what do you cook...?

[gazaddy]

Bit of a noob question but I'm just starting to get into this bikepacking malarkey..using my cx bike and one man tent (not ready to bivvy yet). What do people cook / eat on overnight camps...other than pot noodles..

[voodoo_simon]

Pubs and chippies are ideal, no stove and pot to carry!

In the summer, I won't bother with a stove for an overnighter. In winter, homemade boil in the bag, noodles, dried meats and veg etc (as it keeps the pot clean to use as a cup), custard and cake is good for pudding (only if I've been good) and porridge with added chocolate for breakfast.

More and more petrol station sounds are doing good coffee now too, so will stop if I see one

[ScotRoutes]

As above. Less cooking in summer as I'm more likely to stop somewhere and then carry on riding for a couple of hours and I'm less bothered about a hot breakfast. In winter it's usually pasta, sauce, added meat. Breakfast is either packaged instant porridge or home-made porridge. Pour and store bags are a handy accessory if you want to cut down on pot washing.

[godivatrailrider]

I'm very predictable .... I always have corned beef hash..... smash with added cheese and half a tin of corned beef marinated in bbq sauce. It only takes boiling water to make, is filling and great comfort food :) Porridge for breakfast , again only needs boiling water

[Moder-dye]

Mmm.... Cheesy Corned beef hash With tomato sauce though! Will remember that one.

Boring for me. Meals/snacks when I pass somewhere other than that it's just add water ready meals, porridge, hot chocolate, 3in 1 coffees and energy bars and trail mix type stuff. Means just water to boil ( meths stove) and no washing up

[Trail-rat]

Rice pudding always goes down well -for pudding or breakfast or both :) -

Cadbrys Hot chocolate sachets are good.

Couscous

But mostly I'll aim to eat well at a town at least once a day

[padonbike]

The Decathlon brand dehydrated meals when it's general riding - they are surprisingly tasty and good ratio of calorie to weight. Only slight problem is there is always a bit of air in the bag so the don't pack as compact as you would like. £4.
For special occasions I use the Extreme food from Alpkit. Better calorie/weigh ratio, very good taste, very packable and the foil bag is pretty tough and resists ripping. These were £6 last time I bought one, but given Alpkit's recent exponential price rises they're probably about £1,327 by now.

[Cornish Neil]

First night of a trip usually go for fresh stuffed pasta from a supermarket.
Subsequent nights dried pasta (200g) and a tomato based sauce for dinner. If you use the tiny soup pasta it cooks quickly and also takes up less space. Followed by custard with some kind of cereal bar (or 2) thrown in. Then hot chocolate.
Breakfast porridge.
Sometimes packet soups/ quick heat packet rice in the day too.
I don't subscribe to this don't put food in your pot thing on "normal" trips, I never find it difficult to just wash it.

[Charliecres]

I like to cook and eat in the wilds. Often go with noodles, smoked tofu and a packet black bean sauce or similar.

[TheBrownDog]

Pubs for me mostly for dinner and porridge with sultana or chopped dates or something for brekky. I like the convenience of dehydrated meals and tend to buy Expedition Foods as you can normally find them for around £5-7. As above, actual cooking involves actual cleaning which means more water to carry etc. Nope nope nope. I often have nothing in the house, much as last Saturday when an impromptu decision to sleep out saw me pop into the Co-op on the way up to a regular bivvi spot, and a big bag of monkey nuts and a pot noodle were the only things I could muster any enthusiasm for. I have no idea why I took a picture of it, but there you go.

[fatbikephil]

Couscous, smoked sausage, olives, wraps. Bung the olives in the couscous after you add the hot water, slice the sausage and then scoff in the wraps. I've also just found some cheapo freeze dried meals in Tescos - thai fish curry for a couple of quid. Sounds bogging but actual pretty good (i.e. no worse than a normal freeze dried meal). Special breakfast treat is the Alpkit porridge - a generous helping and at 500 calories sets you up a treat for a days riding.

