cooking demo for scouts

“I'm supposed to organize a cooking demo for a scout meeting. It would have to get done in about 40 minutes, and present will be some 11 year old new scouts, and other ages of scouts to about 17.

Our older scouts don't have much experience in backpacking, and they generally cook spaghetti or hamburgers when car camping. The backpackers present generally use freeze dried when backpacking, so there is really no cooking going on.

I would like the cooking demo to be hands on, and backpacking related. I'm thinking to bring some dry ingredients and have them make up some freezer bag meals, heat water, and cook them.

I'm thinking eggs and bacon pieces in a baggie, and cook in boiling water. Also clam chowder made from potato flakes and dried milk, plus spices a la Sarbar. What else would be a good demo on backpacking cooking "beyond freeze dried?" Maybe cook a trout?”

“Instant Grits with pre cooked bacon. ;-)”

“Potatoe/Bacon breakfast burritos.


Instant potatoes with cheese, ready cooked bacon, tortilla wraps.


Karo can cook trout by the campfire as well as anyone I know.

Prosecutor has several recipes that go past freeze dried.

If you leave it to towndawg, he will encourage you to have steak, baked potatoes, green beans, and salad.

And dayhiker the engineer has actually cooked a pizza in a rock oven in the middle of nowhere...I witnessed it.”

“Put some instant Stuffing and some powdered gravy in a heavy zipper bag. Add boiling water. Add pouch chicken. Mix. Eat.

(Or, exchange the stuffing for instant potatoes)

Yummy!

Very easy. Very appetizing to kids. No pots/pans to clean.”

“I used to teach all the things you could do with tortillas.

Tortilla pizza
Quesadillas with just about anything in them
tuna melts
Rolled sandwiches ect.”

“cube steak, potatoes, corn and green beans...

wrap each in foil packs and add seasoning with a little olive oil or butter, then seal and freeze...

place the foil packs in the coals...hot meals.

Bake biscuts on the trail...in a cardboard box...or wrapped in foil and baked in the ground under a coal bed.....

Freeze whole fish to take along....use the thawed fish to teach the scouts how to clean and either pan fry or bake the fish. (Foil packs in there again..)

other resources for scout cooking:

http://scoutingbear.com/cook.htm

http://www.scouter.com/compass/Scout%5FSkills/Cooking/”

“Reflector oven sweet rolls.”

“squirrel stew, rabbit stew, snake steak,”

“extending chili's idea - use a cardboard box oven and bake anything you want”

“Cooking some fresh trout the kids caught would be great if you could pull it off.”

“one of my favorite scout dishes was a peach cobbler...you dump a white cake mix and a can of peaches in a dutch over and cover with coals”

“Bob...if you need handouts, drop me an email :-) I have a couple in PDF that I never mind sharing. They have recipes and technique on them, easy to print out as well. (They are one page flyers)”

“"steak, baked potatoes, green beans, and salad"

ROTFL... :)”

“this has to be done indoors, in 40 minutes, so dutch oven and use of coals is out. Sarbar, handouts would be great.”

“

http://www.callwild.com/cookbook.htm

One of the better books out there.

http://www.callwild.com/recipe_anasazi.htm

http://www.callwild.com/recipe_chicken.htm”

“You can also use a pepsi can stove to cook with, then have the boys make one for themselves. At the last cooking demo that I did, the kids (and especially the fathers) were more interested in the stove, than the meal. I did a simple one pot meal with foil packaged ham, dried sliced potatoes, egg noodles, and 3 cheese mashed potatoes. The boys in my Troop named it "Sloppy Glop" and request it for almost every backpack trip.”

“that sounds like a good one. To get everyone involved, I thought to have several different teams, and one could make the "sloppy glop".”

“I'll never forget the Scout trip I went on a couple of years ago.....

One scout pulled an entire 5 pound block of cheddar cheese (for an overnite trip) out of his pack at lunchtime .”

“Why have a boy scout cooking demonstration indoors?”

“Use Ramen and a variety of the lipton cup o soups. you can add a variety of the packaged meats such as clams , shrimp, even rehydrated dried beef jerky.”

