5 Day 4 night menu

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5 Day 4 night menu

Postby zac150 » Mon 10 Jun, 2013 7:15 pm

I thought I would put up the following menu from a recent hike as one of the meal idea's I got from this forum so I thought I should pay back.

A little background. Each year I lead a group of 5 from work on a 4/5 day adventure, it started as a team building / bonding exercise but it has moved to a group of friends having a laugh. With this in mind we do take a lot of wine (16 decanted bottles on this trip) and train hard in the lead up to the trip to ensure we can carry 18kg backs (yes our packs would be a lot lighter without the wine).

This years trip started was over 5 days and took in Derschkoes Hut on day 1, day 2 was to Grey mare, we were supposed to do an afternoon walk to Valentines falls but as it turns out I had a stress fracture in my foot so opted out of the afternoon walk as did the rest of the team. Day 3 was a bush bash to Pretty Plain hut over the grey mare range, day 4 was to Wheelers and day 5 to Tooma.

With this in mind we have a fairly simply food strategy, each meal is to be less than 1kg and we allow an extra kg for snacks etc. So 16kg of food was carried for 5 people over 5 days or a little under 700g per day per person.

Our general plan was as follows:

Breakfast - Breaky Bars (cross between cake and muslie bars) these are easily home made in the oven and are a great mix of complex carbs and simple sugar to get the day started. Mixed with Coffee these are a great start to the day and make getting on the trail quick as you only need to boil water for coffee. As an example the latest we left camp was 8:15am.

Trail snack - Fruit and Yogurt leathers - Pureed fruit is dried in the dehydrator and I then dehydrate yogurt which is layered on top of the fruit. A perfect mix of protein, fruit and sugar.

Lunch - Wraps - Lunch has always been an issue and I tend to go for something quick and easy which has a little freshness. Wraps with smoked meat, cheese, tomato and cucumber work for us.

As we tend to get away early and walk at 5km an hour we tend to get to our destination by early afternoon. We carry spare fruit leathers just in case but on this walk didn't use them.

Once at the hut our festival of food really starts.

We begin with chicken noodle soup, salty, warm and with light carbs it is a perfect start.

Cheese board, kind of a tradition and might seem a little over the top but they do add protein and fat high in calories which the body is craving at that time.

We also carry a few gu chews, which are an instant energy hit lolly and shotz tablets an electrolyte drink in tablet form.

Our dinners:-

Night 1 - Minestrone Soup - I dehydrated a tin of pureed tomatoes and two tins of condensed minestrone soup. To this mix I add some dehydrated frozen veges, pasta and a stock cube. This was my first attempt at this soup which we had on the first night with a bread roll and was a resounding hit. The whole meal came in at around 800g for the five of us. my only comment on this was that after 20 minutes on the stove the pureed tin of tomatoes and minestrone had not completely mixed with the water however after 1/2 by the fire it finally all blended and thickened nicely.

Night 2 - Devilled snags - this is the meal I stole from this forum. Sausages without skins, mixed with a tin of pureed toms, a sachet of devilled snag mix, dried mushrooms and served with deb. I find that by mixing a little dried garlic through the deb really changes the flavour and takes away the powdery taste.

Night 3 - Lime Chicken - On a recent trip to vietnam I did a cooking class and we learnt a recipe for a basic chicken dish served with rice. Whilst normally marinated tenders bbq, I thought it would work, basically it is marinated chicken (in this case mince) served with rice.

Night 4 - Spag Bol - a simple spag bol of pureed tins of tomatoe dehydrated with some herbs and mince. It is a pretty easy recipe and served with pasta.
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Re: 5 Day 4 night menu

Postby Strider » Mon 10 Jun, 2013 7:39 pm

How do you keep the meat fresh? The first night I can understand, but chicken on day 3 and mince on day 4 - ick :shock:
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Re: 5 Day 4 night menu

Postby corvus » Mon 10 Jun, 2013 7:56 pm

strider perhaps the meats were also dehydrated ??
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Re: 5 Day 4 night menu

Postby sim1oz » Mon 10 Jun, 2013 8:36 pm

Hi Zac,
Thanks for sharing your menu. Sounds great. I am interested to hear whether you dehydrated all the meals? With the weights you mentioned, it sounds like you did. Based on your experiences, which things dehydrated the best?
Carpe diem!
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Re: 5 Day 4 night menu

Postby Mutley » Mon 10 Jun, 2013 8:55 pm

Sounds great. I'm a firm believer in hiking with nutritious and simple food and this menu ticks all the boxes. 10kgs of wine though ? I think you guys need a Sherpa or two. Whilst tucking into a dehy risotto, there is nothing more i would enjoy than a good bottle of Victorian Shiraz, but the need to carry all that extra weight puts me off. I occasionally take 500ml of port but that's about it.

I'm going to give your yogurt fruit roll ups a try and the minestrone soup is a good idea. One question though, how do you dehy foods with so much liquid ? I have a round dehydrator and use the flexible trays, but they would only have a 1 cup capacity max.
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Re: 5 Day 4 night menu

Postby zac150 » Tue 11 Jun, 2013 6:43 pm

Strider, yes all the food was dehydrated except the lunches and with the ham being smoked I wasn't too concerned.

A bit more info, I have an excalibur dehydrator, upgraded from an old ezidry. We have found the excalibur dries things that the old ezidry simply couldn't, not sure why.

Sim, in terms of meat i think the only way to go is mince. I tend to dry all of the ingredients separately and cook as i would normally at home. personally I find this works for me and I don't end up blowing the flavours by adding too much water. This way of doing things also allows you to carry dry herbs and spices which can really freshen up a meal.

Mutley, I guess the liquid items will dry, they just take a little longer; for instance the tins of toms end up looking like a fruit leather, so as long as it can be pureed it can be dried. This is the same with the minestrone, find a concentrate in a tin, it will come out a little like Pal dog food (not the best analogy I know) but it will dry.

This year I really dropped the weight of the food right down and I think the biggest difference is getting the portions correct in the first instance. We didn't throw away any food and didn't want for another mouthful of food, our basic plan was 160g of mince (fresh weight) per person and 100g of carbs. I also matched the meals to the days walking i.e the minestrone was eaten after a shorter days walk when we weren't craving food as much.
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Re: 5 Day 4 night menu

Postby zac150 » Tue 11 Jun, 2013 6:47 pm

Mutley,

I should add our packs weren't that bad.

Start weight was:

9.0kg Personal gear - Clothes, pack, sleeping bag etc
2kg Group gear - share of pots, tent, gps, first aid, epirb we dont double up on anything
3.2kg food
2kg water
3kg wine
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Re: 5 Day 4 night menu

Postby Rob A » Mon 17 Jun, 2013 11:11 pm

Strider wrote:How do you keep the meat fresh? The first night I can understand, but chicken on day 3 and mince on day 4 - ick :shock:


Cant say Ive carried chook :shock:
Boiled eggs for seven or eight days go a bit green but its still food. They make a lump in the throat going down though.
Cook the living daylights out of lean meat and carry it for a week or more is no drama at all.
I mean in the olden days thats why they invented chilli, garlic and ginger.
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