Thread: Easy bush meals

Dream Pot is a proprietary name for an insulated container designed to keep things hot enough that they continue to cook. A BIG thermos flask! (In fact I think that Thermos, another proprietary name, also make something similar.)

I have one and they're good if you've got room, they're a bit bulky.

Just to ensure that temps stay up during the day (above the temp at which the bacteria start to work) I quickly reheat the cooking container at lunch time for 5 to 10 mins and pop it back in the Dream Pot.

Google them.

PS. Think of the old Crock-pot, or electric slow cooker, but without the power source!

Originally Posted by allan l

Dream Pot is a proprietary name for an insulated container designed to keep things hot enough that they continue to cook. A BIG thermos flask! (In fact I think that Thermos, another proprietary name, also make something similar.)

I have one and they're good if you've got room, they're a bit bulky.

Just to ensure that temps stay up during the day (above the temp at which the bacteria start to work) I quickly reheat the cooking container at lunch time for 5 to 10 mins and pop it back in the Dream Pot.

Google them.

PS. Think of the old Crock-pot, or electric slow cooker, but without the power source!

Funny you should mention that, I just had a look at one of these in a camping shop!

I had wondered about how safe it was to leave things things simmering (or is that festering?) away all day without heat.. how hot is the food if you DON'T give it some extra heat during the course of the day?

Originally Posted by allan l

Dream Pot is a proprietary name for an insulated container designed to keep things hot enough that they continue to cook. A BIG thermos flask! (In fact I think that Thermos, another proprietary name, also make something similar.)

I have one and they're good if you've got room, they're a bit bulky.

Just to ensure that temps stay up during the day (above the temp at which the bacteria start to work) I quickly reheat the cooking container at lunch time for 5 to 10 mins and pop it back in the Dream Pot.

Google them.

PS. Think of the old Crock-pot, or electric slow cooker, but without the power source!

Or think "Hay Box Cooking" which you might have done if you are old enough to have been in the Scouts in the latter half of the previous century.

It worked on exactly the same principle; get the meal cooking for a few minutes and then put the container in a cardboard box lined with dry grass for insulation. The retained heat completed the cooking while you went off and did other things.

take your jaffle iron. anything that passes as a meal can be redone in a jaffle iron.

2 minute noodles and some meal in a can (chunky soups/stews) as backups.

Just be careful with tinned goodies as corrugated roads, vibrations etc can cause havoc with tins and their markings over a period of time. Take note of the can markings on the tin itself rather than on the labels as they dont usually scuff off.
Fray Bentos makes some real good pies in a tin that cook up magically in a camp oven.
We always try to carry enough emergency rations for 5 days consisting of a mix of powdered back up gear potato, milk, custard, freeze dried meals etc. Rosella make some good powdered mixes that only require water and this is always handy to have as, should an emergency not occur, the stuff will still keep and you can bring it home.
Apart from that we generally eat the same sort of stuff we eat at home rotating around a menu based on the basic meat sources, steak, chops, sausages, mince, chicken or fish. When we went to the cape in 83 our fridge failed on day 3 but we still ate exceptionally well for the remainder of the month. Meat is available at most of the roadhouses, decent veges are a bit harder to find but you can carry you own (in a hammock style carrier swinging from the roof rack or other suitable part - the swinging action saves the mashing effect of corrugations).
We have been using a "dream pot" now for about 10 years and it leaves "sliced bread" so far in its wake that its not funny. We also dont go anywhere without the Jaffle iron.
Regards
Glen

Some great ideas there mate. Especially regarding the cooking implements etc.

A few things for consideration though.

The best (and first place) to start is - what have you got to carry the food in?

Might be an idea to you use your Engel (or Waeco, Explorer - whatever) as a freezer. But use it to its maximum benefit. Freeze the main ingredient - not the meal. This will conserve space.

Considering 60% of your "eatees" are five or under Chilli Con Carne is probably not going to cut it two or three nights in a row.

