Cookware for Two

Hi Nicholas. On most of our trips, my girlfriend and I cook our meal for two in a Snowpeak Trek 900. We eat out of it together too, but you could easily add a plastic bowl like the GSI nForm recently reviewed here on BPL if you wanted separate dinner bowls.

A lot depends on what and how you'll be cooking though. We tend to use Enertia Trailfoods or meals that we've dehydrated ourselves, so all we do is boil water really.

You'll get a lot of good suggestions here though.

– Dave

my ti-evernew .9L pot has been feeding 2 for a couple years. it's even more perfect since we switched to freezer bag cooking and boil a liter of water for 2 dinners and a drink or 2. around 1L should be sufficent.

I do alcy-stove cooking (if you call boiling ‘cooking’) for 2-5 people with the Evernew 1.3L pot http://www.backpackinglight.com/cgi-bin/backpackinglight/evernew_ul_titanium_3.html
Howbeit, 5 people have to eat in shifts but they’re all fed within 30 minutes.

Anyway, this pot is great for 2 people.

-Barry

I have been using the GSI Dualist (w/telescoping foons) as my two person cookware. If you are looking for a packable "Run & Gun" kitchen this is it. I keep this in my car at all times. I nestle a Vargo stove and fuel canister in it with two GSI foons. (color coded). Add water and food and you are complete.

>A lot depends on what and how you'll be cooking though

Amen

We couldn't possibly 'survive' with less than a 2 litre pot. It is a constant mystery to me how couples manage with only 900ml! We use the AGG 2qt anodised aluminum pot.

>>We couldn't possibly 'survive' with less than a 2 litre pot. It is a constant mystery to me how couples manage with only 900ml! We use the AGG 2qt anodised aluminum pot.

Whoa! What are you two cokking, Allison?

I might ask the same as you folks!

An example meal: Alfredo Pasta from continental. As a side dish it claims to serve 4, but as a main dish for two hungry hikers, it serves two:

500ml milk (made from milk powder)
620ml water.

We throw in dehydrated veggies and meat, so add a bit more water for those to soak up (200ml), so that's over 1.3 litres before we've even added the pasta mix. Then we need room to stir, plus a little pot space since the dish seems to foam up a bit.

“I might ask the same as you folks!”

There are several meal ideas, but here’s a generic example (we only cook fbc):
1.3L pot holds 5+ cups of water.
2C for Mountain House meal (two 10oz servings)
2C for Hot chocolate
1C for something else :), like washing or eating more food.

With that hot meal, we’ll munch on more granola/chocolate bars, beef jerky, nuts, cheese, etc.,

-Barry

p.s. My ‘oz.’ always means weight like all commercial manufacturers use. If I mean ‘fl. oz.’, I will write it as thus like all commercial manufacturers use.

>With that hot meal, we’ll munch on more granola/chocolate bars, beef jerky, nuts, cheese, etc.

Well there's the difference. We just eat one hot meal and call it a day. We save the snacks for on the trail. A'serving' of Mountainhouse wouldn't even touch the sides!

“Well there's the difference. We just eat one hot meal and call it a day.”

Some Mountain House meals are easily 500+ calories and we can call it a day.
Or we do lighter suppers, supplemented with side dishes…it depends on a lot of factors.

-Barry

I would probably go berserk and/or steal the other person's portion of food if cooking in a 1 liter pot. The .85L I use has just barely enough room to boil two cups of water (without boiling over) and add in the contents of my meal (again, without boiling over). There's no way I could physically cook for two unless I were trying to lose twenty pounds in two days! For two people I find a 2-liter pot more convenient–2 C. ea for meal water (4 C total) plus 1.5 C. ea for tea or coffee/etc (another 3 C.). At meal times in my camp, two people use at least 7 Cups of water. I also only cook in the pot, very strongly disliking cooking in bags or anything. Smallest I could see just for cooking the actual food is ~1.5 L–my 1.3L doesn't quite have the volume I'd like… but hey, your mileage probably does vary! (I've never been one for cold meals, and I tend to get much of my fluid intake as a warmed-over beverage.)

Edit: Oops, specific recommendation, MSR 2L Titan pot–minus lid, mine weighs 4.4 ounces. Piece of aluminum foil on top, life is good.

Ahhhh Brad. Someone else with a hearty appetite.

Honestly, 500 cal for dinner is pathetic when you are burning 3000+ calories per day. Must be a LOT of snacking going on. I don't have a sweet tooth, so can't stand a lot of traditional snack foods. mixed nuts and jerky are about all I snack on (through the day).

And my "drink" mug alone holds 450ml. 1 cup looks like the tide is half out!

We couldn't possibly 'survive' with less than a 2 litre pot. It is a constant mystery to me how couples manage with only 900ml! We use the AGG 2qt anodised aluminum pot.

LOL. I bought a 1.3L evernew pot thinking it was going to be fine for two of us, only to be dumbfounded by how small it was when it arrived. Definitely a 1-person cookpot!

So I went back to my GSI pot (hard anodized aluminium). It has a non-stick surface which is second to none, so if you're doing 'proper' cooking (eg. risotto) then it's a pleasure to use. The non-stick on the evernew pots just doesn't compare. Funnily enough the pot is listed as approximately 1.3L in the specs but when you measure its capacity it is almost 2L. Now that is dumb advertising. Might be a bit heavy for some folks… weighs in at 8.5oz/240g. But it is not at all flimsy like the Ti pots. You cannot bend it with your hands, and the base is nice and thick.

