duke of edinburgh food??

[daveswan11]

i am goin a duke of edinburgh expedition soon and was wondering what i should take to eat? im not allowed to take any army ration etc... but i was think of pasta, for evening meal, snacks throutghout the day and one of these all in one can breakfast meals. has anyone got anyother suggestions?????

 

[Goose]

What is wrong with army rations, apart from the taste?
Pasta is good, but cous cous is better as it takes less boiling. It depends on your tastes what you eat, if you take a new food try it before you go, no point in taking cous cous if you don't like it!
You can get baking bags from supermarkets that you can empty your cans into, cheap boil in the bag!

PS wouldn't trust the bags to carry the stuff in just for cooking!

 

[Nemisis]

Porridge is a good slow releasing food boosted with mixed dried fruits would make a good breakfast specially if your snacking mainly untill evening meal. You could pre weigh out portions with dried milk fruit etc and seal in zip lok bags to save weight.
Dave.

 

[scruff]

pasta 'n' sauce - at least thats what i took on mine bronze and silver. they say you need butter and milk i think but you can just get away with water.

bannock could be a good one though, you can make it in the morning and save half for lunch. RM did a porridgey one on tracks once, you need to make it thinish though or the flour doesn't cook properly and it tastes bab.

hoodoo did has a good recipe for it apparantly see here http://www.bushcraftuk.com/community/showthread.php?t=1058&page=1

i meant to try it this weekend but made torte di nana from the jamie oliver italy cookbook instead. its very very nicew by the way

i'm guessing no rations as they are a bit picky about what you can take. i seem to remember no pot noodles on mine, not that i'd eat that rubbish anyway. one of the teams on my bronze got disqualified cos they just happened to plan there route past a local post office/grocery store and they stocked up on chocolate, crisps and ice pops!!

on my bronze a kid from my group climbed a tree and didn't come down for an hour despite the girls in the group losing it and throwing anything they could find at him. he was an ar$e hole.

oops so fo r going off on one!

 

[innocent bystander]

This might give you some ideas for menus and such like. You can a lot of this kind of thing from supermarkets nowadays...

http://www.expeditionfoods.com/shop/index.php?cPath=27&osCsid=5f3bcdbc5f1600d63b8dca82edccde72

 

[JohnC]

dried apple rings,
oatmeal
oatcakes

 

[falling rain]

If you are going in a group why not make a stew. Hot warming and filling.
Each member of your team carries one or 2 of the ingredients each. Carrots, potatoes, onion, meat (pre cooked mattesons) vegetable stock powder, cornflour for thickening. And a pot large enough to cook it in. Distribute everything out, so everyone shares in the carrying
You will have a filling evening meal and will get mega brownie points from the assesors for working as a team, and making a proper evening meal. A lot of people take pot noodles and as you will be assesed on the whole weekend cooking a proper meal is part of it. Pot noodle doesn't cut it normally! You can do the same for the other meals and have a communial feed. Take a few biscuits and snacks as individual items for eating on the walk. This goes down really well with the assesors as it shows teamwork and comradeship and that sort of malarky

 

[scruff]

Cornflour!! eek! how about just letting the potatoes thicken it up and maybe some orange split lentils.

Great idea on the team cooking effort

 

[falling rain]

I don't find cornflour that bad but you do need to mix it with cold water before adding to the stew or it'll go lumpy. Good idea about the lentils and potatos too. Don't you have to soak the lentils over night? Which could be inpractical.
Some garlic puree and a dash of tabasco to finish it off

 

[leon-1]

i am goin a duke of edinburgh expedition soon and was wondering what i should take to eat? im not allowed to take any army ration etc... but i was think of pasta, for evening meal, snacks throutghout the day and one of these all in one can breakfast meals. has anyone got anyother suggestions?????

Pasta Rice and Noodles are all good bulk foods that provide a good amount of carbohydrates, Lidls sell packs of pasta (Funghi, Pomadareno and one other) which are pre mixed, they are enough for two, cook in about five minutes and will bloat you before you go to bed nice and warm.

I know you said you are not allowed to take any Army rations, but IIRC the boil in the bag type are made by Wayfarer and they are available from any good camping store or they can be bought online, use one of them for your breakfast. The all in one breakfast cans are all well and good, but cans are heavier and harder to dispose of, an empty bag can be carried out taking up little space and virtually no weight.

It is always good to have comfort food (when the weather is foul things like chocolate make it seem a little brighter), so sachets of hot chocolate powder and plenty of sugar are handy (you can buy a number of different versions of the "options" hot chocolate drinks in sainsbury's at around 25p a sachet), have at least one treat for a day. Energy bars can be good, but they can also taste awfull. Things like elevenses bars are nice tasting and hold a lot of calorific value, they make a very good alternative.

Fats reduce the speed that Carbohydrates enter the system, bread without butter or margarine will provide carbs faster than if it has either on it.

All in all have a good look about, if you are away for a good period of time then make sure that you take plenty of variations because after a while you get sick to death of the same thing all the time.

To avoid boredom in the food department, spices, curry powder, chilli powder, garlic powder, salt, pepper, cajun spice, chinese five spice and the like are your friend. Herbs are also good to take as you can't always get fresh ones.

I think that's about it

 

[scruff]

Don't you have to soak the lentils over night? Which could be inpractical.

Some you do, some you don't. Mung Dahl which is a small yellow lentil can be cooked straight off, as can orange split lentil, especially if your stewing up where its gonna take a while.