[gazaddy]

Brilliant...some 'FOOD' for thought there ...I'll be doing some experimenting before my first big night out..

[boxelder]

Stick to anything that just means you're boiling water, as the stove/pan set ups most use will burn what you're cooking, make a mess of the pan, and spoil it for breakfast. The dehydrated meals now are really quite good. If going DIY, you can pour boiling water into thicker zip lock bags to prepare stuff - once eaten, zip it up with any other rubbish in. I like to take tortilla wraps and eat tuna, tinned mackerel, veg etc wrapped in those (again, no washing up). As above pub curry, half chips/half rice and a pudding with a few pints is also acceptable.

[ianfitz]

I make my own dehydrated meals using real food. It's way if your oven has 50c setting.

Spread the food out weight it and the tray. Put it in the oven for 8 hours. Weight it again. The difference is the boiling water you need to add.

Use wet food with small bits for best rehydration. Daal, chilli, or casserole with the bit cut up smaller than usual.

[Scattamah]

My bikepacking food of choice is penne, some sort of pasta sauce (whatever floats your boat here), hemp seed oil, salt, pesto and diced chillies. I make 1/2 - 1Kg of it...drop it in a ziplock, in a ziplock (too messy to leave to chance!), roll it up and pop it in my waist pouch. I eat it cold as the chillies soon warm me up. Doesn't spoil and will get you through 2 nights without the need for carrying a stove and associated bits. Be careful with your spork when eating directly from the bag - you don't want holes in there.

Greetz

S.

[Wotsits]

These are good & are available from most supermarkets, Asda etc, & are also cheap, like £1.60 cheap..
http://www.lookwhatwefound.co.uk/

The chicken tikka is good!

They're pre-cooked in the packet so don't need to be refrigerated & last for ages, great to have in the cupboard just in case.

Combined with some Uncle Bens pre-cooked rice- https://www.unclebens.com/products/read ... long-grain
Make a decent meal. £1.. Again the rice is pre-cooked in the packet & the plain boiled rice has no additives/preservatives etc..

Warm the rice with a spoonfull of water in a decent sized mug as per instructions, stir in the lookwhatwefound & heat until warm.
Keep stirring otherwise the rice will stick & burn to the bottom of the mug!
I always take a cut down piece of scouring pad to clean up afterwards..

The explorer foods are good but often twice the price.

Downsides- not light compared to dehydrated stuff, although you may end up carrying the water to re-hydrate anyway!

[HaYWiRe]

If I'm actually cooking, it'll be something like couscous, pasta, cured sausages chopped, repackaged herbs and small diced veg.
All very heavy but sometimes I go out where cooking is the main goal. Ride to camp, camp to ride, ride to cook outdoors, ect


If the main goal is the ride itself, then I eat cold. Cured meats and cheese blocks for the fat and calories. For carbs (and keeping my bloods in check) I carry a TON of muesli bars, cheese crackers, rice cakes and the occasional white bread baguette

I become REALLY sensitive to my insulin on multiday stuff and find myself constantly dropping low, so need constant fast carbs to keep me upright.

I always carry to much food but running out could end badly for a diabetic! Main meals I use local pubs and cafés but I've learnt not to rely on them.

[Kumquat]

Lunch is normally squashed-whatever-I-packed. Usually peanut butter and honey sandwhiches and dried fruit.
Dinner is couscous and dried sausalumps.
Prefer chorizo but any will do.
Or mashed potato, cheese, and bacon bits.
Beer if I passed a shop. Hot chocolate if I didn't
May well try corned beef hash though. ...

Instant custard and soreen lumps. Mmm

Breakfast is porridge with a couple of spoons of muesli.

See pub and can afford food, stop.
If cant afford, inhale deeply and keep riding.

[littlegirlbunny]

Favourites are:

Ainsley Harriot roasted veg couscous with cashews thrown in and, if i am near a supermarket, something fresh like mange tout. Normally take vacuum packed veggie sausages that don't need refrigerating and pack a lot of protein into a little packet.

