Point Reyes Backpacking Recipes

When planning what to eat on the backpacking trip, I originally thought we would all just buy our own MREs or one of those freeze dried meals from Mountain House or Backpacker's Pantry, etc., but after reading some websites that offered backpacking recipes, I was inspired to make my own freeze dried meal with common grocery store items for a fraction of the price.  This is especially true for this trip because we have six people in our group to feed.  If there's only two people going on this trip, it might not be worth the trouble, because I doubt you're saving that much.  Some of the websites that inspired the recipes below are:

http://www.wildbackpacker.com/backpacking-food/recipes/

http://www.onepanwonders.com/breakfasts.htm

When planning the menu for the trip, I kept in mind that fresh fruits and vegetables are a really good thing to splurge on, weight-wise.  When on a long hike to Half Dome, I had only energy bars and nuts to munch on.  By the nth bar, I was dying and sick of the taste of granola shellacked into a bar with honey.  By the time night descended and knowing I still had only energy bars and nuts for sustenance, my spirit was broken, and I was a shell of the person I used to be until I had real food the next day.  To this day, I still haven't touched a Cliff bar.

Everyone had 3 bananas, 3 apples, 6 cuties, a quart-sized Ziploc bag of Concord and green grapes, and about a 1/4 of a quart-sized Ziploc bag of baby carrots.  The total weight of all this freshness was estimated to be around 5 lbs.  It's a lot of weight in backpacking terms, but everyone finished all their fruits and veggies by the end of the trip.  That, to me, means that it was totally worth it.  There's nothing like a juicy piece of fruit as a morale booster on the trail.  Also, I invested in some weighty foods like a dozen eggs (that my poor brother had to carry), three cans of SPAM (that my poor friend had to carry), shelf stable chicken, and two pouches of tuna.  It sounds completely insane to me right now, but at the time, I was worried that we would not be satisfied with reconstituted meat for the entire trip and that we needed "fresh," never been dried protein.  Oh, how I was wrong...

Day 1

During the first day, we had Burger King breakfast on the way to the trailhead.  We also stopped by the Farm House Deli with the intention to buy lunch, but everyone was still full.  Their sandwiches looked so delicious, but we settled for beef jerky instead.  For the first night, we had Salmon Cakes, Jambalaya, and Cupcakes.

Trail Salmon Cakes

This is a modified recipe from the back of the salmon packets, adjusted to sub the bread crumbs with Shake'N Bake.  Notice I didn't add any salt.

3        2.5 oz. Salmon Packets
¾       cup mayonnaise (about 10 packets of Heinz mayonnaise)
1        box Shake’N Bake Parmesan Crusted
1        lemon (forgot to bring on the trip)
1        tsp celery seed
2        tsp dried dill weed
1        tsp dried parsley
2        tbsp dried chopped onions
1        tsp red pepper flakes
1        large egg
3        tbsp olive oil or butter

At home:
Combine 1 of 2 packets of the Shake’N Bake Parmesan Crusted, celery seed, dried dill weed, dried parsley, dried chopped onions, garlic powder, and red pepper flakes in a quart sized Ziploc baggy.

On the trail:

Add the salmon packets, juice of lemon, mayonnaise, and 1 egg to the Ziploc with the dry ingredients.  Combine until evenly mixed.  Form 6 balls.  Add the contents of the second Shake’N Bake Parmesan Crusted packet to a shallow bowl or dish.  Roll the balls in the loose Shake’N Bake Parmesan Crusted and flatten into patties.  Heat oil or butter in a pan over medium heat until golden brown on each side (cooking times may vary).

The Verdict:  I personally thought the salmon cakes were a little too salty.  Next time, I won't use that second bag of Shake'N Bake to coat the outside.  I would instead use regular, unsalted bread crumbs mixed with a bit of paprika.  Everyone loved them, though, and even though they were salty, they turned out way better than I expected.  Also, another tip is to move the pan around constantly because the flame is very concentrated to a small area.  I learned this the hard way, as you can see from the burnt parts in the picture above.

Trail Jambalaya

Jambalaya:  San approved!

Ingredients:
2          cups Minute Rice, enough for 2 people
1          cube Tomato Bouillon
2          tablespoons dried chopped onions
1          tablespoon chili powder
1½       teaspoon paprika
½         teaspoon cayenne pepper
1          teaspoon garlic powder
1          bay leaf

2 cups water
1 ½ to 2 Cajun Andouille sausages (optional)
1 package shelf stable shredded chicken

At home:
Combine all the rice ingredients into a Ziploc bag.  Keep the bay leaf segregated by wrapping it in foil so that it can be easily located within the Ziploc bag.

To eat: 
In a pot, add 2 cups of water and the bay leaf.  Bring the water to a boil, then add the entire contents of the rice Ziploc into the bowl.  Stir quickly, then cover and let sit for about 5 minutes or until the rice is tender.  Add the shelf stable chicken.  Stir the rice a little bit to make sure all the bouillon is evenly distributed.  Enjoy!

Optional:
While the rice is rehydrating, cut the sausage into bite sized pieces.  Sautee in a second pot on medium heat to render the fat.  Once the sausage pieces are golden brown, remove them from fat and add to the rice.  Mix evenly.

The Verdict:  2 cups of rice were enough for 3 people, realistically, especially when both the Andouille sausage and the chicken were included.  I couldn't finish mine.  It was too crazy filling, but all the boys finished their ration, so I'll leave it up to you.  It was fantastic.  I tried this recipe with real rice, and it was even better!  What I did differently was:  I cooked the rice plain in a rice cooker.  While the rice is cooking, I prepped and sauteed fresh diced onions and fresh diced red and green bell peppers in some olive oil, throwing in the bay leaf, tomato bouillon, and spices.  I then threw in the sausage, peeled, cooked shrimp, and pre-cooked, cubed chicken breast (I'll leave the proportioning up to you).  I added the rice last and mixed it up with the contents of the pan.

