Breakfast ideas

[Holmes375]

....Question: for real bacon bits do you dehydrate real bacon?

I don't for most of my trips as they're shorter 3-5 day adventures. I can't get decent bacon at our local grocery stores so I hit the butcher shop. Trim it good before frying to reduce grease, cook it up nice & crispy and then crumble it. I put it between layers of cheap paper toweling and let it sit over night, flipping it once, to pull as much grease out as I can. I then carry it in a freezer weight zip-lock bag. Squeeze out as much air as possible, seal it most of the way, suck out the rest of the air with my mouth to give a quasi vacuum effect and close the last corner.

When I go for my longer trips of a couple weeks I do dehydrate the bacon. It re-hydrates easily and quickly. Bacon crumbles will spice up a lot of different dishes. I couldn't live without it

I haven't used the bacon Red mentioned. I'll have to find some of that stuff and give it a try.

 

[Holmes375]

Ah, breakfast, the meal I look forward to most, except for lunch and dinner.

For travel days: Granola with currants, dried blueberries, and either warm or cold milk.
The milk is a 50-50 mix: Carnation instant + Nido, which is powdered whole milk = 2%. Nido takes a while to rehydrate if cold, so I mix it up the night before.

For layover days: Scrambled eggs with rehydrated roma tomatoes, mushrooms, bacon bits (Bac-Os), and grated cheese, plus bannock.
Also a couple of dehydrated breakfasts from Backpackers Pantry.

My routine is very similar.

 

[Mihun09]

Christy, I take it you don't do too much portaging.

Actually, we do quite a bit or portaging with a barrel packed as she describes it. Not unreasonable for the food barrel (60 L for 7-14 day trips) to weigh 40 pounds with, well, just food in it.

What a lot of portaging is relative of course. Out of Wallace Lake to get anywhere... To Leaf Lake would have 9 portages, totalling 1.5km. To Obukowin is 3 ports totalling 4.7km (one carry). Up into WCPP would be 6 or 7 ports.

Reason for packing actual food... dehydrated food sucks.

 

[Gerald]

Canadian members may find powdered eggs and other breakfast goodies here:

http://www.amazon.ca/Hoosier-Hill-Farm-Whole-Powdered/dp/B008T9SHRW

http://www.bridensolutions.ca/thrive-meat-dairy

Good tripping everyone. Ice out is late this year in Québec so check if you planned early.

 

[BWCA66]

I just have never been able to get into powdered eggs, real eggs are always worth the carry for me. I do take pre-cooked bacon for breakfast later in the trip. Eggs, sausage, cheese and flat bread buns make a great fist breakfast sandwich for the first day and are quick clean up since no plate or silverware required.

 

[Canoeguitar]

Oatmeal is king. I dehydrate strawberries to cook with it when outside of blueberry season. I like to hit the oatmeal with cinnamon & maple syrup.

I dehydrate my own hash browns & onions and cook them with a little seasoning salt. Killer. Rehydrate in the food barrel over night and just knife the ziplock bag in the morning to drain any excess water before cooking. Hash browns are best cooked over the fire as opposed to on a stove. Add some pre-cooked bacon and you're laughing.

I've heard all the reviews about OvaEasy and tried to order from their website. I got an email saying they can't ship to Canada. As a work-around I ordered a big batch to a friend's address in Virginia, and he got them to me. I'll be trying them out for the first time this paddling season.

@ Robin - if you do take the plunge and start dehydrating your own food you'll never look back. Since I started dehydrating my own meals several years ago I've been eating like a champ on my trips, and it just keeps getting better as my menu expands.

 

[CanoePam]

About the only way I use dried eggs is to add rehydrated bell peppers, onions, mushrooms, etc to them. If I have some rehydrated breakfast sausage or bacon, even better (I do dehydrate!). Breakfast burritos are one of our favorites.

As for the dehydrated hash browns, I get small packages (serves 4) at Costco. I use them at home and camping. When camping I use a combination of oil and ghee (clarified butter, available at Trader Joe's and Indian groceries).

 

[Holmes375]

....@ Robin - if you do take the plunge and start dehydrating your own food you'll never look back. Since I started dehydrating my own meals several years ago I've been eating like a champ on my trips, and it just keeps getting better as my menu expands.

Agreed. I put it off for a long time as it sounded like to much trouble. Picked up a dehydrator at a yard sale for the hell of it and off we went. I enjoy working up new concoctions over the winter and trying them out before paddling season arrives. My camping menu has improved noticeably for it.

I hope you enjoy the Ova eggs - and I think you will.

 

[Holmes375]

....As for the dehydrated hash browns, I get small packages (serves 4) at Costco. I use them at home and camping. When camping I use a combination of oil and ghee (clarified butter, available at Trader Joe's and Indian groceries).

I had no idea what ghee was thus gave it a search. Very interesting product. I'll be giving it a play.

Thank you for the heads-up.

