You don't hear much about different trail food techniques on 24hour so I figured I would post up my favorite way to eat. This is what works the best for me because I don't like to do dishes in the woods.

Freezer bag cooking can be as simple or complicated as one wants to make it. At its simplest its just putting your food in a zip top freezer bag, adding water and letting it cook. At its most complicated you can buy a food dehydrator and pretty much make any meal under the sun that will rehydrate in a bag. I'm somewhere right in the middle as I buy my ingredients from the store and put together my own meals. A quality grocery store usually has a bulk isle where you can find all kinds of dehydrated goodies.



Before you start there is a few items you will need.

1. A pot or mug to boil water and a stove of some sort. I prefer alcohol or canister stoves because there are light and compact.

2. Freezer bags to put your food in. Its important not to skimp on the bags. Your putting boiling water into them and having a seam break is not a good thing. I like the ziploc brand freezer bags but the glad brand work well too.

3. A cozy. A cozy is just a place to put your food that will keep it warm while its rehydrating. You can buy a cozy thats made for freezer bag cooking or make one your self. I used a nalgene/OR water bottle blanket for a long time and it worked great. I have also seen people use the jackets or what ever they have laying around.

4. A long handled spoon. You don't want a fork or spork because it will poke holes in the bag. A lexan or ti long handled spoon is like a half ounce and works great.

5. Food.

Now when you have all that great stuff all you do is put the food in the freezer bag, dump hot water in the bag and put it in your cozy. after about 10 minutes its all ready to eat. You can eat it out of your cozy by folding the edges of the freezer bag around the cozy or put the bag and contents in your pot. when its all done just zip the bag up, lick off your spoon and your good to go. No fuss clean up.

The easiest way to get started is to just buy a mountain house or similar meal and drop it into a freezer bag. The reason I just don't take the whole MH is they are bulky. Thats fine for a day trip but I find for multi days the MH packaging takes up a lot of room. This works great but its expensive and if you don't like the flavors offered your out of luck.

My favorite is to buy the Knorr or betty crocker sides. They are usually by the mac and cheese at the grocery store. There is a million different flavors and they are like a buck. They have noodles, mashed potatoes, pastas, rices, etc. They run about 400-550 calories each and are the perfect size for a meal. They taste pretty good too. You can add a pouch of chicken or tuna to boost the calories too. One of my favorites is to get the cheddar mashed potatoes and add butter buds and bacon bits. Its like a big baked potato. I try to finds ones that only take 2 cups of water because thats how big my smallest mug is. Although it says to boil them, they will rehydrate in about 10 minutes in a cozy.

Now if you really want to be adventurous you can buy a book called freezer bag cooking by Sarah Kirkconnell (a excellent book by the way) and follow the recipes out of there. It has everything from drinks to deserts and I haven't had a bad one yet. Even better is you can get a whole kit from Sarah's website. Most of the ingredients in her book you can find at grocery stores. The sky is the limit when you go this way.

You can use this method for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Oats and granola make great breakfast. Just add your quick oats, some brown sugar, dried fruit or nuts and some powdered milk. If you like cold breakfast one of my favorites is flavored granola, powdered milk and dried fruit. Add cold water and eat.

You can fit 3-5 days in a gallon ziploc. I usually will do a complete day (breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks and coffee) into one gallon bag. It makes for easy packing and I know where everything is. If its a long trip I will put all the meals in one bag, snacks in one bag and beverages in one bag. Then use a gallon bag to carry with me away from camp with a days rations.

This is a typical days worth of food for normal hunting. I will add or take away depending on the hunt.

Total weight 1 pound 8oz.
Calories:
680 Shells with chix
675 Potatoes with bacon
380 Justin's
380 Nature Valley
350 Oats
0 Coffee and Tea
2465 Total



One days rations VS. One mountain house



By all means not the only way to eat good in the woods but by far my favorite. I would love to hear others thoughts and methods of what they do as well.

This is a great thread. I would love to learn more about this subject!

GOOD STUFF! I made my cozy from some reflectix (bubble wrap with foil on both sides). I just made a pouch a little larger than a quart ziploc and made a flap that can be tucked inside to seal the heat in as it rehydrates. I made a cozy for my MSR Titan kettle out of evazote foam, it weighs nothing but I almost never use it for a meal because I just eat out of the bags.

Great Post KenaiKing, thanks for the ideas!................DJ

Great thread idea Kenai.

I also made a reflectix cozy for 1qt freezer bags. While I find it a minor PITA to eat from a bag, I LOVE the lack of cleanup. I just roll up the empty bag to bleed out the air, then zip it shut to carry home. My pots only boil water, so they're always cleawn. I also mostly use a small tea kettle instead of a pot due to its efficiency, and ease of pouring.

