Tag: 2015

Just Add Water – Alpine Aire and Live Prepared Instant Food Review – Camp Cook Week Day 5

Welcome to Camp Cooking Week! We’ll be cooking outdoors all week long so come back tomorrow for more outdoor cooking tips and tricks.


Just Add Water – Camp Cook Week Day 5

Yesterday’s post was all about backpackable snacks you can eat on the trail, but sometimes you just want a warm meal. Freeze dried food packs are common for backpacking and camping. Just add hot water and voila you have dinner in a pouch. But are they tasty? Will kids eat them? Well…Yes and no.

Live Prepared
Compared to fresh produce and home cooked meals, freeze dried anything isn’t going to taste great, but from experience I know that a long day of hiking makes most things taste better. Live Prepared pouches are shelf stable for up to 15 years, lightweight and easy. Just remove the oxygen absorber pack, add hot water, stir and wait. In ten minutes your food is ready to go.

At Outdoor Retailer, Live Prepared gave me some granola, oatmeal and beef stroganoff to try.
Big E took the oatmeal with strawberries since it is wheat and nut free. We usually have oatmeal when we’re camping so he was a fan, but when we mixed the hot water with the oats we didn’t quite stir it enough and there were still some clumps of powder when it was time to eat. He still liked it, but not as much as the oatmeal we normally have.

I broke out the beef stroganoff for a picnic with little g and baby L. I had high hopes that little g would like it since she’s a noodle fanatic normally. Unfortunately she took one bite and said “Yuck! I don’t like that.” I didn’t really blame her, eating it reminded me of too thick gravy and I couldn’t finish more than a small bowl.

Alpine Aire
The Sierra Chicken pouch from Alpine Aire was a leftover purchase from Mountain Dad’s last man trip. I expected the pasta, chicken, tomatoes and corn to be packed with flavor. It was a southwest style dish, plus like many prepackaged foods the sodium content was more than 20% of my daily recommended value. 

And yet it needed salt. It was very bland, not terrible, but not great. I would eat it if there were no other options I wouldn’t choose to eat it on my own. 

Pros:

  • Shelf stable for up to 15 years. This varies by brand.
  • Lightweight
  • Easy, just add water.
  • Great backpacking meal option
  • No refrigeration needed.
Cons:
  • Taste. Other than the granola and oatmeal the freeze dried options were not good.
I know that after a long day of backpacking or an especially cold afternoon a hot meal like one of these can hit the spot. But if you don’t have to eat freeze dried food, don’t. Fresher, preservative free foods are so much better. 

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Other links you might like:
Dutch Oven Cooking for Beginners – Camp Cook Week Day 1
Primus Firehole 100 Camp Stove Review – Camp Cook Week Day 2
Backyard Bonfire – Camp Cook Week Day 3
Backpackables with Munk Pack, Chapul and GoChia – Camp Cook Week Day 4

Backpackables with Munk Pack, Chapul and GoChia – Camp Cook Week Day 4

Welcome to Camp Cooking Week! We’ll be cooking outdoors all week long so come back tomorrow for more outdoor cooking tips and tricks.

Backpackables – Camp Cook Week Day 4

Camp cooking is all great to talk about, but when you’re hauling all your food for several days on your back camp cooking takes on a whole new meaning. Backpacking requires lightweight, easy food options. Here are some grab and go foods we tried recently.

Munk Pack Oatmeal Fruit Squeeze
Grain and fruit in a convenient pouch make eating a balanced meal on the go much easier. Moms out there may be familiar with these food pouches for apple sauce and baby food, but these meals in a bag are designed for both kids and adults. So when Munk Pack gave me some to sample, I was excited to try them out, especially because they’re wheat, egg and nut free – perfect for my allergic son.
Munk Pack Oatmeal Fruit Squeezes are larger than an applesauce pack at 4.2 ounces and come in three great flavors – Apple Quinoa Cinnamon, Raspberry Coconut and Blueberry Acai Flax. My favorite was the Blueberry, although Big E wouldn’t let me try to Apple Quinoa Cinnamon. The texture was a bit odd, like applesauce with little lumps in it because of the grains, but it was still tasty.

Traditional protein bars take up an entire aisle at the grocery store yet all seem very similar to me. The energy bars produced by Chapul are very different. Why? Because they’re made out of crickets.
Since crickets need minimal resources to raise, do not emit greenhouse gases and are a complete protein they make sense as a sustainable form of protein in a growing world. People have eaten cricket for thousands of years all over the world. Chapul grinds the insects into cricket flour, not that different in look and texture than whole grain oat flour. From that flour they created four uniquely flavored energy bars.
  1. Aztec – Dark Chocolate, Coffee and Cayenne
  2. Matcha – Matcha Tea, Gogi and Nori
  3. Chaco – Peanut Butter and Chocolate
  4. Thai – Coconut, Ginger and Lime
I was given each flavor to sample and I liked the Chaco bar most, I think because I’m used to granola bars having those flavors. The Thai bar was strong on the ginger flavor, and the Aztec was good, but has a kick of Cayenne and I’m a spicy wimp.
The last grab and go food I got samples to review was a bag of GoChia bites. These food squares are like granola bars’ healthier, stronger cousin. With a mix of quinoa, chia and dark chocolate these superfood bites provide high energy in bite sized pieces. Kinda like my kids.
Chia seeds are promoted as a superfood containing omega-3 fatty acids, carbohydrates, protein, fiber and antioxidants. They’re tiny black seeds that remind me of poppy seeds.
Compared to a traditional chocolate granola bar, GoChia bites are grainier and less sweet. They taste healthy, like something I’d only eat if I had to, kinda boring, a little like cardboard. So imagine my surprise when my kids gobbled the whole bag up before I could take a single picture (this one is from their website). They loved them, asking for more when the bag was empty.
I was shocked and pleased. It’s always hard to find pre-made foods that Big E can eat with his allergies (wheat, eggs, peanuts and treenuts). These GoChia bites are gluten and nut free, super healthy and the tots thought they were delicious.


