Adventures with anrkst.

You never cease to amaze and inspire. Delicious!

 

(More!) Canteen Cup madness.
Or possibly just more land reclamation on the homestead. ( Which is less dramatic and awe inspiring though)

Time to get to work..Daisy is pretty sure there’s a boogeyman under there.


And I thought “putting your blood and sweat “ in something was supposed to be a metaphorical phrase.
Tx briars ain’t no joke. Like trying to do gymnastics in a pile of military razor wire.


Quttin time view. There is no try. There is no can’t. There is only do.


sitting in the shade..time for some fun.

 

Pt 2


These little buggers are handy. I’ve got several. It’s how gourmet gets to the field.


I’ve been wanting to try this one. Now getting it to fit a canteen cup? That took some brainstorming…


I brought the stuff, let’s make it happen..


Not a bad little prep knife. Weighs almost nothing. And it’ll skin a fish or slice a tomato with equal ease.


SW Chili con Carne. Topped with cheese and an egg. ( you’ll never look at a ramen the same. )
Dinner..is served melords.

 

“Ever Reaching” and the great Canteen Cup soup experiment.
I will absolutely own the obsession with my rig. I never tire of tinkering around with it and this might help on those days when I’m in the “Speedy I’m the Devil “ mode. (Days when I’m in the mood to click off 10-12 miles. . )

Item 1- is mushrooms. I often carry and use fresh mushrooms, that requires a container. I did some research and these offered the best cost vs weight ratio. I filled a nice container for the pantry and vac sealed the rest. They are quite dry,I cut one apart for a taste test, sorta bland and slightly leathery to chew.

2nd item- a good friend mentioned being on a sodium reduction diet. I couldn’t find these anywhere within a 100 mile drive radius so I ordered them. (Amazon) they are a bit more expensive than the regular ones but not unreasonable for the amount you get. They next item was a Titanium alcohol burner. This is an Atiap brand but there are several that are essentially clones.
Mine came with the Ti crossbars and the extinguisher cap. ( Note- the 3 Mushrooms didn’t get in the photo. I had them in my pocket and duh..forgot to add them.

No “in progress “ pictures. The timer was running on my phone. It took less than 3 minutes from ignition to bloom and the flame was intense, in fact the only way I could control it was by holding the cup 6-8 inches above the stove. ( note- I was holding the bail handle bare handed with no affect at all. Not even hot.)

The addition of the hardtack made this a thick, almost stew or casserole type dish. For future use I will use less dry ingredients per serving. ( 1/4 reduced to 1/8)
No scorching or burning. It just takes practice. Don’t let the naysayers tell you otherwise.
I’ll be waiting out in the undergrowth, we’ll have soup and tea. See you there.

 

This started with an idea…


Guess what? All those places we eat at that have fantastic fresh breads..don’t make it “in house”. Tx Roadhouse, Golden Corral, Subways subs n hoagies, McD’s breakfast biscuits. They come frozen in 25+lb boxes. Spread em on a sheet, boom. Delicious bread. I got these in the frozen foods section of the supermarket.

…an I took the idea out onto the grass..

Herself the Goddess likes these crispy little rice crackers, which come in a surprisingly heavy duty Mylar bag. And being the consummate packrat that I am, recycled with the vac sealer to bring fresh ingredients to the field.

1/3 of a fresh chicken breast and some classic fresh vegetables.

Eat some garlic. It’s good for you.

Chicken & Dumplings. ( yes. ) Fresh homestyle chicken and dumplings out in the open clean air.

Just keep telling me I can’t cook real food in Titanium. It might sink into my stubborn head eventually.
No..that’s a lie. It probably won’t.

 

I was especially fortunate to have another day to spent outside in the open wandering around unsupervised in the long grass. Any day in the sunshine and clean air is a good one imho.

I responded to this glorious opportunity by putting 26,712 steps under my boots. ( or 12.06 miles according to my fitness tracker watch thingy. . )


And me being me, What am I at the end of the day guys? ( cups the ear). A cook. Yes sir. This is the fun stuff for me.
Today I brought along a Boundless Voyage Titanium skillet to mess with. I thought we’d have something you don’t normally get as trail food.


This piece is right at 7 1/2” across and 2” deep. Holds a capacity at almost perfectly 1 US quart. It’s nicely made and came with a matching fitted lid.

 

Attacked by the error code 404…again.

 

Pt 2


This is a completely untested recipe idea. So we might be having a feast…or making a disaster.
It’ll be fun…

This is a very dangerous substance. The ingredients noted in the previous picture. I’m one of those “eats things that make you sweat” types but you could tone it down by messing with the ratios. I also won’t be using this type of recycled bottle for liquids again. Even with a smaller piece of Mylar film stretched under the cap there was still seepage at the threads.
I had concerns about this from the beginning so I had secured it in a further layer of ziplock bag, saving myself from having an oily mess in my kit.

