Tag: Food

Solar Cooking with Go Sun Stove Camp Cook Week Day 7

UPDATED APRIL 2018 A solar oven can make outdoor cooking, especially baking, a breeze. Here’s my review of the GoSun Sport.

Go Sun Stove Solar Oven review

Welcome to Camp Cooking Week! We’ve been cooking outdoors all week long check out our other posts for outdoor cooking tips and tricks. I saved this post for the final installment of Camp Cook Week because it was the most fun. Continue reading “Solar Cooking with Go Sun Stove Camp Cook Week Day 7”

Outdoor Recipe Roundup – Camp Cook Week Day 6

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

Outdoor Recipe Roundup – Camp Cook Week Day 6

We’ve talked all week about different ways to cook at camp. Now it’s time to talk about WHAT to cook. I asked a few great outdoor family bloggers for their favorite Camp Cooking posts. Here’s the list. Try some of these delicious foods on your next camp out!

4 Kid-Friendly Camping Recipes Using 1 Mix by Outdoors Mom

How to Plan a Camp Feast by Family Adventures in the Canadian Rockies

Make Ahead Camping Meal Guide by MommyHiker.com

Family Meals and Packing: Backpacking Style by Hiking Along

Campfire Recipes and Linkup by Adventure Tykes

Southwest Hash Recipe by Adventure Tykes

The Toughest Backpacking Cheese by Chasqui Mom

Campfire Breakfast Burritos by Nature for Kids

6 Mouthwatering Campfire Dogs by Outdoors Mom

Easy Outdoor Fun with Bread on a Stick by Rain or Shine Mamma

And don’t forget these posts from yours truly!
Dutch Oven Cooking for Beginners
More than S’mores Four Delicious Desserts to Make Over a Fire

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

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.

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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