“Honestly, 500 cal for dinner is pathetic…”

Allison,
It depends if you want to burn off some love handles or not :). Add a 1.5C hot chocolate with a little olive oil and a pinch of salt (mmm), and some soft gooey raisin cookies for desert and you can easily hit 1000 calories for a meal.

My biggest calories are eaten during breakfast with stuff like bacon, eggs, oats (with a LOT of additives) and Whole Foods pop tarts.

Yea, snacking during the day adds up the calories. Those cashews, walnuts, and peanuts— wow. Good calories and electrolytes.

Brad,
Yes you will always need a much bigger pot if you don’t want to do ziploc bag cooking. But I will endorse that you can make some pretty good meals in a bag with a bonus of no dirty dishes and less kitchen volume. Whoo hoo!

-Barry

Allison- I'm of the 450ml drink mug club, too. Normally. Except, well, not to sound like a total gear nerd, but I keep my titan kettle at work for impromptu lunches, and I forgot my coffee mug today, soooo… I just took my kettle to the coffee shop next door for a $1 refill. Volume seems about right!

Yeah, there'll be baggie cookers and non-baggie cookers. I prefer the pot 'cause my dirty hands stay out of my food better and stay a bit, um, cleaner. And I really dislike hauling out dirty baggies. But when it comes to choosing 2-person cookware for the OP, this is one of the primary considerations… Cooking in the pot? Probably want the 1.5-2L. Cooking in the bag? 1L will probably do. Cheers, all!

Edit: PS, Allison– Love your new avatar! Inspired by your down addiction?

We too seem to need a 2L (MSR Titan) pot. We even seem to need more than a 2L pot…usually we bring a MSR 0.85L Titan as well, the 2L for food, the latter for hot water, drinking and cleaning. Cooking convenience seems to trump UL in our family, although I note that our meals can get pretty elaborate at times (my wife cooks so I can't complain!).

I am trying to convince my wife we can get by with a 0.85L MSR Titan and a Tri-Ti/alcohol stove, but she doesn't believe me. She is dubious about freezer-bag cooking, too. I even bought her some freezer-bag cookbooks, but no luck yet.

I'm still trying…

I started off years ago with a stainless steel set of MSR stuff – 2L, 1.8L, a handle, and a lid (I also had an aluminum fry pan in there). After realizing I didn't need 2 pounds of pots and pans for just two people, I went to an AGG 2L pot. Lately my wife and I have just been using my Snow Peak 700 mug. It seems to work okay for our needs and is fine for my home made concoctions that go in a freezer bag and get hot water dumped over them. It's also enough for Mountain House if we go that way. If we want tea later I'll just boil more water.

Lately I've been on the fence about switching back to something bigger for doing fancier/bigger meals. I like the no-clean-up of the bag cooking though.

When "cooking" for two I too find the 2 liter Ti pot works the best. It allows us hot water for two, 10 fl.oz. drinks, three to four 8 fl.oz cups for our entres, and water to wash up. When I hike solo I tend to carry a 0.9 liter or 1.1 liter pot to support the same system.

Lately I have carried a 550 ml. pot and it works ok. I do have to heat water at least twice with that small a pot. 1.5 cups for my drink, another 1.5 cups for hydrating my meal and a little more for wash up.

For a few years I have been eating right out of the pot, and carry a 10 fl.oz. insulated cup so my tea stays hot until I've finished my meal. I could do with a less complicated system and lose some weight but I enjoy the convenience of hot water in the wild and so I continue.

Last weekend I packed for an overnight trip and my pack weighed 12 lbs. 5 ounces, including food and fuel. That's low enough for me. I carry less weight for comfort, not high mileage.

My wife and I use the Trek 1400, 1.4L pot with .5L pan lid. Just enough to get by for us, and we're considering using a 2L pot for winter. I couldn't imagine using a smaller pot unless I ate a lot of snack food with dinner, like mixed nuts, etc., but I've got a serious appetite. Like Allison my wife and I also prefer more "real food" less snacks for dinner.

Thanks a lot for all of the recommendations so far :)

A couple questions about the SnowPeak Trek 1400:

1.) Are the pot and lid handles removable and able to be put back on without injuring the cookware?

2.) Are there serving markings inside of the pot and lid? If so, what are the increments shown?

update:
Thanks to Peggy @ SnowPeak for answering this question.
The answer is Yes. Serving markings are stamped in 10, 20,30, 35 oz and in liters of 0.2, 0.5, 1L increments.

Thanks,

Nick

When my darling girlfriend and I hike together, we always cook separately on our own alcohol stoves and I highly recommend it.

Advantages:
-We can each cook what we want, when we want. Even so, nothing stops us from sharing meals together, we'll just cook our own meals at the same time if we like. Sometimes it's the same thing at the same time, sometimes not, but we're always happy.

-If we want to hike separately for a short while, or say if I want to push on for a potential great sunset spot and she wants to call it an early day, we aren't left with the dilemma- Who's going to be eating Clif bars for dinner?

-We're both weight concious, and carrying our own separate systems eliminates some issues. If she wants to carry slow-cook foods and I'm doing couscous and potato flakes, I'm not irritated sharing the weight of a bunch of extra fuel to cook her stuff.

-Cooking our own food makes planning easier in some instances as well. Say when assembling a big maildrop for the both of us, it's easier to count calories when I don't have to split the caloric value of a food item between two people.

My $0.02.