Saturday, May 23, 2009

Trying a new recipe for trail food

  • 1/2 cup instant black bean soup flakes
  • 1/2 cup instant rice
  • 1 1/3 cup water
  • Tapatio or Tabasco hot sauce or salt and pepper to taste
  • about 2 tablespoons of Monterrey Jack hard cheese, cut into small pieces
Mix it all up, bring it to a boil, turn off the burner and cover the pot, wait five minutes. Stir, season to taste with the hot sauce or with salt and pepper. The result is only barely edible, but it's no worse than prepared freeze dried foods specifically marketed for camping, and aside from being much cheaper, the bean flakes and rice are quite compact so you can carry a lot in a small bear canister. It is *definitely* recommended that you carry something other than these for some variety. Hard pretzels and flavored pouch tuna, for example, makes a nice mid-day meal with no cooking required.

-- Badtux the Camping Penguin

6 comments:

  1. Put de lime in de coconut an' mix it all up . . ..

    ReplyDelete
  2. Who makes the black bean soup flakes? I want some.

    ReplyDelete
  3. i'm still a hardtack and jerky kind of guy.

    of course, having the extra horse to haul pack gear helps.

    ReplyDelete
  4. MB - some hardtack and jerky definitely makes this better. But I have a bulk problem in the Cascades, everything has to fit in a bear canister else the bears will get it. And those things are too heavy to haul multiple ones on your back :(.

    JEG - try Trader Joe's. They have bins of bulk dried foods. Though I got this at a local upscale Safeway (yes, they exist).

    Phil - no coconuts -- or limes -- in the California wilderness. sorry.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Do you have any idea how fortunate you are to have easy access to Monterey Jack cheese? It does not exist down here, which is one of the major whinges of many American immigrants to Oz. You cannot make proper Mexican (i.e. Tex-Mex) food without it. As a consequence, Mexican restaurants down here blow chunks. (That, and Aussies' inability to stomach hot-chili food. For some reason, they don't mind spicy Indian, and there are lots of Szechuan and other hot Asian foods, but someohw jalapenos burn them up.)

    We can get all sorts of exotic French cheeses; there are Italian supermarkets where one can find many unusual cow/sheep/goat varieties, and even Greek/Middle Eastern stuff like haloumi and a dozen varieties of feta. (Bulgarian is my favourite.) But Monterey Jack? Never heard of it.

    When we come back on holiday in June, one of the first things we're going to do is hit the Mission for some orpoer burritos. That and North Beach pizza. Mate, when you get me started on cheese, I wax rhapsopdic.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Well, Bukko, all I know is that I like Monterrey Jack cheese and because it is a relatively hard cheese, it carries well when backpacking in cooler weather. (In warmer weather it gets a bit slimy, like any other cheese).

    I forgot the cheese this trip. By adding some salt and pepper to the rice-and-beans mixture I made it sort of edible, and managed to shove it down, but I did manage to lose four pounds with all the hiking and the barely edible food. Ah well, I definitely did not need the four pounds, this penguin is pleasantly rotund and could do to lose another 15 pounds or so.

    - Badtux the Bean-eating Penguin

    ReplyDelete

Ground rules: Comments that consist solely of insults, fact-free talking points, are off-topic, or simply spam the same argument over and over will be deleted. The penguin is the only one allowed to be an ass here. All viewpoints, however, are welcomed, even if I disagree vehemently with you.

WARNING: You are entitled to create your own arguments, but you are NOT entitled to create your own facts. If you spew scientific denialism, or insist that the sky is purple, or otherwise insist that your made-up universe of pink unicorns and cotton candy trees is "real", well -- expect the banhammer.

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.