How Do You Do Your Dishes?

[Guest]

Are we the only people left in this world who knows what a potluck is anymore? Our family finds this method so much easier than one couple/household catering to the entire crowd. The past few years it's been "one hot one cold", meaning each attending couple bring just that, one hot dish and one cold dish. Amazingly we've yet to see any duplication occur at our gatherings at Easter, Thanksgiving or Christmas. Many family members now have their very own "signature dishes" that they alone make every time; a d-i-l brings her cheesy bake, a son his scalloped potatoes, a brother his BBQed salmon, a s-i-l her crunchy Asian noodle salad (every friggin time blech) etc.

Brad, we are still potluck people. Similar to what you described, at family Thanksgiving gatherings the host family cooks the turkey, a ham, and maybe a side or two, and everyone else brings a dish or prepares one on site. There is some coordination to that, and different folks have their signature dishes; seriously, do not even suggest that you will bake the rolls or make the salad this year, those are Carol’s specialties, and she will rip your eyes out.

Even feeding 30+ there are always leftovers, and pride-points earned for who clamors to take a bit of which leftovers home with them. Everyone wants some turkey, so we make a large bird and some breasts. And a ham. We freeze some ham and still eat ham sandwiches for a week, I’m lucky if I get a turkey sandwich from what we have left.

Even cook out parties at friend’s homes, everyone brings something to contribute, and everyone takes at least a bit of their favorite leftovers home.

Long story short, I can't see why a group trip potluck couldn't work with each participant responsible for their "signature dishes" from start to finish, including any leftovers (storing them to take home). Can't you imagine it? Sitting around the campfire with all the camp kitchen duties having been divided and conquered, passing round the coffee pot (tipping the leftover crunchy Asian noodle salad into the fire). Any cheesy bake left?

That is a routine as well, although most often on group car camping trips, where storing excess leftovers is less of an issue, with ample cooler space and daily “Who needs ice?” runs. There is inevitably wayyyyyy too much food, and the potluck night is scheduled early in the trip, so we all have a day or two to eat our way through the well refrigerated leftovers.

Neighboring campers are pre-invited to come join us. Maybe not just invited, “entreated” to stop by for dinner, “We are having a potluck tonight on site #23, please come eat with us, we always have wayyyy too much food”.

Best of those group feeds were huge group car campers on Maryland’s Eastern shore. One friend was a crustacean cooker par excellence; he brought multiple stoves and steamers and fryers, literally filled an 8 foot truck bed with cookery implements, and knew a local waterman to buy hard crabs straight off the boat, and cleaned ready-to-fry soft shells from his freeze. Other folks had connections for fresh clams and oysters.

Sit down next to someone you don’t recognize at a three picnic table expanse and discover that they were RV’ers from 4 sites over. At least on one occasion they admitted that they hadn’t actually been invited, but just came by and took a seat when they saw everyone else in the Park wandering down to the crab site. Met some really fun folks that way.

Side note 1: The buffet table is typically a thing of specialty, nationality or regional wonder, and I know whose stuff I really like, and rarely get to taste otherwise. Oh baby, aged-hung venison tenderloin, family recipe sausage, local area specialties with un-pronounceable Polish names. Save room, there will be pies (plural) to kill for.

Side note 2: When everyone is comatose stuffed, listless (if awake) in their chair, can’t eat another bite, the buffet table is still heavily laden and needs considerable clean up. Don’t wander off to bed early and leave your stuff behind. At least don’t come back in the morning and ask if anyone has seen your spatula.

Side note 3: There is always someone who got a late start, and underestimated the cook time needed for their yikes-still-frozen pork loin or brisket, which is finally ready near midnight. Work for me, meat snacks in the wee hours.

Side note 4: Please God, never let my site, table and trash bags be buffet central.

Side note 5: There is nothing as stinky worse than crab waste and gut-slimed newspaper “tablecloth”, oyster and clam shells. I don’t pick hard crabs, and always made sure I was camped at least several sites away from the mess and stank.

I wouldn’t turn up my nose at a paddle-in potluck, but my contribution will continue to be a bottle of after dinner bourbon, and a box of Berger cookies. The bourbon is always gone by the end of the night, but I will usually have a couple easy to store death-by-fudge cookies left for myself.

https://www.bergercookies.com/history/

I have had a request to bring the regional breakfast favorite Scrapple on an upcoming trip. As long as someone else wants to bring the stove and griddle to cook it, I’ll bring it, and even slice it to appropriate slabs of thickness.

https://www.tastecooking.com/brief-history-pennsylvania-scrapple/

Hey Mem, if you liked canned Spam you would geek over fresh Pennsylvania scrapple.