“ask them what they like to eat. get them to develop a menu for a trip and think about a balanced diet for a specific activity. then get them to figure out how to get the food together so it's appropriate for the activity (lightweight for backpacking, low spoilage, no mess cleanup, etc). talk about gear used to cook. encourage them to think holistically about food as part of the larger activity and not as a goal in of itself.”

“dessert... get them to make Banana Boats...

http://www.outdooradventurecanada.com/kitchen-v1-1.htm

oh and there is always the book A Fork in the Trail http://www.aforkinthetrail.com - it has info on meal planning for larger groups, a section on camp cooking for kids and all sorts of things - I'd daresay it is the most comprehensive camping and backpacking cookbook Wilderness Press has ever published... (I'm the author so I am biased).”

“Cook a microwave chocolate chip cookie/cake - it takes about ten minutes. Buy the mix with the mirowave ready bowl and float it inside a pot of boiling water. It bakes up perfectly.

The full description was posted by Roam or Crash months ago. Hot fresh cake or cookies backpacking - it's a beautiful thing!”

“hehe, yeah... love that steam baking those betty crocker warm delights. i wonder who cooked that up? must have been crash.”

“We had a bunch of those Betty Crocker Warm Delights going at the Sipsey trip a year or so ago.”

“I thought that was Betty Crocker you had in the tent with you.”

“Or was it Aunt Jemiahma?”

“I gave a workshop on backpacking cooking for the annual meeting of the North Country Trail Association this last summer. I based the presentation on portions of my cookbook which I make available to backpackers as an attachment to an email.

Idaho Bob, click on my name to get my email address and send me an email, and I will send you an attachment which will consist of a 39 page backpacking cookbook, with many of the winning recipes at the Titanium Chef Backpacking cooking contests.”

“one of my favorite scout dishes was a peach cobbler...you dump a white cake mix and a can of peaches in a dutch over and cover with coals”
thriftyhike

i did that this past weekend at a rockclimbers meetup. i use a yellow cake mix. i do put in two large cans of peaches, but only one cup of the juices, and i add four pats of butter and liberally sprinkle cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and cardamom. i got a big thumbs up on this one. it only took about 30 minutes in the dutch oven.”

“Make a meth lab, its a cooking demo and a scout fund raiser all at the same time!”

“Bob, I sent you the files :-) Hope that helps.

If you can get the guys doing hands on stuff it goes over well. In past presentations I have had the kids making cozies out of Reflectix, one time they all brought in their handmade stoves, etc. With the food I have learned to show up with 4 or 5 recipes to do and then have them bag up the recipes (I bring measuring cups and spoons). Then we make the meals all together. Never a lack of volunteers or mess makers. Or mouths for eating. Usually a couple dinners, a dessert and maybe a lunch or breakfast works well.

If you need hot water, boil it at home and bring in a thermos if you don't have a church kitchen for example (this allows you to "cook" inside and not break fire laws).

And if you make a dessert...make sure you have enough "samples" for an army.....”

“Sarbar, that is about exactly what I was thinking, but pre boiling the water is a good idea. I was going to cook indoors with backpacking stoves, but there is a church kitchen available also.”

“well at least in my case with my bum knees.

Hey Sarbar, could you please send me the same files. i teaching backpacking cooking starting monday and helping prepare the troop for there first trip. these are all scouts that have never been on a trip execpt for 1. they are leaving feb 15th so i only have 3 meeting to prepare them. yikes!!!!!!!!
did you make it to florida this christmas?”

“Hey Cyndee, we didn't but we are this coming year! My FIL just bought us tickets to come visit. So this time I will make sure we get to meet up (insert embarrassed Sarah).
Sending you the files in a couple seconds :-)”

“cyndeee, you should beg and plead to get a copy of Prosecutor's cookbook. Sarbar's is all about freezer bag cooking, and Prosecutor's is about everything else. It has some great info in it.

Bob”

“Thank you to the both of you, i will be getting those printed out and work on gathering the ingredients for cooking on monday night.
sarah, let me know when you are coming!”

“I will Cyndee! It sounds like 2 weeks next December :-)”

“Prosecutor has some great recipes, but some of the ingredients are not available in Boise at the three stores I have checked. Those include claims in a foil pouch, Knor Tomato and Pesto Sauce mix, powdered vanilla, powdered maple syrup, to name a few. Too bad Sarbar's site doesn't sell those little goodies! (hint hint)”

“make that "clams" not "claims."”

