Cycle touring and bikepacking gourmands, outdoor cooking and maybe a little coffee outdoors

Do you boil in the bag and use the water for coffee? When I’ve tried that I’ve just ended up with manky food and mankier coffee.
I now eat at the first nice place I find and get some extra to eat later, if it’s early I usually end up just eating the extra and having to find something else later as well. Gut lord? Me¿

My choice for overnighters is cheats thai peanut butter noodles.

Pre-mixed in a container:
1/2tbsp each soy sauce and rice wine vinegar
tbsp chilli oil
Splash of sesame oil
2-3 heaped tbsp peanut butter

Pre-chopped and in a bag or prepare at camp (depending on facilities) x3 spring onions and x1 red chilli.

Cook your dried noodles, drain, stir everything in, demolish straight from the pan.

(Serves 2 normal people or 1 famished person who's survived on bars all day)

Location: Porthcurno, day 2 of the West Kernow Way.

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There's plenty of ideas here https://www.lfgss.com/conversations/351532/

I still swear by the tinned fish trick I put in that thread, even if it means ingesting some burnt plastic

just boil water in the jetboil and use the aeropress. But yes, cleaning the jetboil does mean no bits of food floating in the mug.

I bought a little MSR stove last year but have failed to use it on any bike trip since. I cannot resist a pre-camp shop bought picnic. (cheese, tomatoes, bread, crisps, some type of spread, and 6 cans of lager) Maybe I need to grow up.

Edit: can anyone recommend a good pot/pan/plate set that's packable?

anyone eating Pot Noodles needs a lobotomy, taste shit, no nutritional value, loads of salt, loads of plastic waste.

I have eaten all types of outdoors food over the years, nothing beats:
-> peanut butter in tortilla wrap, add honey/cheese/raspberries etc. as appropriate = rocket fuel
-> pasta with fresh wild garlic, nettles, or sage depending on time of year
-> couscous n veg with onion stuffing mix and olive oil = yeah sounds odd but tastes so good, expands like nothing else so good to carry on long trips, this is what all the UK mountaineers ate before freeze-dried meals were available

real geezers carry a minimal kit and some staples in reusable bags, then buy veg and fruit out of people's front gardens/markets, and forage the toppings.

don't take:
tins, too heavy
jars, too heavy
anything with water in it too far, too heavy, eat your tomatoes at the shop

Suggest the porridge haters try oatmeal instead

the jar of tahini was worth it for that campsite baba ganoush

campsite baba ganoush

sounds dreamy

onion stuffing mix

Stuffing mix rules.

Great thread!

If you eat meat I´d recommend bulgur, sliced carrots and slices och fuet or suchlike where you boil the fuet and carrots in the same water where you add your bulgur.
Olive oil, bread, cheese and fruit where you can find it.

If you have access to open fire, you can cook really tasty meals in aluminium foil, esp. fish and sausages with thinly sliced potatoes.

the jar of tahini was worth it for that campsite baba ganoush

full bling mode

I actually really rate Firepot as far as camping meals go, although I would observe that some of the meals rehydrate better than others (posh pork and beans remains chewy when cooked in the bag). Generally you can get better results with a billy can like a Zebra (get one with metal clips for the lid, the plastic ones unsurprisingly melt), and Firepot do a fully compostable paper bag alternative package for people who are not boiling in the bag.

In terms of cooking equipment I guess a small gas burner is probably going to be the way to go for bikepackers, unless you're going truly compact with a hobo stove and carrying meths in your under-down-tube bottlecage. I'm a big fan of the Biolite wood-burning cookstove which works out pretty compact but probably slightly heavier than a gas stove and fuel, plus you have to source wood fuel and that has to be fairly small. I've lived using one of those for all my cooking and hot water for a fortnight, when I was learning framebuilding at the Bicycle Academy. It blows air through the stove to ignite the woodgas and get a hot, efficient, smoke-free burn, but it does prefer dry wood, moreso than a primitive camp fire. Also produces a small amount of useful electricity - although I own the first version which doesn't keep up with the demands of modern phones, the newer ones are better.

Alternatively a campfire with a Waugan crane set up is a nice way to cook:
https://www.instagram.com/p/CQYGSDYsOhBgvTfLMzmC6d-cCzv3tUyx9coGts0/ (the one with the mug hanging from it) but you would probably not want to cart the parts about on a bike, maybe just the adjustable pothanger could slip in somewhere, the rest one could make from bits of found wood.

One time I took salted peanuts, plain oatcakes and peanut butter on a scorcher of a weekend. Ran out of water halfway round the route. I was so hot and dry and salty that I felt like I was turning into jerky myself

So don't take only those. #CSB

Concentrated tomato puree/paste is useful and doesn't come in an annoying glass container. