[Majer:Danjer]

I'm still in the infancy stages of planning a backpacking overnighter and this past weekend the topic of what to do for dinner came up. A few of my companions were set on bringing their own M.R.E's. I've always been the type to pack cooking utensils and prepare a meal whether it be over the open fire or in a Dutch Oven. I guess the idea of preparing everything makes the whole experience feel more rustic, even if it does mean packing slightly more weight.

[Ben Smith]

In my experience the food doesn't have to be anything fancy, just high calorie and high protein. If your hiking hard enough, anything remotely edible will taste like a gourmet meal, and the less time you have to spend preparing it, the better.

[3/4 time]

We once cooked for 8 days with a JetBoil. (Much lighter than a Dutch Oven.) For breakfast we did things like pancakes, home fries and bacon – none of this needs refrigeration and is relatively light. Add water only pancake mix a small amount of maple syrup, a potato or two and some pre-cooked bacon. (We brought along a small contained of artificial butter to cook with.) When that got old we had oatmeal. Tang is light to carry and makes a decent orange flavored juice. I like to make coffee on the fire, but for weight purposes sometimes I’ll bring tea bags or that coffee that comes in bags like tea.
For dinners we did some mac & cheese, Barilla makes a tortellini that is boil only that’s nice. We had grilled cheese sandwiches, and there is fruit. We carried along a few of those plastic cups of pudding, jello, fruit cup, applesauce, whatever you like for deserts. We had soups and there are plenty of those microwave meals that can be cooked in a sauce pan or frying pan on the JetBoil, as well as the commercial backpacker meals.
Another thing we tried and it came out pretty good was taking the potato skins, adding some cheese and some bacon bits and cooking them.
With dinner we often made a pitcher of Gatorade or on cold nights hot chocolate. It takes a few meals to figure out how to juggle things when cooking in a single small frying pan.
In the end I have to agree with Ben, no matter what you cook on a trip into the woods it’s going to “taste like a gourmet meal.”
(Except for the time I tried to make pizza on the JetBoil.)