Using the recycled Mylar bag trick again for transport, these are going to be cut into thin strips. I usually refer to this as the “asian cut”..

Remember the frozen biscuits from before? Well here are 2 more, cut into 4 pieces each and I even brought a 1 oz Nag of flour to make managing them easier.

Using my palm as a rough measurement I just pressed them out and thinner, and utilizing a hand cut portion of spicy pork breakfast sausage for about 1 teaspoon per serving…

Pork Stuffed Steamed Dumplings with a (very) Spicy Chili Sesame Sauce topping.

There. Now you can say I’ve wandered off..sold the farm…went over the hill…down past them trees..into the long grass..completely out of sight.

Y’all come out sometime..it’ll be fun and at worst you’ll get indigestion.

 

I had to get an “ account credit “ from Amazon for sending me a wrong item.
I decided to use it as a furtherance of my interest in making my own meal kits instead of the disappointing bad tasting and excessively salty mush I’ve had in retort packets.

I specifically searched for “non GMO “ and this had reasonable positive comments.


A 5lb bag of dehydrated corn. ( 5lbs being about the size of the 3 ring binder most of the jr high/ high school students had in the late 70’s/ early 80’s) it was packaged in a heavy duty plastic bag, had low dust or broken kernels, and was not horrible to chew on in its original form.


As per my usual S.O.P. I set a container for use and vacuum sealed the rest to the highest level I can pull off.
At 1-2 tablespoons per use this should last me some time. I definitely have more ingredients on my list as I delve ever deeper into the fantastic world of making my own lightweight hiking meals. Stay tuned….

 

404 account error. The server…doesn’t like me.

 

All that needs is a pound of beef meatballs

 

I can do it…but you’re packing the 15” cast iron skillet in your pack!!

 

Addressing “Sustainability” in walkabout kits ( for the outdoor afflicted).
I wanted to approach this from the mindset of environmental responsibility while keeping focus on both weight and cost effective solutions.
Now, I do have a Food Saver type vacuum sealer. For the ultimate in moisture resistant, lightweight packaging it definitely rules. If I were going to live out of my pack for a week, or even better carry my kit in my kayak for a week? Absolutely. I would have multiple meal packages all sealed in plastic. But, For just day hikes, going to the rural property to work, it starts to create a lot of stuff I need to recycle and the price of bags get cost prohibitive

I did some product research and came up with these. They are 8oz scientific sample bottles from Thomas Scientific. Very similar to Naglenes but less expensive.

They were only sold in multiples packages so I got a set of 12. Cost comparison was approximately the same as 2 packs of these disposable bags, but these can be re-used over and over and even hold liquid substances with no mess.

That’s not to say I’m anything less than an absolute fanatic. I will wash, dry, and re-use even these bags if at all possible.
This one is on its third trip out. By carefully slicing off the shortest sealed edge I can get multiple trips out of it but the nature of it makes for a limited lifespan.

I does the work. I eats the goods. I grabbed a bone in pork chop to hack up for soup today. My “bottle pack” has 2 tablespoons of rice, 2 tablespoons of corn, 2 tablespoons of vegetable soup mix, 3 dried mushrooms diced up, 1 tablespoon of onion flakes, and 2 teaspoons of dried garlic + 1 bouillon packet. I do have bulk freeze dried meats coming but still “in transit “ at the moment

It was easy. Cube meat, little oil, sauté, water, dry mix, bouillon, high simmer 20 minutes to insure complete cooking.
Very savory and quite filling.

Y’all come out sometime. We’ll go wander around in the creek bottoms and find a snake to play or something.

 

Some bonus pics and a few thoughts.


Here’s a wide angle of the last pic in the earlier set. I’m a “dogs peoples” thru n thru. These rip snorting stick eating mud rolling sheds all in my Jeep fur balls are as dear to me as life. I can’t imagine going somewhere and not taking them along.
The first issue I encountered was the pork bone. (Sid is very interested in that. ) I had sectioned it into 2 pieces like I would normally do for my other mess kits, but even then it was in the way. Too long and made stirring and turning the meat difficult. I removed the longer piece early on and in retrospect I should have taken out both.
I also decided that a full sized pork chop was just too much mass for this cooking arrangement. I’ve been using smaller portions of loin or roast and I think that worked better.


Here’s Daisy. She’s pretending to be dead. ( rather successfully too.) She’s very lovey and gentle..but also an adorable ungainly klutz. It’s like having a weirdly uncoordinated small giraffe in your house. Stuff gets sent flying, scattered, trampled, broken.
The second issue I found was the edibilty of the corn. Even with 20 minutes of cooking it was less than optimal for eating.
It was definitely softer than its dry form but less than that chewy texture you expect from freeze dried kernels.
I going to try carrying it separate and give it a pre-cook, before the other vegetables go in, say 5 minutes at a good rolling boil. That means an extra container, and more fuel used, but that ingredient needs some experimenting to get it worked into the meal plan.

