Main Dishes for Paddling Lunches

1. Wraps, summer sausage (or pepperoni) and cheese. To prepare: Pull a burrito wrap out of the package, slice summer sausage and cheese. Wrap it up and eat. To pack: To preserve the wraps in your food bag, wrap them around the outside of bag so that the wraps follow the contours. Options: On a cold, wind day consider cooking the wrap in the fire.
2. Wasa crackers, cheese, sausage and horseradish mustard. To prepare: Take a Wasa cracker, slice sausage and cheese onto the cracker and cover with a big helping of mustard. To pack: Wasa crackers are hardy, but take care when packing them. Keep them in that paper package they come in and pack at the top of your food bag. Many grocery stores carry horseradish mustard in plastic squeeze bottles.
3. Peanut butter, summer sausage and some maple syrup…all wrapped up in a tortilla. This idea comes from Sven Hoaglund. I’m not so sure about the peanut butter, but maple syrup on sausage tastes great. If Andrew Zimmern can eat bizarre foods, so can paddlers. It’s probably tasty.
4. Hot soup. To prepare: Kurt Penner suggests heating up soup at breakfast, storing it in a lightweight thermos and eating it a lunch. This is especially good on cold, rainy days. I like carrying along instant soup mixes, which makes the process as easy as heating water and opening a package of soup.
5. Fruit, pepperjack cheese and a walnut, dried cranberries and sunflower seed mix. Combined with a lovely crusty loaf of Italian or other good bread covered with olive oil that had herbs and pepper and garlic steeping all day. This suggestion from Tracy Prior Seffers would work best on shorter trips where you can protect the bread or on trips that you’re motivated to make bread the night before.
   
6. Four-oz bag of chicken salad with multigrain sandwich thins, a couple sticks of Polly-O cheese, some Spanish olives. To pack: Kayak Gus tells us that this combo fits inside a ziplock bag with a single-serve Gatorade drink mix and a Clif Bar.
7. Hummus with mini pitas. This idea comes from Agnes Jung. To prepare: Mix powdered hummus with water until the hummus forms a paste-like consistency. I find that mixing the hummus at breakfast and storing it in a plastic bag makes lunch prep faster.
   
8. Pitas! You can put lots of stuff in them such as PB&J, Honey, sausage slices, smoked salmon or tuna from a pouch, cheese, dried beef, etc. To pack: Pitas are fragile so store them on the top of the food bag. You could substitute burrito wraps for pitas and use all the same ideas.
   

Side Dishes for Canoe and Kayak Lunches

1. Fruits: Apples hold up extremely well in a pack and taste fantastic at lunch. They supply a crunch often missing from camping food.
2. Veggies: Carrots and celery both hold up well in a back, and you can dip the celery into a plastic tub of peanut butter with little mess.
3. Trail mix. My recipe for the best trail mix is one bag Peanut M&Ms, one bag mixed nuts without peanuts, one box of Goldfish crackers.
4. Cliff bars.
5. Homemade energy bars: If anyone has a good recipe, please, share! Via Facebook, Agnes Jung suggests this recipe for Healthy Carrot Cake Power Scuffins
6. Fruit cups but they get eaten early to lighten the weight.
7. Granola bars.
8. Gummy worms. Tim Gallaway says, “Nothing makes a day better like a gummy worm on a rainy day boating. Gummy worms aren’t just for boating though. We always get them for skiing. They’re great for a quick boost going up the lift.”

Any other ideas?

This article originally appeared on PaddlingLight.com. Leave a comment and an opinion by clicking through here: 8 Lunch Ideas for Your Next Canoe or Kayak Trip

Creamy Wild Rice and Chicken over Potatoes Recipe (Serves 2)

Calories: 425 per person
Ingredients

• 2 packages of Lipton Cup-a-Soup, Cream of Chicken
• 2 extra-large cubes of Vegetable Bouillon
• 1/2 cup of Uncle Ben’s Long Grain and Wild Rice, Fast Cook Recipe or dehydrated Wild Rice (see below)
• 2/3 cup of Potato Buds
• 1 Tbsp of Ghee, Clarified Butter
• 3-1/3 cups of water (2/3 cup for potatoes, 2-2/3 for rice and soup)

Boil water. Pour 2/3 cup into a freezer bag with the potato buds, add ghee. Mix. Add rice, bouillon and soup to the boiling water. Stir well. Reduce heat to a simmer. Cook for five minutes or until the rice is tender. Add more water if you want a thinner soup. Split potatoes into two bowls, indent the potatoes and pour the creamy wild rice soup over.

