supply house, has some great deals and unusual stuff. I got dried eggs, dried sour cream for sauces, and dried peanut butter there. Haven't broken into any of them, but it should be a major culinary adventure when I do!

I also applaud the water shoes in the pic. They are my bowhunting final stalk/camp shoe secret.

number one is homemade granola bars. they're heavy, but they're also dense and full of energy. if I could only take one thing, it would be the bars.

starbucks instant and hot chocolate packets in the morning, chamomille tea in the evening.

beyond that, whatever I pull out of the stash of food I've dehydrated.

WindedBowhunter:

I am cooking challenged. My wife is a magnificent cook and my belly is a testimony to her good cooking. I have never had to cook for myself except when camping and backpacking.

As a teenager, I learned how to heat canned foods. At first I burned them to the bottom of the pan but eventually I learned how to avoid that. I learned to boil water to rehydrate freeze-dried and dehydrated foods. Those two mainstays and some nonperishable foods like granola bars, candy bars, peanuts/raisins, beef jerky, and crackers, along with some fresh fruit, constituted my camping and backpacking menu for several decades.

I've always been able to do some baking at home, because I can read and follow the simple directions on the side of a box of packaged muffin or cookie mix. But I don't have the patience to put that into effect using a Dutch oven.

Recently I have been trying to improve my back country menu. I have learned how to simmer a casserole on a camp stove, how to fry fresh fish in 1/8" water, how to cook hobo stew or fish wrapped in tinfoil and placed in the coals of a campfire. I finally found a toaster that works pretty well on a camp stove. I learned how to barbecue a steak over the coals of a campfire and make it taste pretty good. But I still can't do a decent job of barbecuing at home on my gas grill.

I can make a pretty good burrito using just dehydrated ingredients and I learned how to make a venison chili good enough that occasionally people ask me for the recipe. I learned how to make dehydrated eggs taste less disgusting and I can make biscuits and gravy on a camp stove.

I think there might be a few really good cooks who will be reading this article and they are probably shaking their heads and laughing right now. One of the reasons that I'm cooking challenged is that I have a bad attitude. When I go into the field, I have goals that I want to achieve and gourmet cooking is not one of them. I go to hunt, hike, climb, fish, explore or something like that. When It's time to eat, all I want to do is refuel as quickly and efficiently as possible so I can return to the task at hand. Over the years I have figured out that it usually takes time to cook a good meal, so I guess I'll never be a very good cook.

When I'm backpacking, the weight of my backpack is a primary concern, so food has to be lightweight and non-perishable. That pretty much means that I am confined to a diet of freeze-dried, instant oatmeal, instant cocoa, Coffee (in a tea bag), Cup-O-Noodles, and a few granola bars. To my taste, Mountain House offers the least disgusting prefabs.

DRINKS
Cocoa, instant
Tang, Kool Aid
Coffee, Folgers Singles (like a tea bag)
Cup-O-Soup

LUNCH (no cook)
Granola Bars, Candy Bars
Fruit Leather, Beef Jerky (chopped & formed)
Sandwich Crackers
GORP Trailmix (Good Old Raisins & Peanuts + M&Ms)
Squeeze Bottle Cheese & Ritz Crackers
Peanut Butter & Jelly on Bread
Peanut Butter & Honey on Tortillas
Lunchables
Fruit, canned or fresh
Summer Sausage & Cheese
Canned Sardines & Ritz Crackers

When I'm base camping, I still want food to be non-perishable, prepared quickly and with a minimum of cleanup. But the weight of the food is not critical. I can also take a cooler to keep a few things from spoiling. Foil pouches seem to pack better than cans and I avoid glass containers. I always take at least one loaf of bread. Here's a list of some foods that I use when base camping.