Those little packs of cinnamon porridge made with water so it doesn't stick to the jet boil. Boil water first, then add packets

Noodles of any type. Pot noodles good cos can pour water in then use jet boil for massive mug of tea whilst it's cooking but then plastic pot is bad for environment.

Hobnobs and tea shouldn't be underestimated for an easy and cheap way to massively bump up calories.

[padonbike]

I make my own dehydrated meals using real food. It's way if your oven has 50c setting.

Spread the food out weight it and the tray. Put it in the oven for 8 hours. Weight it again. The difference is the boiling water you need to add.

Use wet food with small bits for best rehydration. Daal, chilli, or casserole with the bit cut up smaller than usual.

Bloody hell Ian, by the time you've used up 8 hours of gas or electric, you could have bought a top of the range food dehydrater!

[whitestone]

Favourites are:

Ainsley Harriot roasted veg couscous with cashews thrown in and, if i am near a supermarket, something fresh like mange tout. Normally take vacuum packed veggie sausages that don't need refrigerating and pack a lot of protein into a little packet.

Those little packs of cinnamon porridge made with water so it doesn't stick to the jet boil. Boil water first, then add packets

Noodles of any type. Pot noodles good cos can pour water in then use jet boil for massive mug of tea whilst it's cooking but then plastic pot is bad for environment.

Hobnobs and tea shouldn't be underestimated for an easy and cheap way to massively bump up calories.

The AH couscous are pretty good and you can just pour the water into the pack it comes in

Tea doesn't have any calories

[ianfitz]

I make my own dehydrated meals using real food. It's way if your oven has 50c setting.

Spread the food out weight it and the tray. Put it in the oven for 8 hours. Weight it again. The difference is the boiling water you need to add.

Use wet food with small bits for best rehydration. Daal, chilli, or casserole with the bit cut up smaller than usual.

Bloody hell Ian, by the time you've used up 8 hours of gas or electric, you could have bought a top of the range food dehydrater!

But the element doesn't run continually as the oven (which is insulated anyway) is only running at 50c so electric usage will not be particularly high.

Plus I often do it in the day so most of it will come from the Pv panels.

[gazaddy]

I can see some experimenting going on.....mmmmmmmmm

[benp1]

Years ago I used to make up my own meals with cous cous and various things (soup packets, nuts, seeds, chillis, dried veg, TVP, chorizo, salami etc)

I then CBA and went to instant noodles for a bit (as it would fit inside my Ti mug so was easy to sort with a tiny brew kit)

For the last little while I've been having dehydrated Thai Red and Green curries. They're excellent - taste nice, pack small, free spoon that you can take or bin, don't crush, and are cheap. I take 2 and have them one after the other

Highly recommended, I ran out before my recent trip to the Alps and emailed Tesco to track down which store they were in as the usual one didn't have any. Bought a dozen packs (6 of one and 6 of the other)

http://www.tesco.com/groceries/product/ ... =279841268

[thenorthwind]

Breakfast is usually porridge, because that's what it is at home anyway

Tea is often pasta (orzo if space is an issue) with tuna and a tin of condensed mushroom soup. It sounds heavy, but a tin is about 15g, and you don't need to add water to it, so unless you're gathering and filtering/boiling your water en route, it doesn't make much difference. Yes, you need to carry extra water to boil the pasta, but I like real food.

At home I've been cooking "savoury porridge" as part of a meal recently - porridge cooked with herbs, stock, maybe some fried onion or other veg. It's quick and easy. Might be good as a camp meal with added protein of some sort. Small advantage of only needing one ingredient for tea and breakfast, but obviously it depends how much you like porridge!

Ride to camp, camp to ride, ride to cook outdoors, ect

This. Having a nice wholesome trip in the great outdoors and then eating space food out of a plastic bag doesn't sit well with me, but I do it sometimes and to each their own.