Your FAVORITE trail meal ever

[Eric Blumensaadt]

What is THE tastiest, most favorite trail meal you have ever had? Could be breakfast lunch or dinner.
(Sorry, no fresh food allowed in this trail meal question, please.)

** Mine is Pad Thai with retort pouch shrimp added. The aroma was driving other backpackers crazy as they ate their much less tasty freeze-dried meals.

[Richard Nisley]

Please explain how you made the Pad Thai, since it wasn't a commercially available freeze dried meal?

[todd]

Crab Alfredo!

And man do I miss it. I can't find foil-packed crab or Bumble Bee whole chicken breast anymore.

I used a (crushed and repackaged) block of ramen, cayenne pepper, nido, Knorr alfredo mix, parsley, and a foil pack of lump crab meat.

While boiling water on my Esbit stove, I warmed my crab, as I always do foil pack anything, by the fire, turning occasionally. Add water to freezer bag, stir well, then add the drained crab and eat.

WOW.

[Sarah Kirkconnell]

Richard…you can actually get Pad Thai kits both in US versions (Taste of Thai) and import ones (importfood.com). But yes, Backpackers Pantry does make a FD pad thai.

[Mark Verber]

I would say fish we caught… but you said no fresh food :(

I think my current favorite is dehydrated hummus + pita bread appetizer (no cook and good cal/oz ratio), main dish of couscous, garlic chicken in foil, olive oil, some extra spices, pine nuts, raisins, currants or cranberries (little fuel required), and end with a nice mint tea + dark chocolate.

[Backpack Jack]

Eric,
Can we enter our own dehydrated meals? My favorite so far for FD is Mountainhouse
,New Orleans Style Rice with Shrimp and Ham.
I've got a few others hooked on it since I've taken out on a few trips now.

Jack

[Justin Baker]

My favorite trail meal is bannock. Very compact and you can add anything you want to it.

Ok, I admit it's not an easy meal to make. If you are using a pot, you can only cook it with hot campfire coals. The only way to stove cook it is with a flat frying pan. But in the winter I have plenty of time in the evenings to do more complicated cooking.

[Rod Lawlor]

Hi Todd,

I generally put my unopened foil pack (or can of tuna) in the cold water and bring it to the boil. This heats it up nicely. You can keep it warm in your pocket until ready to add to the rest of your dinner.

Rod

[d k]

Home-dehydrated tamale pie, closely followed by a home-dehydrated vegetable couscous served with a Moroccan ginger/cilantro sauce (also dehydrated).

[Madeline T]

what is the recipe?

[d k]

It's in Linda Yaffe's High Trail Cookery – a great book if you do your own dehydrating. I'm also rather fond of her Chile Rellenos casserole.

[Backpack Jack]

Sorry Eric I couldn't resist any longer., if you want I can delete it, everyone that has tried this has loved it.

This was taken at Glacier National Park Sept 2012.
I think this is all the ingredients I use, if I remember more I'll add them later.

10 beef steak Tomatoes
1 white onion
1 purple onion
1 yellow onion
1 sweet onion
1 green bellpepper
1 red bellpepper
1 orange bellpepper
1 yellow bellpepper
1 lb ground turkey meat
4-6 bay leaves
1/4 cup terragon
1/4 cup oregano
1/4 basil
4-6 cloves of elephant garlic
organic sea salt
pepper
2 teaspoons chili powder

I start by boiling the tomatoes, and them putting them in a blender and pulse to desired texture
While the Tomatoes are boiling I chop up all the veggies to what ever size I want, big or small, I tend to chop them up on the smaller side.

After the veggies are all chopped I saute them in a big pan to get the flavors going, also at this time I'm browing the turkey (in a seperate pan) and chopping into little bits.

I then put everything into my slow cooker, veggies, meat, tomatoes and all the herbs and garlic, oh forgot to mention you want to mince your garlic, and season to taste with salt, pepper and chili powder.

I let this cook for about 8-10 hrs on 180-200 degrees, then transfer it to my dehydrator and dehydrate for 8-10 hrs. This is a work in progress, about 2 days worth as you can see.
Also cook the pasta and dehydrate at the same time as the sauce.

Edited by jumpbackjack on 02/14/2013 00:23:25 MST.

[Philip Marshall]

this is the kind of thread i'm looking for. Keep the ideas coming, I'm always looking for a way to spice up trips with new food.

One of my favourites is a japanese style soba noodles with salmon + seaweed:

Soba noodles (require a cup or two of hot water)
Foil pouch of salmon
Yaki Nori roasted seaweed
Mix of fried shallots (nice crunch), sesame seeds
Pre-mixed sauce (sesame oil, soy, vinegar)
Kewpie mayo (if length of trip allows)

YUM!

[Author]

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