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Pile of Kittens
Apr 23, 2005

Why does everything STILL smell like pussy?

Camping is gross and uncomfortable and inconvenient. I honestly have no idea why people do it. However, since I am once again roped into a desert camping trip in a certain section of Nevada at a certain time of year with a certain crowd of approximately 40 thousand other idiots, I wanted to start a thread to share my research and questions on cooking decent food while camping. I swear to god if my boyfriend says that freeze dried packets are "perfectly good meals" one more time, I'm going to hunt, kill, dress, clean, butcher, and serve him to my campmates. Hmmm, new theme camp idea?


my eyes are full of smoke and i haven't poo poo in a week

TECHNOLOGY

Cooking while camping is an exercise in technical constraints paired with extravagant creativity in ingredients. You can take any ingredient you want, but you're stuck storing it in a cooler that rapidly will assume the temperature of the air around it every time you open it. You have to cook it on a grill or fire that has little to no calibration for heat output. No ovens, no crock pots, no microwaves. You probably can't even really wash your pots and pans in between cooking, making do with wet wipes and a quick rinse. To make matters worse, in some places, you have to pack out your grey water, so screw cooking pasta.

I like cooking on a two burner camping stove with an actual propane tank. None of those little handheld canisters for me, those things go dead slowly as you cook with them and it fucks up my calibration on how long/high to cook things. Mine looks like this and costs like $40 at WalMart. We got an adapter for it so we can hook it up to a big tank. Don't ask me about poo poo you have to carry into a campsite on your back, that's for goddamn plebes who enjoy this poo poo.



In past years I've gone with stainless steel and just packed a canister of Bartender's Helper to scrub it with. This year, if I get the motivation up, I'm going to rehabilitate my cast iron pans. I've used them before and the idea of just wiping out my pan after cooking excites me in places that you are all uninterested in hearing about.

As for refrigeration, I really enjoy using a two-cooler system. One cooler is the frozen poo poo cooler, and it's opened as little as possible. I pull poo poo out of it once a day to put in the not-frozen poo poo cooler, which also contains my beer. As it thaws, it steals heat from the beers, keeping them nice and refreshing. My frozen poo poo cooler has a fancy hat made of reflective foam, all the better to ward off the evil heat rays of the daystar. Again, don't ask me about poo poo you have to carry more than a few yards from your car. I live two weeks in the desert without running water, I'm not gonna spend a day carrying poo poo up to my campsite.


my pants are full of water and i don't even like fish and now i have west nile virus

INGREDIENTS

I guess when you're camping you can forage and hunt and fish. I know gently caress-all about hunting and fishing, as they are unpleasant activities you have to exert yourself for, often early in the morning. Distasteful. I loving love foraging though, because it gives me something to do when my friends are all "let's go for a hike and look at boring-rear end trees!" I'm just trailing behind them stuffing my face with delicious thimbleberries. Sadly, I can't do that in the desert, because the only thing to eat out there is dust and gravel.

DO NOT FORAGE WITHOUT A BOOK OR ANOTHER PERSON WHO KNOWS WHAT THEY'RE DOING. Lots of things will happily kill you for eating them.



Okay, so I have some questions about meal planning. This year I luckily only have to plan about seven dinners and lunches ("only") and I have the ability to send frozen items down before I get there. I'm going to sous vide meats which can be seared on site, and freeze sauces to be thawed and dumped into the pan with those meats. Due to prior experimentation ("please stop buying bread, we never eat it and it turns into a wad of dough") I am limiting carbs to minute rice, naan/pitas, and tortillas. Breakfasts are cereal and almond milk, half-cooked bacon seared the rest of the way to perfection on-site, and those neat egg scrambler things in a carton that come with the bell peppers already mixed in!

I'm having some trouble deciding on the "seared meat with frozen and thawed sauce" items. And since recipes aren't sorted by format online, I'm sort of drawing a blank beyond meatballs+sauce. Can I get some suggestions?

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Slayerjerman
Nov 27, 2005

by sebmojo
When camping, there are only three things you need. Hotdogs, Beer and Ice.
Everything else is like why bother camping if you're going to lug your drat refrigerator out into the woods filled with poo poo you just got from Costco.

Anything that can be wrapped in 10 layers of foil and thrown into a fire to 'cook' are also good to bring I guess if you cant survive a week on hotdogs alone. Baked potatoes, corn on the drat cob and long-cook poo poo like shredded meats are always easy to season, wrap and toss into the fire while you down about 40 beers (yay carbs, gently caress pasta).