Then consider the cooking impliments. Boudourie? Fantastic - you can cook a toasted sanger in there without the inherent heat that is retained by a jaffle iron (God IS that going to stir a few retorts - what I mean is - a toasted sanger in the bedourie will not have the heat that is generated by the "pie" effect that is generated by the jaffle - much better for a two year old).

Best of all though is that you cook a loaf of bread in the bedourie - you have plenty of time to practice - best get to it.

You can also whack up donuts (roll 'em in castor sugar" put 'em in a container and give them to the kids the next door - a great little snack. And mate, White Wings is your friend regarding snacks and a bedourie - the muffin mixture - get a six-muffin tray - it will fit a bedourie - chocy muffins, another snack for the kids.

Just on that - the food you will feed them is probably not the food you would feed them for the next 15 years. You want it easy and filling - it is only four weeks. So muffins twice on a four week trip is no great thing.

Whilst we are on snacks - cheese sticks, breakfast bars - and if you are game - dried apricots etc (get the little fellas used to them before you go). All of these things take little space.

Have a look at your timetable - will you really want to cook a big breakfast every morning - and then pack up etc.

Take paper bowls, breakfast cereals and long life milk -for everybody (weet bix are good) - and remember the bread you cooked last night - yep, a slice of toast if you have time otherwise give it a miss.

Lunch? Do you want to stop and cook a meal or relax. That is why you get a leg of ham, slice and cryvac "luncheon" packs before you go. Yep - ham and cheddar slices on the bread you cooked last night - and if you didn't - on the pack of Kraft Premium Biscuits you brought along. Oh yeah, these biscuits are gold to kids - with vegemite on them. Light to pack and easy to store.

Lunch on other days - didn't say I was against jaffles - just provided an alternative for two year olds. You just may have cooked last nights leftovers in the jaffle as the fire died - and now it is today's lunch for the little fellas - and it won't burn their mouths.

Dinner? Remember the remark about freezing the main ingredients? Food that lays flat or easily packed. Safeway market Tasmanian Salmon steaks which are already frozen and cryvaced. These with a rice make a good meal - and the little guys will love it - not to mention M&D. Salmon with pasta also.

Take a roast - like a piece of Topside (no bone) and makes for tomorrow's lunch also.

Bacon - check out the use-by date on the supermarket packed stuff - buy the smaller packets - just enough for a meal.

Check out some recipe books on how to knock up Bacon and Onion Fritters, a steak pie with a top layer of puffed pastry (frozen pastry sheets in your freezer).

Oh yeah - desert - a can of peaches and the puffed pastry sheets - make a peach turnover and cook it in your bedourie - with a little spray of that can of whipped cream you have in the esky.

The esky? Yep, the frozen stuff is in the fridge so have an esky with a couple sheets of those "ice sheets" - four sheets - two in the esky (one on top) and two re-freezing in the Engel. The esky should be just big enough - too much room = equals not very much cold.

Other meals - canned tuna. Make tuna patties - gee tuna patties once a week is not much (make 'em with powdered potato and breadcrumbs - whack onions in the ones for M&D) - and these are great on the bread the next day.

Tuna curry (LIGHT curry) for the kids and M&D.

So..............

Cryvac the meat and then freeze it.

Mince is great. Makes great little meat balls in pasta - and you can mix a few with extra chilli garlic etc for M&D.

Sausages? Freeze 'em and then cryvac them otherwise the guts get sucked out of 'em. Great on a piece of bread with sauce.

And........Engel/Esky; Bedourie/Saucepan/Jaffle; learn to make bread; check out some recipes and modify them for the trip.

Keep breakfast simple; make lunch the night before and enjoy the family experience of cooking each night.

Originally Posted by Brian Hjelm

What is wrong with the traditional drover's breakfast? A leak, a Havelock fine cut rollie, and a Bundy.

My Mum used to have a Bex and a cup of tea, a cough and a smoke for breakie

Baz.

meat and three veg was the standard on my simpson trip, the water form boiling the veg was the dishes

i ran a second 32L fridge as a freezer, froe all the meat, made some pasta sauces and froze them as well

it was all a little eaier, i onlt had one 5 going on six year old