I like Zip bag oatmeal. In a zip freezer bag, put 1/2 cup oatmeal, 1 tbs sugar, 3 tbs powdered milk. At camp for breakfast, add 1 cup of boiling water to the bag and let sit for 5 minutes or so. I usually add a deli pouch of honey for taste and extra carbs.

A zip sandwich bag won't work--trust me, please!

I'm a recent freezer bag cooking convert.

Here is a good one if you don't mind carrying tortillas, but requires a dehydrator.

Bean and rice burritos.

Open up a can of refried beans and doctor em up with whatever sauce you like. Then spread on the dehydrator until dry and crumbly. I then run them through one of my wife's old coffee grinders to get them in a powder form (helps with re-hydration). These go into a quart ziplock by themselves and then into another quart ziplock filled with Knorr Taco Rice.

On the trail, add boiling water to your bean and rice bags and place them into your cozy along with your tortillas. Once everything is rehydrated, you also have nice hot tortillas. I sometimes pack in a small bag of Fritos for some crunch. Taco Bell sauce packets top it off.



Another favorite is a package of ramen (pitch the seasoning packet) with red pepper flakes, parmesan cheese, garlic powder and shelf stable bacon bits.

I've been totally sold on this method for a while. It's light, cheap, tasty and leaves no mess, especially if you're running a woodstove. There are so many great options of stuff to put together. I use a reflectix cozy as well and ti does a good job for very little weight. Clothes are an option but if you happen to get a hole...

Great recipes (and book!) here:

http://www.trailcooking.com/

Instant stuffing and small size canned/foil packed chicken is a good combo.

kenai:

This is a great idea. I've been using Lypton and Knorr casseroles, adding a pouch of meat, same as you. Also dehydrated scalloped potatoes and stuffing mix. But I don't like the cleanup. This eliminates the cleanup. Thanks for the tip.

Can you buy a ready made Cozy, or do you have to make your own?

KC

You can buy them over at http://www.trailcooking.com/store/cozies-and-accessories

The stuffing sounds pretty good too. I will have to look for that one next time.

I have found dehydrated refried beans at the fancy organic store before. I forget the name of them but they were tasty on the tortillas. I really like the idea of the chips in them.

Browtine:

I make the same beans & rice burritos. They're real good. I use Mexicali Rose dehydrated refried beans and Minute Rice in a boil-in-bag pouch. Add a little taco sauce to improve flavor. One pouch of beans and one pouch of rice and four big tortillas will feed two hungry guys.

We used to be able to buy the Mexicali Rose at Wal-Mart but they stopped carrying it so I get them over the Internet now.

KC

I second JasonB's stovetop stuffing and chicken. I also add to that some instant gravy to moisten it up a bit.

One of my favorite breakfasts is MH scrambled eggs(the add water and rehydrate, not the kind you have to cook in a pan). Put 'em on a flour tortilla with shredded taco cheese and Chic Fila Jalapeno salsa (get the little single serve packets at the resturant). mmm mmm.

Sarah's book is excelent, as well as the Wilderness Cooking website by Laurie Ann March. Her book, A Fork In The Trail is good reads for those interested in freezerbag cooking.

Good thread...thanks for taking the time to post your info.

I like Moutain House's, but the packaging is way to bulking. I may just start buying the big tubs of MH and packing my own. Some of these ideas would help me easily vary what I get to eat though, thanks!

What do you guys do for meat/protein? Bag chicken/tuna? My big arse seems to have to have it.

This is similar to what we do but we usually buy Mountain House in bulk - #10 cans then we measure out an amount for each meal. we find about 2 cups per person/day for that. This goes into a Ziplock bag. We do the same thing for breakfast & lunch. Each meal into a Ziplock - usually a quart. They are individually sealed with as little air as possible then 1 breakfast, 1 lunch & 1 dinner goes into a 1 gal. Ziplock.
In the morning, just grab a 1 gal. bag & you've got your days' meals. For the items needing hot water, pour the water into the ziplock, partially seal & wait about 5-7 minutes. Eat it right out of the bag. No muss, no fuss. By buying bulk, you can customize the amount you want of each meal and it is cheaper - even with freight. The one thing with us tho is that we're gone for 2-3 weeks at a time.
Our only utensils besides our stoves are a qt. saucepan, coffee cup and a spoon. Coffee, etc, is carried in it's own ziplock bag.
Bear in Fairbanks

Thanks for the write-up Kenai, great stuff.

