Tramping Food: Freezer bag cooking, trail food made simple by Sarah Svien

Freezer Bag Cookery: a book by Sarah Svien

I am always looking for ways to increase the variety and taste of the food I eat while tramping. My general pattern is too take fresh food for the first day or two (steak... yum, yum!) and then rely on dried or freeze dried meals for the remainder of the trip. 

 

Freezer bag cookery by Sarah Svien

Freezer bag cooking : trail food made simple, by Sarah Svien is the title of a book I am currently reading, The book is a collection of quick cook hiking food recipes which are made by adding water to various ingredients. There are recipes for all three meals plus snack and dessert ideas.

The author suggests Asian food markets as a source of ingredients, a recent visit found the following items;

• dried fish (shrimp/white fish/prawns)
• dried rice/noodles
• udon meals
• dried mushrooms/vegetables/onion/shallots
• pasta, cous cous, instant mashed potato
• freeze dried meat (pork/beef)
• soups, miso, pickles etc

.

With these and other items like fresh vegetables, tinned fish/chicken, bouillon cubes, spices and herbs many tasty meals can be made.

A simple cous cous meal...

A tramping food recipe from the book to try

Here is an example of one of the recipes, this is;

Herbed Tomato Rice

Ingredients

1	c	instant rice
1⁄4	c	freeze-dried corn
1⁄4	c	sun-dried tomatoes
1	T	diced dried onion
1 1⁄2	t	lower sodium beef or chicken bouillon
1	t	granulated garlic
1⁄4	t	dried oregano
1	T	olive oil
200gm		cheddar cheese

Notes

Find in the cheese sticks in the dairy aisle near the string cheese. Sun-dried tomatoes can be found in the produce department of most grocery stores, dried onion in the spice aisle.

Instructions

At home:
Pack the rice through oregano into a quart freezer bag. Tuck the oil and cheese in with the bag.

In camp:
Freezer Bag Cookery (FBC) method:

Add 1 1/2 cups near boiling water and the oil to the dry ingredients in a quart freezer bag. Seal tightly and tuck in a freezer bag cozy to insulate for 15 minutes.

One pot method:
Bring 1 1/2 cups water and the oil to a boil, add in the dry ingredients. Take off the heat and cover tightly. Let sit for 15 minutes (in cooler temperatures or at altitude use a pot cozy to retain heat).
Dice up the cheese and fold in.