5 Day Menu?

[Wayne]

Hi All.

I was wondering what would be on your menu for a 5 day outing in the woods with no resupply and no hunting possiblities?

 

[falling rain]

Hi Wayne,
How's things going?
What I'd take would depend on if I was going to be in one location for the 5 days or on walkabout because lunking around 5 days worth of food could be a fair bit of weight. Also the time of year. In the summer of course things are going to go off pretty quickly, so maybe less fresh food

Walkabout
Flour and milk powder for some bread,bannocks or ashcakes add a few Beech nuts or berries etc as available. I've got a small set of tins I use especially for baking bread on my fire embers
Noodles - Very light weight and crack in an egg or 2 while they're boiling makes a filling although not all that nutritious meal
Packet soups lighter to carry than cans and lovely with the bread you've made
A few of the small cans of pilchards or mackerel etc you can get. They come in a sort of thick foil container rather than a can and so arn't very heavy
Plain Rice to go with your fish. or the savoury rice you can get.
A couple of bags of the ready washed to go salads you can get nowadays

Fixed camp would be as many luxuries as possible if carrying it and weight wern't an issue

Make up some marinated kebabs, bacon sausages, eggs, salads, cans of soup
I'd still bake some fresh bread and rice and salad

Cheers :wave:

 

[TheViking]

Breakfast: 2 dl of porridge oats and 4 dl of water + a spoon of salt. And cocoa.
Lunch: some biscuits, soup, etc.
Dinner: Pasta or rice. Usually with some can meat of a kind. + salt.

And then COCOA, lots of it!! ): And a little tea. With sugar.

 

[falling rain]

One more for the winter dinner

Pearl Barley, a couple of chicken stock cubes, carrots, potatoes, swede and slice up a few herta frankfurters, makes a nice soup for a cold winters night. If you make enough it should do you for 2 nights. Keep it cool during the day though.

Cheers

 

[jakunen]

One more for the winter dinner

Pearl Barley, a couple of chicken stock cubes, carrots, potatoes, swede and slice up a few herta frankfurters, makes a nice soup for a cold winters night. If you make enough it should do you for 2 nights. Keep it cool during the day though.

Cheers

Erm, Nick,

If this is a winter dish, wouldn't keeping it cool be easiest bit?:?:

 

[Rod]

Hi Wayne,

Noodles
Boil in the bag rice
Mathesson smoked sausage - vacuum sealed pack
Primula cheese in a tube - assorted flavours available
Porridge oats - usually add some milk powder (good source of vitamins)
Dried fruit - nuts: hazel/brazil/almonds, raisens, apricots, banana chips - Julian Graves shops offer the best value for money
tinned fish - mackeral in oil
oatcakes - come in small packets, 1 pack per meal if you're hungry
ketchup/sauces/mustard sachets you get from motorway services
salt & pepper - acquired as above
packet soups
tea bags - loads!
hot choc sachets
couple of small onions
couple of spuds - or you could take Smash!
You can get venison in vacuum packs from some supermarkets :rolmao: , or if you have a good local butcher: Order your meat and get him/her to vacuum bag it for you in portions for each day you want to eat meat. :rolmao: :rolmao: :rolmao:

Keep everything perishable in ziplok freezer bags from Wilko's. Forage for seasonal berries plants etc. Take a couple of extra ziplok bags for any food emergencies.

Hope this helps
:biggthump

 

[Paganwolf]

Beware of taking tinned fish, if you do put them in a zip lock bag as grasshopper points out, when i went to Borneo one of my traveling pals thought he would take some sardines why i don't know :?: when we got to our destination and he opened his rucksack they had split and leaked over his kit :rolmao: what a stink :11doh: i didn't laugh !much! he did see the funny side of it when he and his kit stopped stinking like fish :rolmao:

 

[HAM]

I find the bland food okay for a few days, then I need a taste treat. Best 'treats' I've found are 'Curry To Go' - long shelf life (2 years) pre made curries in foil bags. They are fantastic with some rice. Also Sainsburys do long shelf life breakfasts e.g. Potato with eggs and bacon which are great when you're fed up with porrage, they're also foil packed and very similar to ration pack food (you army boys will now think I'm off my head).

I use a lot of this type of stuff when canoeing since weight isn't so much of an issue, but you can still take a couple of each when walking.

Has anyone found a stockist for powdered fruit juice? I brought a load back from Canada last year, but I'm now running out.

 

[jakunen]

Has anyone found a stockist for powdered fruit juice? I brought a load back from Canada last year, but I'm now running out.

No, I have to get my brother to send me coolaid sachets...

 

[maddave]

Cheese :super:
flour
dried yeast
jerky
afd chicken

more cheese

 

[hootchi]

Has anyone found a stockist for powdered fruit juice? I brought a load back from Canada last year, but I'm now running out.

I have got a few packets left over from ration packs. Im not sure if army surplus stores sell them individually but they are definetly included in 24hr army rat packs

 

[Adi007]

Yep. powdered juice (called "screech") is still included ... I think the flavours (as they are) are orange and lemon. Quite nice but does scum up the water bottle badly!

 

[Andy]

does anyone else take degydrated verggi meals with them

direct food sos mix and burger mix are quite nice. (go well with stuff added to them) very easy to sort out apart from leaving them to soak up water for ten minutes in a bowl. It's light, tasty and keeps for months

 

[hootchi]

Some good ideas about food guys. I always find it hard to think about variation. im stuck on microwave meals and noodles.

 

[match]

Hmm - this is always a big challenge - trying to get enough food without doubling he amount of stuff you're carrying!

Well, you've said no hunting, but assuming this is summer, you actually need to carry very little in the way of food. Assuming water is unlimited, you have a vast range of wild foods available to you - green plants, such as nettles, docks, good king henry etc make lovely soups - and if you're carrying some flour/salt/baking powder premixed, you can always make damper/bannocks to go with.

There are also lots of berries about this time of year - if you're lucky you can find fruit easily, and again with flour/water you can make a pastry - campfire pies rule!

If you can identify mushrooms, this is another huge area to be foraged.

Roots are another source of tasty foods - dandelions, burdock, silverweed etc - especially if you've got some mushrooms too - all these thinly sliced make a great stir-fry! Oh, and you've got some green leaves too - they'd go well

Maybe you'll also get some nuts if you're lucky - hazel, beech, walnut can all be found if you know the area, and make a tasty snack - especially if you've got some wild fruits, such as blackberries to mix in too!

OK, so thats an ideal menu, and sometimes its never going to be easy to find all the things I've just mentioned. However, you will always find some of the above, and if you can make just one meal in 5 days from foraging, then thats a 1/5th of your food weight reduced. Which might be quite a lot of weight.

And yes, it will take up quite a lot of time finding all these things to make a meal - but then if you're camping in one place, expanding your bushcraft skills, and not hiking long distances, then you've got all the time you need to collect tasty foods!

(Bear in mind also that some foods are easier to forage over longer periods - for example acorns, which need some time to process.)

 

[arctic hobo]

www.tilltopps.com do a fantastic menu - tried and tested by me as well over a three week period. With the same meals each day I was not bored - in fact I looked forward to mealtimes. It can all be dried, making it light and small.