For the love of god do not try to be fancy and spend 3 hours trying to start a fire to cook bacon at 5am. gently caress cooking in the morning, however do encourage other idiots around you to do so you dont have to! But in case of desperate need to eat morning food, a large Tupperware with Costco muffins can be a life saver (just dont share).

Oxphocker
Aug 17, 2005

PLEASE DO NOT BACKSEAT MODERATE
Gourmet foil packs are an easy to make recipe.
Root veggies, protein, and a sauce/seasoning is the formula. Some of my faves:
Carrots/Potatoes, Chicken, and Curry Powder/Chicken Bouillon
Carrot/Celery/Potato, Chicken/Smoked Sausage, Cajun Seasonings
Spicy Corn Relish, Fish, Lemon Pepper
Carrot/Potato, Beef Cubes, Gravy Powder/Pepper
Rice/Celery/Peppers, Shirmp, Cajun Seasoning/Lime

Liquid Communism
Mar 9, 2004


Out here, everything hurts.




It's Burning Man. Don't bother with any normal camp cooking, because it means having to haul out a stove, all the water you needed to wash your tools and dishes, and still eating dust. Not to mention the leave no trace issues with anything runny/crumbly, all the trash it creates, and having to have a grey water management plan to truck that back out with you.

Pack commercial foil-pouch meals like the Dinty Moore stuff you can heat in the sun and eat out of the container before stuffing it in your trash bag, dry foods with sugar like fruits and clif bars, and a shitload of water, juice based mixers, gatorade, and alcohol.

Cooking time on the playa, unless you're doing something special for someone, is better spent out roaming around seeing all the crazy poo poo anyway.

Liquid Communism fucked around with this message at 12:36 on Jul 28, 2016

Elizabethan Error
May 18, 2006

Pile of Kittens posted:

As for refrigeration, I really enjoy using a two-cooler system. One cooler is the frozen poo poo cooler, and it's opened as little as possible. I pull poo poo out of it once a day to put in the not-frozen poo poo cooler, which also contains my beer. As it thaws, it steals heat from the beers, keeping them nice and refreshing. My frozen poo poo cooler has a fancy hat made of reflective foam, all the better to ward off the evil heat rays of the daystar. Again, don't ask me about poo poo you have to carry more than a few yards from your car. I live two weeks in the desert without running water, I'm not gonna spend a day carrying poo poo up to my campsite.


Can I get some suggestions?
How about not taking stuff that will give you food poisoning to a camping trip in the desert? even a new cooler will NOT stop evaporation. it's not a freezer, it won't maintain a safe temperature for long.

Pile of Kittens
Apr 23, 2005

Why does everything STILL smell like pussy?

I can get theoretically unlimited ice because I work enough there that I'm staff. I also can probably bum space in the chest freezer next camp over this year even though I'm not camping with them. I have yet to give anyone food poisoning, despite everyone's attempts to give it to themselves by trying to eat a steak that thawed in the sun all afternoon :eng99:

edit: also I weep for all of you that subject your colon to a diet of nonstop Dinty Moore for a week or more at a time. I mean maybe I'm a delicate goddamn flower or something but I need slightly more roughage.

double edit:

quote:

Cooking time on the playa, unless you're doing something special for someone, is better spent out roaming around seeing all the crazy poo poo anyway.

It's my eighth year and how I allocate my time is my business. My job takes me all over the place to look at art (and talk people out of jumping off it because the LSD says they can fly) during peak insanity hours anyway. I'm not going to start eating trash just so I can go do that for an extra two hours a day.

Pile of Kittens fucked around with this message at 19:06 on Jul 28, 2016

Enkor
Dec 17, 2005
That is not it at all.
Thai-ish curries might work. I use a sauce that's 2 cans full fat coconut milk to 4 ounces curry paste. Frying the curry paste in some oil / coconut is a nice step that I often skip. Then it's just adding whatever meat/veg you want according to how much you want it to cook, and then serve with rice. Onion, bell pepper, apple, scallion, zucchini, squash, sweet potato, potato, eggplant, carrot, greens, and of course meats have all worked for me. I hope this works for your situation!

Real Name Grover
Feb 13, 2002

Like corn on the cob
Fan of Britches

Oxphocker posted:

Gourmet foil packs are an easy to make recipe.

