Expedition food

RAS

Three minute noodles are good. - bring to boil and put to one side. Then deal with the sauce, take that off the stove and re-heat quickly. Drain, add sauce and some marg or butter and eat.

A cup a soup is a good thing to have to hand when you halt after the walk. Take your rucksac off, put the kettle on and by the time the tent is up, you have a hot drink ready. Nothing wrong with bread, and loads of marg to soak it up. That warms you up and gives you enough umph to deal with all the other stuff that needs sorting out.

You can also make a very quick "sauce" for noodles by making up half a cup a soup a bit thick and stiring it in with some marg or butter.

Dried potato purls/Mashed potato. Can be used as padding alongside something else. Otherwise think about a box with a few already cooked rashers of bacon. make up the mash (in a mug if necessary), Lightly fry some onion etc (wild garlic would be good) until soft, add the bacon on bits, then the mashed potato, stir and eat.

Those little sachets of sauce you get in self service restaurants are good, as are the little sachets of salt and pepper.

Agree with the instant porridge suggestions.

Also mix Instant Whip./Angel Delight with dried milk for a dessert.

Encourage him to carry a packet of GORP (good old raisins and peanuts) in his pocket, perhaps with some dried fruit. Snacking a tiny bit every half hour improves the ability to keep going more than one mega sugar rush from a whole bar at break-time.

By the way, read the calorie intake on those freeze dried meals and you will be astonished how low they are. After a day packing, I need calories and they simply are not be adequate.

laurel7172

My daughter has her bronze coming up, and some packets of pasta in sauce fell into the bag in Aldi last week. They were around the 50p mark.

I remember taking something similar on my D of E expeditions..cough...25 years ago. Because the camping shop meals were a silly price then, too.

Quite a few seem to need butter and milk, so I'm just going to slit open the packet, dollop in some milk powder and tape it shut again.

My concern as a parent is, as others have said, that there aren't enough calories in the dehydrated junk food, but it's warm stodge and it'll do the job. It's only for a couple of days and she'll be quite happy to fill up on chocolate.

westcoastscot

I used to pack the following for one night expeditions:
half pack biscuits each, 2 cup a soup, 1 tin spam, 1 pack pasta/sauce (a big one), lots of choc, popcorn in a polybag with oil in it ready to pop, instant porridge, instant hot choc, sugar, dried fruit. Plus packed lunch.
WCS

patchwork_cat

Just to clarify he isn't walking he is canoeing. So snacking every half an hour is not necessarily going to be an option, but on the converse weight isn't going to be such an issue. Thanks all .

westcoastscot

Hi I was asking my kids - they used to go one night each week - and a fav for them was the beanfeast packs - made loads and really filling. Also marshmallows for toasting :-)
WCS

organic_wanabe

My DS receives his DoE Gold Award this Summer and thank goodness it is over! I bought the dried food from the Army Surplus store where it was better value (about £5 for a day's worth of food including water sterilising tablets). However, in reality he did not eat very much (he was walking, with what seemed like double his body weight on his back) and more or less fell into his sleeping bag at night. The one thing he always packed were sachets of Lemsip. Hot Chocolate sachets were another favourite, along with Mars Bars, Oatmeal Biscuits and a packet of wraps. Canoeing sounds much more fun - hope he has a great time.

23rdspiral

Hi, there are also some threads on Festival Food which might help? My experience is from camping and festivals (Glastonbury can be a 3mile muddy walk from the car!)

- tins are heavy. Personally i only take tinned tuna or maybe a sainsburys chicken curry.

- Home Bargains often has those foil packets of things - chicken curry is very good. I'd recomend these over expedition packs anyday. Easy to pack, much lighter to carry, quick to heat. Sainsburys do small versions designed for lunches and i think now do dinner sized ones near the canned meals. (for all intense and purposes they look like Cat Food Pouches!) :rotfl:

- tetrapack cartons of custard are practically essential: can be eaten hot or cold.

- hot chocolate, malt loaf, flapjack and dolly mixutres are for me essential as they keep up moral on the nth day of rain...

Good luck to your son I hope he has fun!

patchwork_cat

organic_wanabe wrote: »

Canoeing sounds much more fun - hope he has a great time.

That is what we thought, but it is heavier in work load than the walking one. However he is hopeful that he will end this expedition with 3* BCU and then he is one step away from being able to teach canoeing. More interesting to talk about at Uni interview certainly!
Lots of good ideas here thank you.

All good learning for the festivals which will no doubt become a regular summer feature in the future - it is certainly something we have thought about to justify the expense of such things like a self inflating mat for a couple of weekends and a five day trip - it will probably be rolled out !!(pun intended) for a few summers of fun to come!

JuneBow

My daughter is going on a DoE expedition for three days. She has to carry all of her own food.
She has to take packed luches for three days. I will drop her off on Friday morning and she will return after lunch on Sunday.
I need some packed lunch ideas to take her till Sunday.
Things that will not go off.
I have thought of things like breakfast bars, chocolate, cake and other high cal things but am wondering if sandwiches would go off or soggy after this lenght of time.
It will be cold (next week end she goes) but there will be no opportunity for refridgeration etc.
Looking for suggestions really.
She is not at all a fussy eater. Will eat anything.
High energy is obviously best.
TIA

Lucy_Lastic

I would think that cheese sandwiches would be OK if they don't get too warm. To avoid soggyness maybe she could take bread & cheese or crackers. Some little cherry tomatoes would be OK too. A small tin of corned beef maybe? (No need for tin opener - just make sure the key is attached!) Little jars of spread/paste and a packet of crispbread? How about fruit? Would she have access to a kettle or microwave? If so there are loads of other options.