Best food for bush

I will be heading off for a week of so in late April and was wondering what other people generally take with them as food supplies.
Seeing as there is a lack of space in the back of the 4x4 (I could hitch the trailer for extra room but was hoping to avoid pulling the extra weight as it is an 8x5ft trailer), so that said, I am at about 2 eskies (standard size, one being an engel 12v plug in one).
I figure most food stuff would be dry food or tinned, but having 2 children, I am sure they are going to get sick of eating 2 minute noodles, maccaroni and backed beans all the time .
I do have a small camp stove so cooking meats will be no problem.
Any sugestions would be much appreciated

Hi
Damper and Jam everyone loves that easy to cook.
I always take tins of Spam fry it for a hot simple meat meal.

Regards Neale

Hi
If you have plenty of wood make a campfire,Let it burn down to coals.Place spuds wrapped in foil, cover them for 40 mins.Cheese butter or sour cream.Snag or chops and a can of peas.Bliss
Cheers Dig

Thanks guys,
Damper, yum, not had that for a long time.....Like the idea of jacket spuds.. always goes down a treat at home.
Thanks guys

My kind of topic - Food!!!

I have spent quite some time, over the years, in areas without any way to keep food refrigerated - and have a few general ideas (realising I live on the other side of the world, eh?) to help.

Canned (you call it tinned?) meats like Spam, Ham and others don't require refrigeration. All you have to do is haul the flattened tins away at the end of your trip. The same for hearty soups and tinned vegetables.

Eggs last a very long time at 'room temperature'.

Fresh root crop veggies like carrots, potatoes, onions, beets, garlic and other root crops are easy to keep.

Noodles, rice, spaghetti, lasagna, bread crumbs, cookies, sugar, tea, coffee, hot chocolate, prepackaged meals-in-a-box, spaghetti sauce in a jar and spices last forever.

Breads are very perishable so freeze a loaf or two of bread, and also freeze a couple bags of bagles (for longer times in the bush). ALWAYS double bag, in tight plastic bags, all breads (unless you like them soggy)! Toasted breads mask staleness.

If you have 2 Eskeys consider the first one for entirely hard frozen foods, with the remaining space taken up with frozen water in plastic containers. (I use old milk or drink containers) In addition, enclose that first eskey in an over-covering shell (top, sides and bottom) of insulating material like rigid or semi rigid foam, held together with self adhesive tape. (Like "Duct Tape" over here). Leave the top "Openable" for access.

Take the other eskey and start out with everything in it hard frozen as well (including additional water for drinking). As food is pulled from the more used second eskey, periodically, transfer still frozen items from the first eskey into it to the second to transfer the cold to slowly thaw and keep things just cold there.

As a general rule, cruise your food store to try to find anything that could fit into your specialized food needs both dry and frozen.

Don't foreget the good old jaffle iron , can't beat it and can use the bread when it is a bit older .

Hi Xenon,

Meat, meat and more meat...

Only joking. But with any esky or icebox (thicker walls) you will need a third to be ice for it to be effective. My misses came up with an idea that works quite well. Cook meals like stews, casseroles etc. and freeze them in smaller Tupperware containers. Whilst frozen, they still carry the property of ice, therefore you require less ice for your esky as they are effectively 'Ice Bricks'. If you pack them as 'planned meals' whatever is last, goes in first and all meals can be heated gently on a stove. Whatever is on top is usually thawed enough by the end of the day and so on.

With the added extra of a 12 volt fridge, you are able to produce your own ice, so you can freeze all meat and fill an esky, then just top up with a couple of trays of ice each day. This will keep things nice and frozen for a good period of time, but by the end of the trip, dare I say you'll end up on two min' noodles etc., unless you take a 'townie' trip.

Good tip for your 12 volt fridge courtesy of my old Engel rep: empty space = power draw. Therefore, if you fill a wine cask bladder with air and keep in the fridge to fill the empty space, less air flow will equal less power draw.

Hope all this helps and good luck with the trip.

Nature Pete.

Gday Pete

Excelent tip re using the wine bladder help with space in the fridge, that is now another excuse why I have to take a cask of wine too so as the fridge goods are used and the wine cask emptied I can then use the bladder as mentioned.

I use a vaccuum machine for the meat, when it is vacc'd fresh you then freeze it ready for your next trip, after being placed in the fridge which I run on refridgerate not freeze, the meat will last for two weeks plus, the best thing is you can just take it out and cook straight away, no thawing required, the other thing I do is as I cook things like spaghetti bog and curry etc I bag and freeze some of that as well so that if you want a quick meal all you have to do is warm it up.

There are so many new satchet type products on the market now, like spag sauces, curries etc its easy to whip up a meal with the minimum of fuss even in the bush, also I have found that you can cook and store vegetables and rice/pasta in the vac bags as well, saves eating tinned foods and you know exactly what you are eating as well.

Another tip I was given is to freeze wet meals like stew-soup etc in plastic containers (like the chinese takeaway ones) and when frozen into a block you then put it into a vaccuum bag, it keeps it in the frozen block shape and solid so it also aids the cooling of the fridge if you have it running as a freezer.

cheers

stayyerAU

Great ideas, Stayyer!

Depending on circumstances, a pea rifle and a camp oven can provide most of your meat requirements.



A few basic condiments (salt, pepper, garlic and marg) a beer or 2 and maybe a little port.



Make some gravy on the portable gas unit and FEAST!!



Cleaned and re-seasoned camp oven.



P.S. The table is in the shearers kitchen so please accept the stains...

I freeze the meals e.g. curried goat/soups/stews etc in cliplock sandwich bags, ease the air out, and store them on top of each other till frozen - they are nice and flat and don't take much room.

I prefer canned foods or ready to eat sandwiches and seal it in a sandwich bag ziplock

sigron wrote:Don't foreget the good old jaffle iron , can't beat it and can use the bread when it is a bit older .  

I couldn't agree more with the above..the Jaffle iron is an essential part of the cooking kit for camping, and don't forget the baked beans and spaghetti.