Serve with bannock.

Dehydrating Wild Rice

For dehydrated wild rice, boil 2 cups of water. Add 3 Tbsp. of wild rice to the boiling rice. Reduce to a simmer and simmer for 30 or 40 minutes until tender. Dehydrate at about 135 degrees for several hours. Rice dries quickly.

This article originally appeared on PaddlingLight.com. Leave a comment and an opinion by clicking through here: Creamy Wild Rice and Chicken over Potatoes

Hygiene & Misc

• Small travel sized toothpaste
• Dr. Bronner – Castile Soap Peppermint repackaged to a 1 ounce container
• 10 One-a-Day vitamin pills
• 15 pack of Action Wipes
• 3 gallon sized plastic bags

Fuel

• 1 3.5 ounce Jetboilcanister

Breakfast

• 10 Carnation Instant Breakfast Essentials
• 3.5 cups of Instant Milk
• 10 Java Juice packages (if you’re a coffee drinker)
• 4 Servings Oatmeal: 3/4 quick oats, 1/3 cup Nestle Nido, 1 TBSP brown sugar, 1/4 cup dried fruit
• 6 Servings Cereal: 1 cup Kashi Cereal, 1/3 cup Instant Milk, 1 TBSP brown sugar, 1/4 cup dried fruit

Lunch

• 1 package Wasa Crackers o flat bread or pitas
• One or two red peppers
• 8 oz block of cheese (sharp cheddar)
• 9 oz Salami or Summer Sausage
• 1 package of Pepperoni
• 1 jar’s worth of Nutella or Peanut Butter
• 10 lunch sized packages of Corn Chips

Dinner

• 10 Enertia Trail Food Dinners (Coleman branded have more calories)
  • Korr/Lipton dinners could be substituted. Cooking takes much longer.
• 10 TBSP olive oil
• 5 packages of Instant pudding/cheesecake, etc…

Snacks

• 20 Clif Bars, Power Bars or homemade (woohoo!) bars
• 16 ounce package of Fig Newtons or other sweet snacks
• 10 Gornola Bars (hard)
• 1 can Wheat Nuts (pure fat!)
• 1 can Repackaged (double bags w/scoop) Energy Drink (look for glucose polymers (maltodextrins))

Sometimes, I make gorp.

• One big bag of peanut M&Ms
• Can of mixed nuts with no peanuts
• 3/4 box of Goldfish crackers
• 2 to 3 cups of dried peas

Good Resources

Most of the camping cookbooks on the market present recipes and menu plans which just don’t work on a high millage long distance trip. There just isn’t enough time in the day to paddle 30 plus miles, set up camp, blog, take pictures, and prepare complicated meals. Here are a few books that are the best for this style of trip.

• The Appalachian Trail Food Planner: Recipes and Menus for a 2,000-Mile Hike
• Freezer Bag Cooking: Trail Food Made Simple

This article originally appeared on PaddlingLight.com. Leave a comment and an opinion by clicking through here: 10-day Solo Paddling Menu Plan

On my first paddling and camping trips, I often overlooked making a good breakfast in favor of eating a few quick snacks, like Pop Tarts, and as I paddled I noticed my strength fading quickly. It took me a few trips to figure out my breakfast wasn’t working for me. Although breakfast snacks like instant pastries have over 400 calories per package, they lack any significant fat or protein. Essentially, they’re just empty carbs and eating them in the morning creates high blood-sugar levels, which will eventually crash throwing the body into a battle that’ll will last all day. That’s no way to start a hard day of paddling.