 

[Seeker]

I mostly solo, and I'm lazy. So that means mostly boil and rehydrate something. I use an old KoolAid jar for a bowl. When I'm done eating, I rinse it with some leftover water and drink the 'broth', then wipe it out with a paper towel, toss the towel in the fire, and I'm done. Sometimes, I will bring some sort of meat kabob and a potato to bake. Meat gets eaten off the stick, potato just goes in the coals as is, sometimes with a piece of foil around it. Either way, the skin goes in the fire and the foil goes back in my pack.

Breakfast is usually oatmeal and sometimes bacon on a skewer, if I have a morning fire (more likely when i'm not leaving that day). I do the oatmeal just like the dehydrated stew; boil and eat, wipe out the bowl, burn the towel or put it in the trash bag and burn it later that night. Bacon on a skewer creates no mess, and you can burn the stick.

Another 'cheat' with bacon, especially when it's cold out, is to microwave it and freeze it at home, then wrap it in foil. Take it out the morning needed, unwrap it a little, and just throw the foil with the bacon on it on top of some coals to heat. As I said, I'm lazy.

On the rare occasions that I bother bringing a frying pan (e.g. maybe I'd like some trout), I generally scoop up a panful of ashes on top of the grease, add half a mug of water, and let it boil up good, then dump it right back into the fire. Keep in mind I'm not talking a 9, 10, or 12" frying pan, but a 6" one. Learned that one in scouts (lye in the ashes mixes with the grease to make soap). Again, finish up with a paper towel and then that goes in the fire too.

Lunch is usually a bagel, landjaeger or jerky, handful of raisins or apricots, cheese stick, and maybe something sweet (I like Peanut M&Ms), along with a hot drink. I put each lunch together in a ziplock bag, which acts as a trash bag. I really like to use waxed paper for things like the bagel, jerky, and dried fruit.

Related, how do you get rid of trash? I burn most all of it except foil and the zip locks. The waxed paper from lunch makes a good fire starter for dinner. The fire has to be hot, and you can't just dump it... you have to burn each piece, especially the plastics (for me, that's a daily cheese stick wrapper and that's about it.) Once it melts, I kinda smear it on a log so it all burns up. Paper's easier, but you have to be careful with that, as it will sometimes just smolder.

 

[Odyssey]

A family tree root on my maternal side is firmly sunk into Pennsylvanian soil, originally of the UK Quaker variety. Some of them headed north scattering family seeds along the way. I wish they'd thought of bringing a scrapple family recipe with them. Scrapple, hot dang that looks good. Thanks for that cultural aside Mike, it's mouthwateringly enlightening. That too is a mouthful.

Well, we are one week into a 2 week doggie vacation for our daughter's flat coated retriever Gracie, and it's been easy going here at gram & gramps puppy day care. She exhibits all the good graces expected of her breed.
https://www.hillspet.com/dog-care/do...ated-retriever
But her jet black coat can be trouble some time past midnight if I feel the urge to rise up out of bed and wander into another room in the house. Gracie lays stretched out like a furry black hole somewhere on the floor between me and that other room. I shuffle my feet to be sure, and sure enough a scrambling of paws and a shouldery shove meets my thigh as she squeezes past me and the bed, dresser, doorway. One night I forgot our current doggie duty situation, and thinking we were alone was sci-fi shocked when a hairy monster shuffled past me in the other direction, in the dark, in the night. Holy Mother Of Pearl!! From the shadows came a mumble "Settle down now, that's a good girl." I assumed it came from my wife. But that there underlines a predicament. As much as I love our relationships there's an even stronger bond between she and the other she. My wife spoils this dog in the kitchen. I pick up after her, throw the tennis balls, throw the deflated soccer ball, scratch her tummy ears back and chest till she closes her eyes and droops her head, but my wife feeds her. Ah, there's no competing with that. When I walk into the kitchen Gracie heads for the door, but when my wife walks into the kitchen Gracie heads to her. I'm not jealous, not too much. I'm glad we've all got a relationship happening here. But I do wish my wife would stop letting Gracie lick the dinner plates after every meal. I get a little confused whilst unloading/loading the dishwasher. Which are washed clean and which are licked clean? I really can't tell the difference. Gracie does such a good job. And too often I hear directions tossed to me from over my shoulder "Don't put that away!" "That's clean already!" "Gracie's not done with that yet!" Just so you know, just in case you're planning on dropping by for dinner some time there's no need to worry, it's all cool. I just load everything into the machine now.
But if Gracie ever comes tripping with us I may save myself the bother of doing dishes altogether. I'm that tempted.

 

[Conk]

Louis Seymour aka French Louie, one of the Adirondacks more celebrated characters lived by some very simple rules. He got up early, refused to bathe (unless he fell into the creek), cooked his breakfast in grease, put maple syrup on whatever it was and let the dog do the dishes.