Flavourings are a good one. I always have chilly flakes, ginger powder and dried/minced garlic in my food bag.

The pasta 'n' sauce things I mentioned before are probably a similar idea to the ones leon-01's suggesting. They're cheap and easy.

How about a sachet of quick mix custard?? Goes good with a bit of ginger cake for pud Yum!

ps. I think there's a few more ideas here http://www.bushcraftuk.com/community/showthread.php?t=6404&page=1&pp=10

 

[ilovemybed]

If you've got to stomp up a big hill just after breakfast, I'd recommend melting a chocolate bar into your porridge. Something like a snickers to give you a good texture, some quick release sugar, and some extra nutty flavour. Regardless of whether you flavour it, porridge is the only way to go, and I heartily recommend you practice cooking it on a camping stove several times before you hit the hill. Actually, I suppose Oat-so-Simple or something like that might be easier to cook and comes in more convenient packets.

The Fruit and Fibre breakfast bars are very tasty and a good snack for the road. Fibre will be a good thing when out in the hills because, well, let's just say it helps your digestive system...

For lunch, I like a nice hearty Salt and Vinegar crisp sandwich washed down with a cup of tea. However, for sensible people I'd recommend something like a banana, then some cup-a-soup and a cheese roll. (Fruit first, otherwise you get wind )

Evening meals made from some sort of cured sausage (Smoked, salami, chorizo, whatever takes your fancy) either in a stew, or even just fried up (maybe with onion?) and put in some pasta with a bit of sauce. Mmmm good! I'm still going to buy a Ginsters steak pie for my next outing though.

As an aside - all this talk of food has reminded me of something: DON'T FORGET THE LOO ROLL! (and guard it with your life.) Oh, and it's a good idea to light the loo roll once you've used it so it doesn't leave such a blight on the landscape....

 

[Tengu]

Marzipan, -pure glucose and almonds.
dried fruit to taste (also good in stews, curries and porridge)
beef jerky (theres a thread on making it somewhere)

 

[Lithril]

I'm surprised that you're not allowed to take rat packs, I work with 2 DoE groups and we'd allow them at both of those. Most of the groups that I take out will carry food and do a team cook, in fact its pretty much expected when you've only got one cooker/trangia for every 3 people.

Remember that the regs are changing so that anything you take in you have to bring out, you're not allowed to use the bins on campsites any more. Forget tins unless you're going to transfer it into a very secure bag. A good source of meat is the vacuum packed bacon, on the artificial environment ones. The vacuum packed bacon lasts for a while and doesn't need to be kept that cold, we usually freeze it and use it as an ice block for any other foods.

Boil in the bag rice is a great one for carbs as theyr'e very easy to cook (just don't use the water afterwards for tea like we tried to as its full of starch...) There are plenty of sachet sources if you want to use them and they're fairly light, if you don't want the bacon, tinned sausages emptied out or better still vacuum packed frankfurters last ages.

The examiner will want to see a balanced diet so you'll need some sort of vegetables, dried is good for carrying. Pudding you can get away with hot chocolate, biscuits etc. A favourite of many groups is chocolate digestives with marshmellows melted in, not particularly light but definatley tastey.

I'll try and hook out the fact sheet that we use for our groups.

Hope that helps

Matt

 

[xairbourne]

Beans, Beans and more Beans... they also keep spirits high with the comedy value after effects.

Just keep it simple mate, write yourself a menu out and try it out before you go then you know what to expect and what to take nothing worse than missing out a key ingredient or bit of kit which could spoil your trip.

 

[ilovemybed]

Beans, Beans and more Beans... they also keep spirits high with the comedy value after effects.

Just keep it simple mate, write yourself a menu out and try it out before you go then you know what to expect and what to take nothing worse than missing out a key ingredient or bit of kit which could spoil your trip.

More beans, Mr Taggart!

 

[jdlenton]

Remember that the regs are changing so that anything you take in you have to bring out, you're not allowed to use the bins on campsites any more.

never Mat!!!!
what's the idea behind this then? It seems a bit pointless to me i can understand not going in shops to buy stuff but not putting things in bins sounds a bit mad to me.

James

 

[Tengu]

Me too. Bins are for using, arent they?

 

[neo_wales2000]

Bloody hell, things have changed since I did mine, many years ago. If memory serves me correctly, this was a typical days menu:

Breakie: oates boiled in water with sugar and dried milk, boiled egg and fried spam B&B, tea

lunch: spam butties, peanuts, raisens, mars bar, water

evening meal: Vesta beef risotto, OR smash, suprise dried peas, corned beef and gravey made with dried oxtail soup, tea, choc biscuits

All cooked on a parafinn Primus stove (still use one now )

 

[Graham_S]

beanfeast mince is good. add dried onions and add dumpling mix for a good stew.
take flour tortillas too.
a good soup can be made with a ham stock cube and some red lentils.
split pea soup can be made by putting some split peas in a nalgene bottle with water to soak in the morning. by dinner time they're ready to use. again add to a ham stock cube and boil.
for breakfast i like bacon, sausage, and beans. with a mini cool bag they'll be fine for a couple of days. a good breakfast can make or break an expedition.
for lunch i favour mini-baybebel cheeses and pepperami with chocolate and dried fruit.
i avoid tea and coffee in favour of hot chocolate as that avoids the caffene diuretic effect reducing dehydration.