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Easy motorcycle camping cooking?

Z

zirconx

Guest
I have never done any cooking while motorcycle camping, but I just got a portable stove for my birthday and plan to try this on my trip in a week.

I would appricate any suggestions of what to cook? I have no idea what I can make that doesn't require a bit of milk, or butter, or whatever else I won't have there with me at the campsite.

Thanks,
-Ryan
 
Easy motorcycle camping cooking ?

I think its great to be able to put everyting you need on your bike and go camping!

As far as cooking,the only thing I have cooked on my (expensive) backpack stove is water for coffee.:)

But after you get to the camp ground you can possibly go the a store and purchase food items.

Or if you want to bring it all with you yo can try a backpack/outdoor store for freeze dried foods.(just add water).I think you can also get food with a chemical pack you can add to heat it up like army rations.
If all fails....theres always the arches !
 
Ryan,

There are lots of things that are easy to carry and easy to cook.

I usually carry at least one can of soup or stew. If you find yourself in the middle of nowhere you have at least one meal. I get the "ready made" stuff that you don't have to add water. Then there is Coffee or Tea as mentioned above. I also do Oatmeal in the mornings. There are several types of instand Oatmeal/Cream of Wheat. Most of my cooking is pretty simple but it does open up a new way to look at motorcycle camping. If you want to get fancy check out the Cooking Section on the MOA website. Excellent write up by Don MacNeil. http://www.bmwmoa.org/camping/DonMacNeilCooking.htm

If you're going to do the Backing Food route I highly recommend you try that stuff at home FIRST! Nothing like cooking up something you'd find hard to feed to your dog (miles from the nearest store)!

Enjoy!
Greg
 
Ryan

Read "Motorcycle Camping made easy" by Bob Woofter, many great ideas on cooking and camping.


Regrads

Ron
 
Try some of the pre-packaged dehydrated meals found in good camping stores. All you need is water, there is quite a variety, easily packed and are lite.
 
I traveled with Rob Nye and Sheepshagger this summer. They had a stove called a Pyromid. I think they bought them on Ebay. They were able to grill steaks, chicken and the like. When we combined that with chips and salsa and a salad in a bag, we had a great dinner.

With the advent of the salads in a bag, you can buy a chicken breast (pre marinated), grill it with a small bag of Matchlight and put it on top of a Caesar salad and have a pretty nice dinner.
 
I've tried alot of the Mountain House freeze dried meals--like Gizmo says, they are light and only require water and a stove to make. And like Greg said, stews are always good and come ready to heat out of the can--Dinty Moore isn't too bad. It really depends on how much stuff you want to pack and how much weight you can bear. Another must to go along with that stove is a titanium cooking pot--they are lightweight and usually come with a teflon coating to make cleanup a snap. Also try those Maxwell House coffee bags---they look like teabgs but have coffee in them..you brew the cup just like you would tea. If and if like milk in your coffee like me, Parmalat milk boxes (the small ones) are standard issue--they keep in the heat until opened...some sugar in a mini tupperware container and your off!!! Don't forget your favorite travel mug, too!! I have gone weekend hiking before and forgot my mug....I had to drink my coffee out of an empty Planters glass peanut jar!!!:p
 
I purchased a small percolator from REI.
401139.jpg

The reason I went with it was that I could make coffee with it, plus boil water and be able to pour it into something easily, such as instant oatmeal or cup of soup. I also have boiled hot dogs in there succesfully. (Hot dogs over a Pocket Rocket stove are not the same as over a campfire.)

The other thing is unless you are doing true rough camping, you can usually get away with setting up tent and then going into town for provisions. Pretty much think of it as anything that you can cook on a stove you can cook on the road.

I have been experimenting before going on the road with what I can cook and not cook. I also always have a powerbar, just in case....
 
BradfordBenn said:
I purchased a small percolator from REI.
401139.jpg

The reason I went with it was that I could make coffee with it, plus boil water and be able to pour it into something easily, such as instant oatmeal or cup of soup. I also have boiled hot dogs in there succesfully. (Hot dogs over a Pocket Rocket stove are not the same as over a campfire.)

The other thing is unless you are doing true rough camping, you can usually get away with setting up tent and then going into town for provisions. Pretty much think of it as anything that you can cook on a stove you can cook on the road.

I have been experimenting before going on the road with what I can cook and not cook. I also always have a powerbar, just in case....

This coming from a guy who about six months ago hadn't camped in years. We've created a monster. :)
 
It gets worse....

Now my wife is staring longingly at K1xxxLT so that she can go camping with me. Yesterday she said the following,
I am fine with you having two bikes, or more, as long as the next bike we get is an LT

Anyone got $18,000 they can loan me with no interest?
 
wait until bmw offers 0.9% at a lower purchace price,thats what happened to me, i was not buying but my wife insisted that we were not leaving the dealor without signing, what a wife....
matthew
 
MRE's

Military MRE's are quick and easy. Our local surplus store sells not only the whole package (meal, side, instant heater, etc), BUT they also sell just the entree for a couple of bucks, which is what I get.