Over the years, I’ve come up with a staple of five quick and healthy breakfast meals for camping trips.

Bagel and Peanut Butter

1 Bagel
2 tbsp peanut butter

Calories: 538
Fat: 18g
Carbs: 76g
Protein: 21g

This is the simplest meal I carry. Bagels hold up well in the pack and bagels taste good. If I’m carrying Parkey squeeze butter and I feel like cooking, I’ll coat the bagel in butter and fry it for a toasted like texture. Parkey adds 70 calories and 8g of fat.

Super Charged Couscous

1/3 cup dry couscous
1/2 cup water
1 tbsp almonds, sliced
2 tbsp raisins
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/6 cup dry milk
Honey to taste

Calories: 340
Fat: 5 g
Carbs: 64g
Protein: 14g

Instant couscous cooks in five minutes, and when augmented with tasty ingredients, it makes a great breakfast. Mix everything, except the optional honey at home. Boil water in camp and add the mix. Remove it from the heat and in five minutes, breakfast is ready.

Oatmeal Plus

1 cup oatmeal
1 3/4 cups water
1 tbsp ground flax seed
1 tbsp almonds, sliced
Brown sugar

Calories: 247
Fat: 10g
Carbs: 35g
Protein: 8g

I love oatmeal. On many trips, I just bring a bunch of oatmeal and enjoy a warm breakfast each day. Quick oats cook in five minutes.

Kashi Golean Crunch Honey Almond Flax

1 1/2 cups Kashi cereal
1/3 cup dry milk
1 cup water

Calories: 380
Fat: 6g
Carbs: 66g
Protein: 22g

I love this cereal. It’s healthy, it’s tasty, and it’s so easy when premixed with dry milk—just add water to the bag and shake.

Frybread

1/2 cup white flour
1/2 cup wheat flour
1/8 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
2 tbsp powdered milk
bring a cup of oil or Parkey squeeze butter

Calories: 490
Fat: 2g
Carbs: 96g
Protein: 19g

Making frybread is more difficult than the other recipes, but because it tastes so good on a cold rainy morning or on a wind day, I always carry one batch with me. Mix all the dry ingredients together at home. In camp, mix in enough water enough water to make dough the same consistency as pancake mix. Then fry in oil or hot butter.

Coffee

Carrying coffee making gear adds weight to the pack, and creates the hassle of having to carry out wet coffee grounds. I just don’t do it anymore. Instead, I use Java Juice. Java Juice is a coffee extract that comes in single serving packages. Add it to hot water and you get a great tasting cup of coffee. Try it and you won’t regret it.

Resources

• 10 Tasty, Easy and Healthy Breakfast Ideas: A nice article written about breakfast at home. It spurred me to write this post.
• Java Juice (Singles)(Pack of 10): Enjoy an easy to make and good cup of coffee on your next camping trip.

This article originally appeared on PaddlingLight.com. Leave a comment and an opinion by clicking through here: 5 Quick and Healthy Breakfasts

12 days of food using the NOLS ration planning system.

I planned twelve to thirteen days of paddling, but ended up spending only nine days completing the trip. Living in a small town with two big grocery stores and one Co-op, buying the food is actually more difficult than it sounds, and as it turns out, much more expensive than I anticipated. For almost all that I had to go out and buy, which didn’t include sugar, flour, cornmeal, hot cocoa, and a few other items, it cost over $100. I guess I should have driven two hours to a big town to get a price break. Even with gas at $2.90 a gallon, I’d have probably come out ahead. Moral of the story, plan ahead on bulk food buying.

Anyway, for this planning I used NOLS Rationing system based on 2 pounds per person per day for food. Claudia Pearson outlines this in the Nols Cookery book, which is available from Amazon.com.