Pointer, I almost always take along a chunk of summer sausage or the like--it goes well chopped up with most savory dishes, and is great cold with cheese/crackers/etc. The store bought varieties have enough preservatives (hooray for chemicals!) that they are fine for several days in warmer weather. Jerky's always good too, but like cheese, you have to eat a LOT of it for it to be a primary protein source.

I also like the salmon (or tuna) foil packets that you can get at groc. stores for @ $1; should be next to the canned tuna, etc. I like 'em packed in water but sunflower oil jacks up the calories if you want 'em. Just don't forget a ziplock bag to put the empties in.

Peanut butter or most nuts in general add a little protein to the diet. I started using little (1oz?) PB packets last year...there is a pic of something similar on pg. 1 of this thread. They are pretty convenient.

What ziploc bags do you use that will take hot water? I would like to buy the MH in bulk, but was concerned with the hot water in them. Thanks

I use the ziploc freezer bags. They will hold up to boiling water no problem. Just dont poke them with a fork.

Do you just eyeball the water measurements, or do you measure in some way?

Mark your cup/bowl/pot.

How long after you open the bulf cans of MH will they be good for. Do you need to vacuum seal any left overs? Ziplock eveything right away?

NIDO powdered milk in the latino section of the grocery aisle at Walmart is really good powdered WHOLE milk.

You need to measure the water for most meals. If you are using a little alcohol burner you measure the water for the pot and just enough alcohol for the stove to get a boil. If it isn't real cold sometimes just bubbles and not a true boil is enough if your cozy is effective. Also, you need to check and see if your pot POURS, and doesn't spew the boiling water on your feet, all over the ground and everywhere but inside the bag. The little teapot/kettle idea is a good one. My MSR Titan Kettle has a little pour lip that works well, the water pours out in a nice little column that is easy to direct.

SM- Thanks for the tips. I do like summer sausage. Heck, I'm from German descent on both sides, so about any ground & spiced meat stuffed into an animal instestine is fine by me! I generally just do PB sandwiches/tortillas for lunches. However, by about day 4 it's getting pretty hard to stomach. Likewise with the oatmeal for breakfast. I've just about made myself not be able to eat oatmeal after a ten day sheep hunt TWO YEARS ago. I can just barely get it down anymore without gagging.

I've never tried it, but an old college professor would dry hamburger. They'd boil it so as to get most of the fat off then just spread it on a cookie sheet in the oven on low for a couple of hours. Something like that may be just the ticket to mix with the Knorr meals! Wife and kid are heading out of town for the next week so I may have to do some experimenting...

I also have that Freezer Bag Cooking book. If you want more ideas, you can also go to youtube and check out the videos (admittedly a little goofy but good ideas on food):

http://www.youtube.com/results?sear...=X&oi=spell&resnum=0&spell=1

Couscous is awesome in a freezer bag, by the way...I think that this year I'm going to try it with one of those pouches of salmon and I think I saw chicken pouches at one of the natural foods grocery stores. (I don't frequent them, so I'll need to go back and check to make sure I wasn't seeing things.)

halflife65:

I don't know where you live, but here in Colorado, we can buy pouches of chicken at the supermarket.

KC

does anyone use vaccum sealer bags for this? they may be a little more bulky but would resist poncture by a spork a little better. Just wondering if they will stand up to the heat

We have tuna, chicken, salmon, and shrimp in pouches around my way. Makes for some good variety, especially when you add them to lipton or knorr sides. Another good, quick meal is lipton instant soup mix (made a little thick) with chicken, etc added. Almost gumbo or stew like.

Fred Meyers (where I usually shop) doesn't seem to have the chicken. I'll check the other grocery stores, I guess. Thanks for the heads up.

Another plug for Sarah's work (www.trailcooking.com). I've known her since before she was even using FBC, and have spent time on the trail with she and her son. Good people.

If you are getting into this, I would really recommend a dehydrator. It's lots easier than you might imagine. I'm getting to the point that dehydrated backpacking meals are a by-product of the normal cooking process. If I make something (like the stew I'll be eating on the trail Saturday night) that doesn't go over too well with the troops, I just throw the leftovers in the dehydrator. Somehow, it always tastes better on the trail. Producing dehydrated ground beef is also an easy and cost effective proposition. If you get regular (as opposed to lean) ground beef for dehydrating, you can barely tell the difference between normal and rehydrated.

Evan,

I have been thinking about a dehydrator for a while how long does it take to do a stew? Do you cut the meat up smaller when you dehydrate it?

is there any tips for making sure you are not spilling water where you don't want it.