 

[DuctTape]

For our trips (just 2 people) we spend very little time doing, or concerning ourselves, with dishes and seldom use any soap however do bring a couple squirts of camp soap just in case one of the meals has more oil than expected as cooking oil seems to be the only dishwashing concern.

Dishes (from either breakfast oatmeal or supper parboiled eastern indian dishes) are quickly swabbed out with lake water and any gray water is broadcast into the brush as someone mentioned earlier. Then everything is swabbed with a sponge to dry and pick up any remaining oil...Done & done with no visible trace of our presence. I can't ever remember having extra food to deal with. Definitely frustrating to find noodles peering back at you from the lake bottom when having your evening bath. My brother un-lovingly refers to people that would do such a thing as "Macaroni Eaters". Lunches are often eaten in the boat and consist of Wasa crackers with either peanut butter or cheese. If my pocket knife is used, whoever "cuts the cheese" licks it clean, as a punishment for being disgusting, and it goes back in my pocket.

We check with the rangers each time we go into Quetico as to bear activity and each time get the same answer that there is none. However some unfortunate individual just this past week got killed by a black bear north of Rainy Lake. Super unfortunate. Mice are more of a problem so each night I cover the food pack with a garbage bag and tuck it underneath to minimize odor and act as a deterrent. Have no idea if this works but keeps the rain out as well.

We never have camp fires so never burn anything. All trash is packed out in zip-locks. This year's trip (11 days) we filled 2 quart-sized bags with tea bags, meal bags, and of course...chocolate bar wrappers.

MY LAST YEAR'S MISTAKE: Brought Crisco/lard for frying fish. OMG the mess! Hard water coupled with semi-worthless camp suds makes it impossible to clean. Bowls and mess kit still have residue. I will never fry fish again in the woods but instead chunk it up and add it to parboiled meals which was just as satisfying. Much easier and much less fuel needed. Also can forego the fish batter/breading which saves a few ounces.

CAMP KITCHEN:
Planned to put together a post within the "Cooking" section of this forum however will piggy-back on this string. Photos show the kitchen I use which is based off a concept my brother has used for a number of years. Credit goes to him. The milk crate and its contents weigh a total of ~10 lbs with 2 bottles of fuel & room to shove in flatbread, carrots, cheese, etc. that we would rather not have squashed. The entire contraption slides nicely into a CCS food pack with room left over for 10+ days of meals (35-40 lbs) worth.

In getting back to the initial question...The sponge is our weapon of choice.

We fried fish almost everyday in the Quetico. Try the "decomposing pine duff" method for greasy pots, etc... The duff soaks up the grease and acts as a mild abrasive. Dump used duff into fire. It is an amazing method. Try it!

 

[mwaalen]

OK you got me DuctTape...boiled fish chunks in our meals is not as satisfying as fried fillets as I thought to convince myself. I'll try the pine duff next trip.

Thanks much for helping along the reality check.

Micah

 

[stripperguy]

Dishes?? I don’t have any stinkin’ dishes!
I dry my own meals at home and vacuum seal in heavy pouches
Eat straight out of the pouch
rinse my spork in my coffee or tea
I bring a paper cup for coffee and tea a few day trip then burn it after the final drink

 

[mwaalen]

Youdaman stripperguy! I'm workin towards your system.

 

[alsg]

Wow! Thanks for all the responses!

I used several of the ideas here. Using a paper towel (and then burning it) to wipe out any residue was an excellent tip, as was working from cleanest to dirtiest.

As for the freeze-dried, no-dishes folks: I envy the fact that your choice means there's no post-meal clean-up routine; but I'm not leaving behind my fresh food! I enjoy it too much!

 

[stripperguy]

Wow! Thanks for all the responses!

I used several of the ideas here. Using a paper towel (and then burning it) to wipe out any residue was an excellent tip, as was working from cleanest to dirtiest.

As for the freeze-dried, no-dishes folks: I envy the fact that your choice means there's no post-meal clean-up routine; but I'm not leaving behind my fresh food! I enjoy it too much!

Last time out I brought Szechuan Chicken with fried rice...dried.
Left over Chicken Tikka Masala with basmati rice...dried
Ham and eggs with grits and cheese...dried
4 mangoes...dried
6 bananas...dried
4 kiwi fruit...dried

All of the stuff tastes just the same as when fresh, even though some textures suffer.
Some stuff, like the mangoes and bananas taste better to me than when fresh, the flavors concentrated and intense.

And best of all, no hassle meal prep or clean up!!
Oh, and of course my pack is smaller and lighter with the dried foods.

 

[DuctTape]

I do a lot of dehydrating like SG. The main difference is abhor eating out of plastic bags. I rehydrate in my cookpot. My cleaning method is simple and "dry" so no mess.