As always, I am but your most humble servant. Seeking only to inspire.
Happy to hear any thoughts or feedback about this crazy journey we’re all going through.

 

Curious to learn how the corn turns from your experiments. I like what your doing there. You certainly do inspire and it's appreciated. We all gotta remember it's the little things that make up the whole good life. Air water food shelter family and friends. Not necessarily in that order. Thanks for sharing.

 

Back on pg 45 of this thread I showed an improvised mortar and pestle idea based on a cast iron pot and a froe mallet.
My first thought was the corn being very dry and dense could benefit from being cracked, broken up, So my plan is to put my desired amount in an 8” iron skillet and partially crush it with the end of the mallet. I haven’t had the chance to try it yet but I will definitely let you know how it turns out.

 

“Embracing the Light”.

This all started a few days ago when the nice mail carrier girl started unloading boxes in the driveway.

A larger one was these. I’ve been trying to find ways to indulge my “foodie obsession “ but in a lighter,faster way. Less raw prep= less contamination and clean up and removing the need for refrigeration = lighter weight.

I broke them down for repackage which gave me a chance for taste testing. ( completely safe to just eat but the..ahem “outcome” might be less than ideal. ) Beef- not unpleasant, bland, slightly stringy like very old dry beef jerky.

Chicken- pleasant taste, like an unseasoned baked chicken breast, very low almost non existent texture. It practically melts in your mouth. This one also had the most dust.

Pork/Pork Sausage- this was the nicest of the three. A chewy somewhat rubbery texture with a good peppery sage flavor.

This was another addition. I have this thanks to our EU walksabout friend @KnOeFz . He has one and uses it often. I’ve been admiring it for a while and I wanted simple way to bring my alcohol stove into play. It’s very (very!) sturdy made and “flex-click” ready to use.

It does not unfold into a perfect square. It’s going to make me crazy. I know why it does that..but it will the trip ADD perfection alarm every single time.

And I’m me..it stayed shiny and new for all of about…20 minutes in my possession.

 

Pg 2
Time for a test drive.

I opted for my Chicken and Rice recipe. It’s easy and fairly forgiving. In an earlier post I mentioned the dry corn being difficult to cook. What I’m doing here is breaking it up in an impromptu mortar. This does work but in the future I’ll probably just use the high speed micro food processor. You can do it this way buts it like breaking pea gravel, you have to apply serious force.

Dried mushrooms will always be slightly rubbery even when cooked. I’ve tried like sauté them in oil, soaking, but they always seem the same. I like them and live with it.

Here is an 8oz “meal kit” bottle. 2 tblspn each chicken and rice, 2 of vegetable mix, 1 corn, 3-4 mushroom,1 tblspn onion flakes, 2 teaspoons garlic granules, 1/2 teaspoon Mrs Dash, 1 bouillon packet.

Visually compared to the adult beverage I’m enjoying.

In order to get an idea of what a “meal” weighs I carefully cut 2 matching vac bags and duplicated the recipe..

Then using this very unscientific method I added sugar by tablespoon to reach a level amount.
9 tablespoons of sugar (= 1/2 cup + 1) I don’t have a kitchen scale but I bet some of you will and could tell me precisely what that weighs.

 

Pg 3
It’s been raining here every other day for a month so my outdoor world is a sticky sloppy boot sucking mess.

Not being able to get to the nice grassy area I like and it’s predicted to rain more so we are holed up in the breezeway kitchen.

Im going to use my Atiap titanium stove. Something I discovered in messing around with it is the snuffing cap holds exactly 2 tablespoons of fuel. Not only does that make measuring easier but I know that’s 10 minutes burn time. I’m going to use 4 tablespoons (1/4 cup) to try and insure a fully cooked meal ( crunchy rice sucks and the corn issue is something I’m considering.) I’m also going to use the cap inverted under the stove to get the right height. The chi-com clones don’t have the wide body ring like Trangia’s so Fireboxes accessory rods won’t work.

All things considered these double row flame jet stoves push some very high BTU’s.

There is some serious cooking going on in there. It was spitting around the lid so I uncovered and stirred frequently to slightly reduce it. Even with a bit of wind I got an 18 minute burn.

It can be done. My pack just got lighter and less complicated. I call that a definite win.

Now anything like this is going to be slightly low texture but the flavor is good.Both the rice and the corn are completely cooked and it’s far better than any of the premade backpack food I’ve tried. I can run with this. There will definitely be more recipes and mixes to be tried in the future.