I would think it would be nice if you had some type of cup with the cozy on the outside, kinda like how the jet boil cup is but not as big, then boil the water pour the water into the bag, take the cozy off the cup this should allow the cup to cool very fast then stick the ziplock back into the cup and use the ziplock as a liner inside the cup, this way you have something to hold onto while your eating. I have never done it but does anyone have an idea if this would work??

another disadvantage of the moutain house meals, I can't tell you how many times the bags seem to get punctured and leak for some reason.

what do you guys do with the messy bags after you have used them??

Yea you can do that with the cup or you can do that with the cozy. I mentioned that in the first post but I should of taken a picture. The bag will fit right in a mug of pot but I like to use my mug for coffee. That's why I prefer a cozy. You just zip the bag back up. As long as you fold it down when you fill and eat there will be no food on the zipper part of the bag.

Practice makes perfect when pouring boiling water into a bag

You want everything to be roughly the same size. In this case, the meat was ground venison, so the holdouts were the carrots. I had to cut them down some so they'd dry out as quickly as everything else. A few hours, I don't pay too much attention. You can't really overdo it. If it is more dried out, it just takes more water to rehydrate.



I'm looking forward to seeing one of these in person (removeable cozy):
http://www.rei.com/product/798273

I've never had a problem with leaky mountain house bags; I even put them in my sleeping bag (carefully) while they're "cooking" to turn up the heat.

I dunno what happened, we had like 3 of them bust when I used them last year, it was dark when we did them up so I dunno what the heck happened.

the problem I see with that REI cookset is it is .6 liters, seems like most of the freezer bag meals at least the ones posted are centered around 2 cups of water. so after you add 16 oz of water plus once the contents rehydrate you need something bigger than half a quart, at least if you wanted to stick the bag back in the pot and use the pot as a holder, maybe the cozy is the best way to go after all, or is there another superlight weight insulated mug that would work, I could see myself having trouble getting the hot water into the bag without spilling it all over the place.

oh back to one other question, is there an easy way to get rid of the bags that you used for rehydrating, would they burn??

You dont need a mug big enough to hold the entire contents because thats what the ziploc is doing. Just big enough to for you hand to hold onto so you dont get burned by the contents in the bag. I have stuck mine in a 450ml mug without issues. Your over thinking the mug thing.

When your done you put the empty ziploc in your bag and carry it out.

Hmm, it was dark huh? You stir your pouches with a knife?

Spagetti sauce and cooked spagetti dehydrate real nice. Add some gravel and a few parmesan packets and you have a great meal.

I just had a look at the REI site above. Their "foon" looks remarkably like a "spork".

Sorry, made me laugh.

I like your avatar Browtine. What a great trip that must have been. I was thinking the other day that probably the best backpacking trip I've ever had was when I had the whole family out.

Just to keep this post on topic -- 2 jars of spaghetti sauce dehydrated down to something like fruit leather with a couple of ramen packets and generous helping of dehydrated ground meat makes a pretty doggone good meal for 4.

I don't mess with the "re-hydrate in a bag" deal. I use FBC style recipes, but just cook them in my pot. That lets me simmer longer or hotter if necessary to rehydrate the stuff that I've really dehydrated. It doesn't bug me to clean my one cooking / eating pot after a meal. The process is usually started by heating a mug of tea in the same pot. By the time I've eaten the pot clean and then had a mug of tea in it, there isn't much cleanup left.

Thanks Evan. That was her first real backpack trip when she was 9. We've done three more since and I think I've got her hooked. Planning the logistics for getting the 6 year old twins out with us this summer! I just ordered a Longhunter for that trip as I'll definitely be the pack mule!

Very intersting topic guys. I've been debating on how to make life easier in the woods when it comes to eating - even if I'm on just a day hunt. I'll definetly give some of these a try.

my cup I drink out of is an old fashioned aluminum measuring cup, lighter than titanium and has the ounces impregnated inside the cup.



but as others have said this is a great thread. a bit time consuming, but I'm gonna try it this year for sheep hunts. my biggest challenge going in is not weight but bulk.

looks like a good way to save some bulk.

but one other tip.


I'd either take one MH meal in it's packaging, or take a clean one emptied of it's contents, with the ziplock resealable top.

use it for your cozy for your freezer bag and then put the whole shebang inside your mad bomber hat to keep it warm.


mad bomber type hat pictured, but I have lighter ones I use for sheep hunts

In a pinch (@#$&, I forgot my spoon) you can cut an oval out of the meat pouch and that makes for a decent spoon.

Any chance we can stick this thread?

This looks like a pretty fun way to eat on the trail!

Or cut off chop sticks.