Carrot/Potato, Beef Cubes, Gravy Powder/Pepper

My friends and I affectionately call this "hobo dinner." Add some onion and a few small slabs of butter, because why not

mindphlux
Jan 8, 2004

by R. Guyovich
if you are asking how to cook food over two weeks given refrigeration and gas stoves and poo poo, I don't know what to tell you.

if you are asking how to cook while actually camping, chop up some wood, start a fire, and either find a stick and roast some meat and veg with the stick, or get fancy and bring a cast iron or aluminum grate or pan, some basic oil/seasonings, and cook on coals. root vegetables work well. if you're concerned about weight, do dried packets of stuff. it's not hugely complicated, because it literally can't be, or you're lugging a billion pounds of poo poo around on your back for however many miles.

Illinois Smith
Nov 15, 2003

Ninety-one? There are ninety other "Tiger Drivers"? Do any involve actual tigers, or driving?
Have you considered just eating drugs at Burning Man? I hear that's a thing people do in the desert at Burning Man. Depending on the drugs, you won't even need to cook them!

Pile of Kittens
Apr 23, 2005

Why does everything STILL smell like pussy?

Illinois Smith posted:

Have you considered just eating drugs at Burning Man? I hear that's a thing people do in the desert at Burning Man. Depending on the drugs, you won't even need to cook them!

Googling "what is the nutritive content of methamphetamine" hasn't gotten me many results, is it a good source of protein and sodium?

Croatoan
Jun 24, 2005

I am inevitable.
ROBBLE GROBBLE

Pile of Kittens posted:

Googling "what is the nutritive content of methamphetamine" hasn't gotten me many results, is it a good source of protein and sodium?

You probably won't notice that you're missing some fwiw.

Illinois Smith
Nov 15, 2003

Ninety-one? There are ninety other "Tiger Drivers"? Do any involve actual tigers, or driving?
You could always supplement your amphetamines with Soylent, it has everything a body needs. Also if you manage to scarf it down without water you won't have to do any dishes at all!

Suspect Bucket
Jan 15, 2012

SHRIMPDOR WAS A MAN
I mean, HE WAS A SHRIMP MAN
er, maybe also A DRAGON
or possibly
A MINOR LEAGUE BASEBALL TEAM
BUT HE WAS STILL
SHRIMPDOR
If it was me, i'd just pack cans of corn, green beans, whole tomatoes, packets of tuna and chicken, some herbs and spices, salt and sugar and hot sauce, granola and cereals, chocolate, oatmeal, rice, dry beans, pasta and tortillas. Maybe a hard grating cheese. No ideas about meat other then dried or canned stuff if your refrigeration is going to be iffy. Also, nothing wrong with a few packaged / dehydrated meal packs for variety. Some are quite fancy now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fmLlkfGQ_0

Suspect Bucket fucked around with this message at 03:13 on Aug 2, 2016

Pile of Kittens
Apr 23, 2005

Why does everything STILL smell like pussy?

Holy poo poo, I have never been genuinely tempted by a MRE before.

Suspect Bucket
Jan 15, 2012

SHRIMPDOR WAS A MAN
I mean, HE WAS A SHRIMP MAN
er, maybe also A DRAGON
or possibly
A MINOR LEAGUE BASEBALL TEAM
BUT HE WAS STILL
SHRIMPDOR

Pile of Kittens posted:

Holy poo poo, I have never been genuinely tempted by a MRE before.

Yeah, REAL looks cool, they have some awesome looking food. http://drytech.no/?lang=en

These guys also look good. http://goodto-go.com/shop/.

And of course, Mountain House. http://www.mountainhouse.com/

It's expensive, but would probably be a welcome break from canned meals. Good To Go has single and double sized serving packets as well. And Mountain House you can buy in bulk and save with the #10 cans. I know I'd probably want some nice tasty not-caned stew or raspberry crumble a week into Burning Man.

Suspect Bucket fucked around with this message at 04:19 on Aug 4, 2016

indoflaven
Dec 10, 2009
So is this about desert camping or forest camping? Forest camping has things to tie to, and shade. Big difference. Either way just plan ahead on meals. There's not much you can't make camping . Unless your hiking in. They make camping ovens.

Nm: gently caress desert camping

indoflaven fucked around with this message at 18:17 on Aug 4, 2016

Mr. Wiggles
Dec 1, 2003

We are all drinking from the highball glass of ideology.
Burning man is not desert camping. Burning man is like camping at a gigantic music and drugs festival where there is no water and is leave no trace and is actually a living hell of rich people pretending to like art while you get caked with playa dust.

