Mt Whitney Zone Forums General Discussion A food question.

I'll be trying out something new this trip, Marie Callender's Easy Sides. Package says just add hot water to the pouch it came in, then microwave for 4 minutes. Well, I couldn't talk my buddy into bringing up the microwave, so how would I go about heating this up? Leave the hot water in the zipped up pouch for several minutes? I imagine all I need to do is get the noodles soft.

Any ideas? My only source of flame will be my JetBoil.

Keep the water in the pouch, set it down, and insulate it with a sleeping bag or jacket. That will keep the heat in longer, so it will help soften the noodles. Looks good -- how is it?

Recommend a dedicated cozy so that your gear does not smell like food and have to go in your bear canister. You can buy one from the website freezerbag cooking (google) or you can make one using materials from home depot. Or use an extra hat (goes on the bear canister). I bought mine, with a psychedelic design, from freezerbag cooking.

Here's the link.

http://www.trailcooking.com/store/fbc-cozy

Oh and it is dual function. During the day, you can store chocolate (or trail mix with chocolate) in it ... no more melting! I've drunk some (some!) of the ultralight kool-aid, but my little cozy has earned its place in my pack.

Wait: hot water THEN nuke it? That's an awful lot of heat. I would definitely NOT "try this out" on the trip. Perfect the process at home first. If the hot-water-and-wait does not work, I would reverse the process: let it soak cold for a while, then heat it. A lot of my home-made stuff is best if I soak it for a couple hours (just takes a few ounces in the wide-mouth or ziploc)) then heat it -warm it, actually - to edible temp. Saves a LOT of stove fuel, too. Only requires heating from ambient temp to edible, rather than from cold to boiling. I generally mix it up at breakfast, and by dinner its ready to heat.

Keep in mind that most prepared dried foods, even pasta, are not being cooked in the prescribed process, they are just being soaked. The heat is only used to speed up the process of rehydrating. That's why boiling is a waste of time and fuel. If you have the time, why waste any fuel: soak for a few hours and use hardly any fuel to heat.

Of course,if you are a purist about not heating anything but water in your jet-boil or whatever, its not gonna work.

Nice touch with the insulation. I'll give this a try. I haven't eaten this yet, but for the price, weight, and the high number of calories, I had to at least try it on the trail.



Thanks, man! Leaving for Whitney Monday morning, but this should def make it's way into my pack on the next adventure.

Not a purist when it comes to the JB. Whatever gets the job done quickest and easiest. I suppose I'll try the hot water soak method today and see how long it takes. Last thing I need is to haul (2) of these bad boys up the trail and not even get to eat them!

Then definitely try the soak-then-heat method.

Salty, are you saying add a little water at noon, then re-seal and carry it for some hours while hiking down the trail??

Yes, That's what works best for me most days. If I know I am going to get to an early camp, say with at least an hour before I want to eat, I'll wait until I camp. But I then I make most of my own food, and some of my dehydrated stuff - chicken, for instance - takes more time to reconstitute than some of the commercial stuff. Depends on the dish, hence the experiment. Since these little goodies require hot water and four minutes of nuking, I am guessing that they are on the tough side for reconstituting, more like regular pasta. But it also mlooks like they zip lock, so I am gUessing all one would need to to is figure out the soak time at home, and add the water and reseal anywhere along the trail, if what you are trying for is minimal time carrying the extra few ounces of water.

With my method, I never come close to boiling. On the JMT this summer, I topped up my 11 oz fuel bottle at MTR and had well over half of it left 12 days later, with plenty of hot water for cleaning up, morning coffee, cooking fish, etc along the way.



Most of my meals are based on Success brand rice, bulghur wheat, cous-cous, quick boil pasta, or beans that I cook and dry myself. TO each of these I add variety of combinations "main courses" with different sauces, such as chili, chicken, veggie mix, curry, pesto, tarragon butter sauce, tabouli base, dried fish, etc All of the starches and sauces reconstitute just fine in the hot soak method, so I usually just use the cold all day soak just for the protein piece of the meal, which I vacuum pack separately. My soaker container (which is a pint Rubber-maid wide mouth or a freezer bag) becomes an all purpose kitchen vessel, blender , and extra water container for stretches like Whitney summit day.

Thanks, salt. Imma leaving in 2 hours!!!

I'm back! Packaged shells turned out perfectly. Heated up water and sealed off for ten minutes. Good. To. Go. AND TASTEY!

I was looking for something like this to carry with me. Best thing to have when you have limited resources.

Wow, never thought of it that way. Great tip!

Glad this experiment was successful, but here's the bad news, from the MC Parmeson Fettucine label:


Ingredients

Enriched Pasta (Wheat Flour, Glycerol Monostearate, Niacin, Ferrous Sulfate, Thiamine Mononitrate, Riboflavin, Folic Acid), Parmesan Cheese Flavor (Parmesan Cheese [Pasteurized Milk, Salt, Cultures, Enzymes], Buttermilk, Whey, Partially Hydrogenated Soybean Oil, Salt, Sodium Citrate, Citric Acid), Maltodextrin, Modified Corn Starch, Partially Hydrogenated Soybean And Cottonseed Oil, Salt, Palm Oil, Less Than 2% of Emulsifier (Propylene Glycol Mono & Diesters of Fatty Acids, Citric Acid), Parmesan Cheese Powder (Parmesan Cheese [Partially Skim Milk, Cultures, Salt, Enzymes], Disodium Phosphate), Garlic Powder, Monoglycerides, Color Blend (Maltodextrin, Titanium Dioxide, Modified Food Starch, Gum Arabic), Monocalcium Phosphate, Sodium Bicarbonate, Autolyzed Yeast And Dried Yeast (Contains Brewers Yeast from Barley), Disodium Inosinate & Disodium Guanylate, Flavoring, Lactic Acid, Parsely, Silicon Dioxide (to Prevent Caking), Xanthan Gum. Contains: Milk, Wheat.

My response to this is to buy one of these, throw away the contents, keep the bag for preparing, buy a few pounds of quick cooking pasta (or Success breand rice) and several flavor bases: powdered cheese, powdered butter, powdered milk, herbs, beef boullion, chicken boullion, veggie boullion, my own dried cubed chicken, fish, beef, pork etc, and duplicate these things with much better ingredients at a fraction of the cost.

At home...empty contents into a ziplock bag put in bear resistant container of choice. When in camp, put contents in pot add prescribe amount of water bring water to a boil, remove from stove. Place pot in Anti-Gravity Gear Cozy or equal for about 10 minutes. Eat from pot. If food gets too cold, relight stove and warm up.

Wash pot and tableware.

Food tastes better when hot.