Cupcakes

The cupcakes were decorated with laminated images from my Awkward Family Photos calendar.

At home:  I didn't really write out a recipe for this, but I pretty much used only a 1/3 of a box of cake mix for 6 cupcakes.  I put the cake mix into a quart sized Ziploc bag and wrote the scaled down amount of eggs, oil, and water needed directly on the bag.  This helps me remember how much of which to use.  If you don't have space for measuring cups, you can always just bring measuring spoons.  Remember that there are 16 tablespoons in each cup.  I also spooned icing into a corner of a separate Ziploc to ice the cupcakes.

On the trail:  I added all the ingredients directly into the Ziploc with the cake mix, mushed it around with my fingers, then cut one of the corners of the Ziploc bag to dispense, kind of like a ghetto pastry bag.  As you can see below, I bought one of those disposable aluminum cupcake pans.  I cut them up into individual cups and stacked them so that they won't get squished in my backpack.  I also lined them with paper cupcake liners before putting the batter in.  I also brought two aluminum pans large enough to contain the six cupcake cups. For one pan, I filled with water about 1/2 inch depth, and added the cupcake cups to it.  I set it on top of the grill, and underneath, I lit two chafing dishes.  I covered it with the other pan and let it bake for 1 hour until a toothpick came out clean in the middle.  After icing it by using the Ziploc as a pastry bag, I was done!

The Verdict:  They were a hit as well.  I tried this again with regular camping.  It was definitely faster when you have a nice gas grill versus two chafing dishes.  I peeked a lot, but the cupcakes still came out fine.  The cupcakes were soooo moist, because they were pretty much getting steamed.  Also, this is the way to bake on a stove top if you don't have an oven.

Day 2

For the second day, I had a more relaxed menu, besides the SPAM and egg fried rice.  For lunch, I made spicy tuna salad sandwiches and for dinner, we all had our own dehydrated meals to munch on. Everything was still just as delicious!

Spam and Egg Fried Rice

(no pictures were taken)

2 cups Minute Rice, enough for 2 peeps

2 cups water
1 can SPAM, diced
2 eggs

Garlic powder to taste (I think I used about 2 tablespoons)
Soy sauce packets to taste

At home:

Combine the garlic powder and the rice into a Ziploc bag.

To eat:

In a pot, bring 2 cups of water to a boil.  Add the entire contents of the rice Ziploc into the boiling water.  Stir quickly, then cover and let sit for 5 minutes or until the rice is tender.  In another pot, start frying the SPAM.  Add the rice to the fried SPAM, using the SPAM grease as oil.  Add the eggs.  Add soy sauce.

The Verdict:  Everyone loved this recipe as well.  I would say, though, it's not worth the effort to cart in a whole dozen of eggs and 3 cans of SPAM, because they were bulky and heavy.  Plus, they didn't keep us nourished as long as our second breakfast did.

Spicy Tuna Sandwiches
(no pictures were taken)

For lunch, I just made spicy tuna salad sandwiches.  I added sriracha sauce from Panda Express and mustard, relish, and mayo from sauce packets collected from various places.  Again, I put the tuna in an extra Ziploc bag and mushed everything together.  I even squeezed them out pastry bag-style onto the pieces of bread.  The bread was pretty squished, but it was serviceable.

The Verdict:  The weight was worth it.  It was convenient to make on the trail at Allomere Falls.  No muss, no fuss.  It wasn't as dry as I was afraid it was gonna be, because the fresh fruits we had really helped.  Not a spectacular meal, but not horrible, either.

Dinner:

Mountain House Beef Stroganoff.  Yum!

We used our own freeze dried meal packs, which were totally delicious.   You can't go wrong with this.  They were filling and tasty.  All you have to do is boil the water, add it directly to the pouch, and wait.  Everyone was too full to have the freeze dried mashed potatoes we bought.  None of us felt deprived of anything, and I didn't personally feel like it was any less satisfying as "fresh" food.

Day 3

The strategy for Day 3 is to just have breakfast then get the hell out of dodge by lunchtime.  It didn't really happen that way, but that was okay because our breakfast was of epic proportions.

Peanut Butter, Nutella, Banana Wraps

We used wheat tortillas and globbed on the peanut butter, Nutella, and sliced everyone's last bananas into their wraps.  It was a good thing that we are putting our bananas in the wraps, because by Day 3, they were pretty sad looking.  It sounds kind of gross, but we, as a group of 6, finished 1 jar of peanut butter and 1 jar of Nutella for breakfast...and on top of that, we finished the mashed potatoes with the added bacon bits as well.  Needless to say, we were full until dinner time, AND we had more energy than the day before.

The Verdict:  I think I'll give those freeze dried breakfasts a try.  Although this meal was pretty darn epic, the peanut butter and Nutella were too heavy.  Also, it was kind of dry, so we had to wash it down with a lot of water.  If I were to attempt this again on a backpacking trip, I'd add apple slices for a bit of moisture.

All in all, if I were to plan a backpacking trip now, I'd skip on the two breakfasts and use freeze dried breakfasts instead.  The cupcakes were worth the trouble both for the novelty and for the deliciousness.  We'd just have to worry about protecting one egg vs. a whole dozen next time.  I felt the Jambalaya was worth it as well, but I would skip the shelf stable chicken and stick to just Andouille sausage as that would lower the weight for food.  Also, I would keep the same amount of fruit and veggies.  Stay tuned for scenes and routes for the rest of the trip!