Desert camping means you can prospect for water, use fire, and take advantage of the environment in ways that Black Rock City does not allow.

OP, just bring prepackaged poo poo and all the bottled water you can. And listen to cooking issues this next week because there's going to be someone on talking about doing cocktails at burning man, which may answer interesting questions you didn't even know you had.

BBQ Dave
Jun 17, 2012

Well, that's easy for you to say. You have a bad imagination. It's stupid. I live in a fantasy world.

Pile of Kittens posted:

This year, if I get the motivation up, I'm going to rehabilitate my cast iron pans. I've used them before and the idea of just wiping out my pan after cooking excites me in places that you are all uninterested in hearing about.



If hauling hardware isn't a problem I recommend rehabbing and bringing your cast iron. You may need a little water to wash, but not as much as other pots and pans. I just did a little top and bottom charcoal this week.

I rubbed a tri tip with salt, pepper and granulated garlic, then seared the poo poo out of both sides (wee bit of olive oil). Then I took in out and threw in a sliced onion and some red wine. Gave it a stir. Then I set the roast back on the onions and put the lid back on and added some coals. I let it cook for a half hour, then removed the roast to rest. I added more coals under the pot and put in green beans, lemon and seasoning. The veggies were nice and beefy tasting. Was good.

The second night I wanted to try chicken. I used this guy's method with a few changes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5LjJnazVuA

I rubbed it (inside and out) with salt, pepper, fresh chopped garlic olive oil, chopped rosemary and I stuck a couple carrots and rosemary sprigs inside. Then I seared the poo poo out of the top and bottom (breast and spine) of the chicken.

For veggies I used yukon golds, baby carrots, 1 diced onion and more minced rosemary. I squeezed one lemon over the sides, added some olive oil and a cup of water.

I closed the top, added the coals and let it cook for twenty minutes. At that point I tried to make a new batch of coals but the wind effed it up:argh:. After some delay I managed to replace the coals with fresh ones two more times and after an hour ended up overcooking it a bit (I was paranoid about undercooked chicken). No complaints though. The chicken tasted great and the potatoes were fantastic.



I should have photographed the closed oven with coals on top. It all tasted great. The wow factor in pulling a dirty lid off a hunk of iron to reveal a bubbling, fragrant feast is a lot of fun for everyone.

BTW, I cooked it breast down, I just flipped it for the photo. To be honest I don't have a lot of camp cooking experience, this trip I was trying to learn. It was fun. I learned the wind can seriously slow things down and as a result I got scurred and overcooked everything a little bit. The pan's seasoning held up well against the acids (onion, lemon, red wine).

For info on rehabing your pans check out the cast iron thread:
http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3694651

Suspect Bucket
Jan 15, 2012

SHRIMPDOR WAS A MAN
I mean, HE WAS A SHRIMP MAN
er, maybe also A DRAGON
or possibly
A MINOR LEAGUE BASEBALL TEAM
BUT HE WAS STILL
SHRIMPDOR
Let us know how it goes, Kittens, and I hope you have a good time!

mindphlux
Jan 8, 2004

by R. Guyovich

Suspect Bucket posted:

Let us know how it goes, Kittens, and I hope you have a good time!

nice thread necromancy

Suspect Bucket
Jan 15, 2012

SHRIMPDOR WAS A MAN
I mean, HE WAS A SHRIMP MAN
er, maybe also A DRAGON
or possibly
A MINOR LEAGUE BASEBALL TEAM
BUT HE WAS STILL
SHRIMPDOR

mindphlux posted:

nice thread necromancy

It's not a dead thread if the event mentioned within is currently occurring. The thread was just resting.

Mr. Wiggles
Dec 1, 2003

We are all drinking from the highball glass of ideology.
gently caress burning man all of reno is stupid right now because of it. Can't even buy ice for goodness sakes.

Bald Stalin
Jul 11, 2004

Our posts
Reno is also getting crazy because the rib cook-off starts tomorrow too. I got VIP rib village tickets for all you can eat ribs (any competing vendor), sides and beer/wine :getin:

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Mr. Wiggles
Dec 1, 2003

We are all drinking from the highball glass of ideology.
I had one of those a few years ago. Sort of worth it, I guess, but I get my fill every time I go to Carolina BBQ, and then I don't have to deal with the rib cookoff crowd.

Reno is really great town to eat in, tho.

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