Backpackables
If you’re planning a backpacking adventure, or even just a trip to your local park, these grab and go options are great for something a little different. They’re energy packed options that are healthy, sustainable and unique. Try some out and let me know what you think.

Liked this post? Please share it!

Other links you might like:
Dutch Oven Cooking for Beginners – Camp Cook Week Day 1
Primus Firehole 100 Camp Stove Review – Camp Cook Week Day 2
Backyard Bonfire – Camp Cook Week Day 3

More than S’mores – Camp Cook Week Day 3

UPDATED MARCH 2018 Welcome to Camp Cooking Week! Today we’re talking s’mores and all the other foods you can roast over a fire. Savory s’mores anyone?

We’ll be cooking outdoors all week long so come back tomorrow for more outdoor cooking tips and tricks.

Day 3 – Backyard Bonfire 

Cooking over a fire is perhaps the most thought of form of camp cooking. Whether you wrap up food in tinfoil and stick it in the coals or stab it onto a stick and roast it over the flames, food cooked over a fire is delicious.

Rosating marshmallows over a campfire
S’mores are a must have when camping out, but they’re not the only thing to cook over a fire. Last weekend a friend of mine invited me and the tots to a fun family birthday party. Her husband and son have the same birthday so in order to accommodate both kids and adults she planned a backyard bonfire. Fun for all!

More than S’mores

At this birthday party my friends served so much more than s’mores. Typically when I think of s’mores I think of a roasted marshmallow and square of chocolate squished between two graham crackers. But there are so many other tasty foods that can be roasted and sandwiched together!
Try these variations next time you make s’mores for some outdoor cooking deliciousness.
  1. Chocolate grahams
  2. Shortbread cookies
  3. Mint grasshopper cookies
  4. Cookie butter spread
  5. Nutella
  6. Peanut butter
  7. Almond butter
  8. Berries
  9. Ice cream
  10. Flavored marshmallows

Savory s'mores

Savory S’mores

In addition to a table of sweet treats, my friend prepared something I had never heard of before – SAVORY S’MORES. Imagine cheeses wrapped in meat slices, savory crackers and pretzel chips.

I’d never had savory s’mores before, never even thought to have them, but once I saw the spread I knew the idea was fantastic. Wrap a mozzarella ball in a slice of ham and roast it into a tasty ball of goodness. Yum.

Try these ingredients to make delicious savory s’mores

  1. Pretzel chips
  2. Crackers
  3. Bread
  4. Rolls
  5. Tortilla Chips
  6. Cheddar squares
  7. Mozzerella balls
  8. Cheese spreads
  9. Sliced ham
  10. Salami
  11. Roasted Turkey Breast
  12. Deli Meats
  13. Button Mushrooms
  14. Onion
  15. Red, Orange, Green and Yellow Peppers
  16. Marinara Sauce
  17. Barbeque Sauce

Outdoor Cooking Challenge

Now that I’ve tasted of the goodness of savory s’mores, it’s one of my favorite outdoor meals to prepare. In fact I included it as one of my 30 outdoor meals in 30 days I prepared as part of my camp cooking challenge.

If you want to learn some easy camp cooking tips, join my FREE challenge. Not only will you get outdoor inspiration right to your inbox, I’ll also send you my family’s actual 3 day/2 night camping menu, an exclusive video on how to make the perfect camp cookfire and a checkoff list of everything you need in a camp kitchen.

Sign up right here in this box:

What foods have you tried roasting over a fire? Leave a comment, post a photo in the FREE Helping Families Explore Outdoors facebook group or tag me on instagram. Come back tomorrow for more Outdoor Cooking!

Liked this post? Please share it!

Other links you might like:

Camp Cooking for Beginners – Everything you Need to Know
Dutch Oven Cooking for Beginners – Camp Cook Week Day 1
Primus Firehole 100 Camp Stove Review – Camp Cook Week Day 2

Primus Firehole 100 Camp Stove Review – Camp Cook Week Day 2

UPDATED MARCH 2018

Welcome to Camp Cooking Week! We’ll be cooking outdoors all week long so come back tomorrow for more outdoor cooking tips and tricks. Today I’m reviewing our Primus Firehole 100 camp stove.

Primus Firehole 100 Camp Stove Continue reading “Primus Firehole 100 Camp Stove Review – Camp Cook Week Day 2”