It's small and requires no refrigeration, just drop it in some boiling water for a few minutes until it's warmed through, dump some Tabasco on it and it's ready to go. I also take some bread or crackers or something and some cookies to go with it. Cleanup is real easy, as it cooks inside the bag (so the pot doesn't have to be cleaned), then I use a paper bowl and plastic fork/spoon to eat with.

You'll have to play around with which ones taste better than others. Some aren't bad at all (the meatloaf was one of the better ones, IIRC) and some I wouldn't get again.
 
MREs

I was wondering what that reference to a chemical heater was. I know they didn't have them for C-Rations and there was not heat for MREs when I was in the army. But that was 1986-90 so I guess they've evolved some since then. I got to try more than enough of the first couple of generations of MRE. The second generation made some nice improvements- that's when they started including the little Tabasco bottles, around 1988. They also added M&Ms to some of them, and this odd little oat-bar that had a consistency/texture like a block of compressed sawdust but had a truly AWESOMELY delicious taste!
I also remember learning some things about cooking MREs. The early ones had some dehydrated items, the hash-brown-type potato thingee in one meal and a pork patty in another. They could be eaten dry, but could also be reconstituted and even grilled once water was added. I also learned that if one combined the sugar with the contents of the creamer packet then heated the mixture in a spoon over a couple of matches, the result would be a sort of pseudo-cookie. I also really liked those dense baked-in-the-foil-pouch cakes in the MREs and figured out how to make icing for them with the sugar, creamer and the instant cocoa, all mixed together with just enough water to make a spreadable consistency.
My best MRE experience was during a training excercise in the Mojave desert. I was detailed to a live-fire support detachment so I wasn't in the wargames. The detachment was SO relaxed and laid-back! I worked without supervision (I hope the statute of limitation has run out on that...) and was told that MREs could be had from a cargo trailer over on the edge of our area. I took a case every few days and just ate the parts I liked and plenty of them! :bliss
 
KBasa said:
I traveled with Rob Nye and Sheepshagger this summer. They had a stove called a Pyromid.

Phil Sikora wrote a great review of the Pyromid stove that was published in the BMW ON and on the BMW MOA CampSite.

Personally, I prefer the backpacker meals, as others have mentioned. Small, light, crammable in your saddlebags, you only have to boil water, you don't need plates... just eat from the bag.

Spam is good, too. Slice, sizzle, eat!

Ian
 
GS Drifter

IF you're going to cook with a compact stove, I think you're best bet will be some sort of pasta based goolosh. Usually, you can find some freeze-dried stuff -- and some of this stuff is pretty good, and some is not.

REI sells some of the better freeze-dried stuff. NOW, having said that, if you plan on doing a lot of motorcycle camping, I would suggest that you purchase a case or two of fresh MRE's (Meals Ready to Eat.) You can not go wrong with a good MRE. Each full meal is self contained in a thick polly-plastic bag (for compact storage) and includes main course, fruit, a starch, desert, coffee, fruit drink (coolaid) napkin, salt & pepper etc.

You can use your compact stove to heat water which you will heat the main course in while still sealed in its pack. Once heated, simply cut or tear at the notch provided, open pouch and enjoy. The MRE will come with a long handle spoon so you can eat right out of the bag.

Main course choices include: Meat loaf and brown gravey, tuna or chicken a la king, beaf stroganoff, grilled chicken breast, ham steak, terriaki chicken with pineapple and so on. Side dishes can include potato augraten, macaroni and cheese, peaches, apples, fixed fruit, apple sauce etc. Deserts are great and include large cookies, pound cake, brownie etc.

The storage life of a sealed MRE is anywhere from 6 months to 4 years -- depending on storage Temps. If stored at 70 degrees or below, MRE's should be good for about 2.5 years +-. These are the very same meals that our troops eat in the field. I have consumed many, many MRE's, and I've never had a bad one and they were all filling and flavorfull. Each MRE will provide you with about 3,000 calories. Maybe a bit less. Also, they're not all full of crap chemicals and perservatives either. They're fairly clean in that regard.

You can find MRE's on the Internet -- there's a company called SO-Pak (or something like that.) Anyway, they may not ship a small order from the factory, but I'm sure you can find a retailer out there. IMPORTANT: Be sure that you are purchasing NEW RUN - CURRENT MRE's. Do not buy military surplus meals. They should be no older than a month or two when you get them

You can put about 8 meals in a single saddle-bag, and still have room for water and probably your stove.

Bon Apitite!
 
Stupid food tricks

Timrf said:
How about baking taters in the cowlings?? going down the road?? :idea :idea :idea or squash. Now I wanna go :clap

Back in the day before there were MREs, there were "C" Rations. The main courses came sealed in steel cans. Most of them were nearly inedible when served cold. One of the guys in my squad had the bright idea that if you put the can on the exhaust manifold of a truck for a few minutes, you could heat it up and have a hot meal!

This worked great until one day, we were called out to an incident and forgot to remove dinner from under the truck hood before responding...

To make a long story short, lets just say that unopened cans of food may explode when heated, and the combined smell of burned beef stew and diesel fuel can linger for a long time. :dunno
 
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