“foil-package clams are chicken of the sea brand. ask your grocer to carry them for you. most will stock them if you ask.

vanilla powder as well as a lot of odd powdered ingredients can be had at the suttons bay trading company for very little money: http://www.suttonsbayspices.com/

the knorr sauce mix you mention is not made anymore. i don't use this recipe and rather opt to dehydrate jars of sauce as well as cooked pasta. it re-hydrates as well as if you just cooked it in your kitchen. it's easily my favorite trail meal. still, knorr makes other sauce mixes you can experiment with to make your own pasta dish and I am sure it will be excellent. ewker says you can just combine the ingredients (pasta + sauce) in the dehydrator and not dehydrate them separately with good results. i have never tried this. i cook the pasta, dehydrate it, add water on the trail, then add the chipped sauce plus a little extra hot water as needed to get the consistency i want. it's better than if i made it at home! i have no clue why this is my favorite trail meal but it is!”

“suttons has "maple flavor granules" and "vanilla powder" in quanties less than "bulk"... good stuff.

http://www.suttonsbayspices.com/Flavorings_and_Oils/21982.html (vanilla powder, expensive but there it is and i bet it's dense)

http://www.suttonsbayspices.com/Flavored_Powders/Maple_Flavor_Granules.html (maple granules)

Clams: http://www.chickenofthesea.com/product_line_detail.aspx?did=4800009103
last edited: 2/12/08 4:06:46 PM”

“Awesome! I didn't know about this place.”

“Never heard of Suttons! Thanks.”

“I started using the Simply Organic line of mixes and love them. So if any of you are looking for gravy, pasta sauces, seasonings, etc in dry packs they are worth it. No MSG and most are lower in sodium than their national counterparts.
http://www.simplyorganicfoods.com/

Their dry Alfredo is really good in potatoes as well.”

“Prosecutor and Sarbar:

I'm using some of both of your recipes in the scout cooking class tomorrow. Prosecutor, here are some things I noticed about the recipes of yours I tried:

Spaghetti: 6 oz of angel hair pasta. What is 6 oz? That is hard to figure out if you don't have a scale. 6 oz = 10" angel hair, a bundle the size of a quarter.

1 oz of oil? How much is that? That is 4 tbsp, fyi, a heck of a lot easier to measure.

Knorr Tomato Pesto mix: they don't make it anymore. I'm using Knorr Pesto mix, and adding salmon from a foil pack.

Fruit Compote:

3 tblsp brown sugar, you probably mean 3 level tblsps, compacted??


Hot cobbler from dehy fruit:

4 oz dried fruit = 3/4 cup packed tightly

1/3 box of yellow cake mix, you mean a 18 oz box, or an 8 oz box? Both are available. I tried 1/3 of the 18 oz box and it came out good.

I tried this with an alcohol stove set on low, and it wasn't cooked after 15 minutes. On a canister stove, it took 20 minutes. I used a folded foil heat shield on the canister.

Both of you guys cookbooks have some great recipes. Prosecutor, where can we see the rest of the winners of the titanium chef backpacking cooking contest?”

“i found the cobbler and oatmeal as printed in the cookbook to be WAY too sweet. i did not care for the "stream pudding".

i dropped the cherries for the cobbler on the ground and had to pick them up so it was a tad sandy as well. my bad. haha!

the oil measurement doesn't make sense in the kitchen but it does on the trail. the olive oil packets from minimus are .5 oz each.”

“...and i will add my favorites from the cookbook are:

1. crab cakes ... my #1 favorite. always great.
2. isle royale salmon which i prepare per the cookbook -but- add a bunch of rehydrated bowtie pasta to.
3. tai curried chicken.

i found the beef stew was too peppery so i had to cut back on pepper.

that's the beauty of getting these from friends... you can make adjustments to fit your palate.”

“where do you get olive oil packets?”

“Idaho Bob, I will try to clear up the ambiguities you pointed out. But the advantage of making your own backpacking meals from scratch over Freeze Dried Mountain House type meals is one can customize the meal to their taste and amount to their appetite. As you can see, I like it sweet, and I like it hot, and I like a lot.”