 

[Cookannapurna]

Ghee is easy to make at home, it's shelf stable, has a high smoke point, and best of all tastes great. I never take enough with me.

To echo several other people dehydrating your own meals is the way to go. And it doesn't need to be expensive or complicated. My first dehydrator was one of the inexpensive round ones, it lasted 15 years of hard use. I see them all the time second hand. Just start out with a couple of things you like. I started with hash browns and beef jerky.

To the OP, the Ova Easy eggs are the best!

 

[Iskweo]

So back to the op....we had four different breakfast menus going eery day last trip. There were a lot of real eggs, which are light, tasty and fill you up. There were of course pancakes, another traditional fare. Maple sirop, yummmmm. We did fried egg sandwiches with cheese and bacon a couple of days. Rob was doing chunks of bacon, right out of the pan and they were super tasty looking.

Now, Robin had those hash browns with him and I hae to call them a winner. That I would take in a heartbeat.

We took two loaes of bread with us for breakfast in bread, two doz eggs, bacon, coffee, pancake mix and sirop. Some cheese slices...not really too great but they worked ok. I had KD but we didnt get around to that one. A can of beans makes for a good filler with eggs and toast too. Or just beans and toast.

Robin was intrigued by the amount of canned goods that eeryone had with them. Nothing better than a can of Klik, I guess its a Nothern thing? Down south where it gets much hotter I dont know if the fresh options would be so good?

And of course Brad made the best raisin bannock that I hae had in a while so that is always an option.

Christy

 

[Robin]

I bought a can of Klik before I headed back to Marshall Lake for 4 days solo, fried it up with some hash browns, excellent camp food, I liked it. I will now bring some canned food every trip.

Good with bush coffee too,

 

[Marten]

First year for Ova Easy Egg Crystals and they are fantastic. First year for Granola too and this is possible because of how great Nido powdered milk is in the cereal and for dessert puddings. Everyone seems to like pancakes and I always end up blending in some of the bread mixes to stretch the batter. A summer sausage roll is heavy but sure frys up nice a few weeks into a meatless trip.

 

[yellowcanoe]

Klik looks like Maple Leafs variation of Spam.. Usually I don't take canned food. But Spam used to come in single serving slices..

I am bemused by the thought that Southern means hotter. So far our hottest in Maine has been 27 degrees. Its the midsection of the continent (US and Canada) that gets really hot or cold.. take your pick
Been hot lately in Newfoundland and I have seen Klik here. But not at home Hot is relative. With no trees on the tundra like ground 30 was brutal.

We stopped in one outdoor store in St Johns.. Can't get any sort of dehydrated eggs. Even Mountain House Breakfast Skillet which is the one freeze dried meal I really really like.

 

[red langford]

Klik and Spam are both sold by the case lots here to the original peoples.

 

[Robin]

Klik and Spam are both sold by the case lots here to the original peoples.

Yes, Memaquay said the op's like the Klik, I couldn't finish the can and planned to use the remainder the next morning for breakfast but the temps where high overnight and I passed on it.

 

[Iskweo]

Hash browns, Klik and coffee....there ya go. The cool thing is it can be breakfast or supper depending on how you feel.

Half a can of Klik, open, laying around the camp is not that great an idea though...lol. Bears like that stuff too.
Canned meat ...Klik, bully, ham, whatever....is a great backup meal for when the weather goes to crap, is cold, and you need some calories to get you back in the game. There is a ton of fat and salt and all kinds of goodness in them.I need me some of those hash browns though, they are awesome.

 

[Odyssey]

Having a can of Klick (or whatever) as an emergency backup meal wouldn't work for me. I'd have "an emergency" the very first day. Same with hot dogs, KD or any other kinda thing. I'm a junk food junkie, slowly being weaned off that stuff by my attentive (interfering) wife. Now if Swartz's Deli canned their Montreal smoked meat, I'd put a tump line and straps to a case load of that and call it my breakfast lunch and dinner. http://schwartzsdeli.com/
We took oatmeal (hot) and granola (cold) on the last trip but never touched any of it. As much as we love the stuff we couldn't get past the eggs and ham and bannock calling us every morning. And coffee.
It felt weird seeing cans on a Crown Land trip. We're used to a bottle/can ban on the park trips we usually travel with, and so had to adjust our way of thinking about food prep. Our next few years will be away from parks for the most part, but I'm still not sure if I'll include canned goods into our tripping diet...unless Swartz's answers my prayers, then all bets are off.

 

[scoutergriz]

Leftover Klik or spam makes a good fire starter! on a snowshoe trip one year we had 3 days of freezing rain, everything had a rock hard coating of ice, nothing would burn! I took a can of spam, opened it, scraped some of the fat out of the lid onto some bark and lit the fat. then I took the can, inverted it on a stick, and as it heated, the fat dripped out of the meat and onto my kindling. soon I had a hot meal of spam and a roaring fire!

 

[yellowcanoe]

I'm trying to figure out how to dehydrate Bologna.
Along with cheez whiz it's a Newfie staple for breakfast