QUICK BREAKFASTS
Instant Oatmeal, Quaker Fruit & Cream (at least 2 packs per person)
Pop Tarts
Cereal & Milk

ENGLISH MUFFINS or BAGELS
English Muffins or Bagels or Australian Toaster Biscuits (2 � 3 muffins per person)
Jelly (restaurant packets)
Margarine
Need a stove top Toaster or "toast" them in a frying pan

BISCUITS, GRAVY & EGGS
Bread Rolls (at least 2 rolls per person)
Gravy, Country Time Gravy Mix with Sausage � dehydrated (1 pack feeds two people)
EGGS, freeze-dried, with bacon and red/green peppers (or take real eggs in a cooler)
Salt & Pepper

PANCAKES
Pancakes, Bisquik Shake & Pour - plastic bottle (small bottle feeds 1 � large bottle feeds 3)
Maple Syrup - plastic bottle
Margarine

DINNERS

VENISON CHILI (feeds 5-6)
� lb Ground Venison (at home microwave in a colander on a plate, then freeze)
2 can Black Beans (frijoles negra)
1 small can Mild Jalapeno Peppers
� Onion, small red, chopped
1 pack Chili Seasoning Mix
� Green Bell Pepper, chopped
� Red Bell Pepper, chopped

HOT DOGS & BEANS (feeds 4)
8 Hot Dogs (boil them)
8 Hot Dog Buns
1 Onion, chopped
Ketchup, plastic bottle
Mustard, plastic bottle
Relish, plastic bottle
2 cans, Boston Baked Beans

BURRITOS (feeds 4)
2 packs Refried Beans, Mexicali Rose, dehydrated
1 bag Minute Rice in a boil-in-bag pouch
8 Tortillas (large)
Salsa, in a plastic bottle
1 Tomato, chopped
1 pack Cheese, shredded Mexican mix
1 Onion, chopped

BEEF STEW
Dinty Moore Beef Stew (1 boil-in-bag pouch per person)
Bread
OR you can use Campbells Chunky Soup

NO LETTUCE SALAD (feeds 4, goes great with chili)
1 Avacado, cubed
� Onion, small red chopped
1 Cucumber, cubed
1 Tomato, cubed
Salt & Pepper

CASSEROLES � there are a variety of ready-made, dehydrated, easy to prepare casseroles on the market. All you have to do is add some kind of meat and 3 tablespoons of margarine to get a full meal. Typically one box will feed two to three people. Here are some examples:

Macaroni & Cheese, Velveeta Shells & Cheese + Chunk Ham in a foil pouch

Lypton or Knorr Chicken Casserole + Chunk Chicken, in a foil pouch

Potatoes Au Gratin, dehydrated + Summer Sausage cut into chunks

Tuna Helper + Chunk Tuna in a foil pouch

Hamburger Helper + Ground Meat (cook hamburger at home & freeze)

At base camp, fresh fruits and vegetables taste great after a few days of consuming non-perishable foods.

KC

I'll add a few to the mix.

I like to carry pilot bread (aka hardtack), though it's hard to find outside of Alaska. Only one store here in Spokane carries it, Win Co. It's mostly like an over-sized Ritz cracker and tastes like an unsalted saltine. They're pretty resilient though. I'll carry salami, or some other hard sausage, and hard cheese to have with them, or spread peanut butter or honey on them.

I also like to carry Russian tea mix which is Tang and instant tea with some spices. The recipe is as follows:

• 1 1/3 cup Tang
• 1 1/3 cup instant tea mix (make sure it's not the sweetened or lemon variety)
• 1 tsp. cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp. cloves

I also recently made Logan bread, which turned out decent. It's pretty much a ton of flour, honey, and molasses with nuts, dried fruit, and just enough water to wet the flour. There are a few recipes to be found online. The one I used is at http://www.backpacking-guide.com/backpacking-recipes.html

Salmon strips.

Pepperoni sticks.

Creatine Extreme Bars.

Ramen Rescue.

Sincerely,
Thomas

I tried the Knorr Mac & Cheese Plus veggies and thought it was great. Definitely bringing it on my next trip.

Mark

Peanut Butter
Breakfast Cookies
Bagels
Dark Chocolate
Spam
Laxatives!