Breakfast

Breakfast

Breakfast in camp or on the trail is often the relegated to the oatmeal/creme of wheat/grits category of breakfast foods.

The instant varieties of oatmeal are OK but to me lack a lot of substance texture and in some cases taste. Breakfast is an important meal as they say, so I want something a with a little more substance.
With a little preparation we can have our own "instant"size breakfast ready to go with some hot water. The benefit: you control the content quantity and quality. If you do not like eating out of the bag, you can dump the bag into you bowl, sierra cup etc.. Eating out of the bags as I demonstrate eases clean up in camp or on the trail

PS recommends Quaker Simple Harvest, I will have to check this out, probably more viable for quick resupply in town when away from home.

I start out with regular either quick or old-fashioned oats, seems like either one hydrate fine with the boiling water using freezer bag techniques.

I usually don't - so it was different to actually measure the ingredients for the pictures. And I figured out why I don't measure-as I got the nuts in the measuring spoon, then dropped it and them all over the floor :)

Anyway, here's my version of oatmeal or is Tinny at mini bull design calls it “goatmeal.”

Start with a half-cup to 1 cup of the oats.

I had a scoop of vanilla whey protein powder

I also usually add some wheat germ at this point - I have a jar in the pantry that I have been trying to use up for who knows how long.

And I add 1/4 cup (small handful) of dried fruit of some kind raisins, Cran raisins, apricots. Whatever's on hand in this case it's cranberries and spiced apples, really good.

Then I add a 1/4 cup (small handful) of what ever nut's are on hand in this case was almonds. I like these and walnuts, but peanuts cashews or whatever you have on hand his great.

Okay that's it. The bags gets sealed up and put in to your food bag and pulled out when you're ready to use it on the trail.

As far as heating it up, just bring the 1 cup of water to a boil and add as much of it to bring the oatmeal to your desired consistency. you can have the bag in a cozy or container to do this.

Then just kneed the bag to mix it up completely.

And if you want, you can put it in a cozy to let it hydrate or cool off a little bit. Most the time I'm ready by the time it's thoroughly mixed up.

You can either eat it straight out of the bag or you can put the bag into the medium twist lock container. (see the coffee system post) As I've shown below.

Then as you consumed the meal out of the bag, you can roll the edge over the sides. Kind of like rolling your socks over- to bring the food up from the bottom. This allows you to use a regular size spoon or spork.

Well that's just one example of eating out of a bag, again the benefit is that you control content and preferably have less processed more whole foods. Also cost, if you have priced the prepackaged "backpack" meals they can really add up. They can also be high sodium etc.

Take a look the freezer bag cooking dot com link on the left for more great ideas or to buy Sarah’s book or check out the gear she has -Great site.. Don't be afraid to substitute ingredients and use whole foods versus dried while testing around a home. See the harmony house link for source of dried ingredients.

Today, I used the hefty zipper bags usually don't use the kind with the plastic zipper. At home, I just washed out the bags for reuse, on the trail rinse and pack out with other garbage.

PS suggested using the new steamer bags that are out in the store now, they should stand up as you add the water. I will have to try those.

Clicking on pictures here will take you to larger copies posted on flickr if needed (the originals are huge)

Next pizza in a bag.