This is my bulk list:

Breakfast

• 1 pound Oatmeal
• 1/2 pound Couscous
• 1 pound Grape Nuts
• 1 pound Fry Bread
• 5 ounces Hash Browns

Dinner

• 1/2 pound Instant Beans
• 1 pound Pasta
• 1 pound Rice
• 1/2 pound Falafel
• 1/2 pound Instant Potatoes
• 1/2 pound Ramen noodles
• 3 Lipton dinners (Just in case)
• 1/2 pound Hummus

Cheese

• 1 pound Sharp Cedar

Trail Foods

• 2 ounces Sunflower Seeds
• 8 ounces Mixed Nuts
• 12 ounces Dried Fruit
• 5 ounces Raisins
• 2 ounces Corn Nuts
• 14 ounces M&Ms
• 4 ounces Goldfish
• 22 Granola bars
• 11 ounces Crackers

Baking Goods

• 1/2 pound Sugar (50/50 white and brown)
• 3 ounce Cornmeal
• 8 ounce Flour

Drinks

• 6 servings of Tang
• 6 servings of Crystal Light Lemonade
• 12 Tea bags

Soups, Bases, Deserts

• 2 ounces of Jell-O Pudding
• 6 beef Boulin cubes
• 1/2 pounds Cups of Soup
• 11 ounces Cheesecake
• 5 Pasta Sauces (alfedo, 2 x pesto, chili, spaghetti)

Milk, Margarine, Cocoa

• 1/2 pound Powdered Milk
• 12 ounces Margarine
• 10 ounces Cocoa

Meats

• 1 pound Tuna
• 1/2 pound Summer Sausage
• 1/2 pound Pepperoni

Because I finished three to four days early, I had some left over food. This is the list of leftovers:

Leftovers

• 5 ounces Raisins (Used none.)
• 1/2 pound Couscous (Used none.)
• 1/2 pound Falafel (Used none.)
• 4 ounces Fry Bread
• 6 ounces Pasta
• 5 ounces Hash Browns (Used none.)
• 3 ounces Grape Nuts
• 4 ounces Milk
• 5 ounces Sugar
• 5 ounces instant Potatoes
• 10 Flour and Cornmeal (Used none.)
• 4 ounces Rice
• 2.5 ounces Sunflower seeds
• 3 packs of Pasta Sauce
• 6 ounces cups of soup
• 2 ounces pudding (Used none.)
• 4.6 ounces of hot choc
• 6 servings of Tang (Used none.)
• 6 servings of Lemonade (Used none.)

This comes out at just over five pounds of food, which means that at 2 pounds of food a day, this would give me two and a half days of food, but because I knew I was ahead, I ate bigger meals towards the end of the trip. So, two pounds per person per day would seem to be the right amount of food.

There are a few changes that I’d make, I had planned on using the flour and cornmeal to make tortillas for the falafel, but with the high mileage days that I paddled from 7:30 to 5:30 almost every day, I didn’t really have the energy or time to prepare the tortillas before sunset. I think I would substitute out all the baking goods, except some of the sugar, which got used on Grape Nuts and in Cinnamon and Sugar for the fry bread. The baking food weight, I’d move to snack and lunch food. Margarine should be cut in half, and I didn’t list my spice kit above, but I would take only the oil, olive oil, cinnamon and sugar mix, and the hot sauce next time. And I’m not sure what I was thinking about when I decided Couscous and Raisins for breakfast, because I’m not a fan of either, so they didn’t get eaten – Grape Nuts would have been fine.

The meal making went very easily, except a mess up with making Mac & cheese from cheese blocks. I didn’t let the cheese melt enough so it was more like Mac and cheese chucks. Reminded me of the dinner that Lieutenant Henry was eating before he was hit by a mortar shell in Hemingway’s Farewell To Arms.

Overall, I like meal planning this way. It’s much easier than planning each day’s menus, and I ate better on this trip than most of my other trips. Certainly, I ate better than the North Men leaving Grand Portage for the northland who were issued rations of corn and fat for the journey home. The book mentioned above outlines this plan nicely, and I highly recommend buying the book just to learn this system.

This article originally appeared on PaddlingLight.com. Leave a comment and an opinion by clicking through here: Ration Planning NOLS Style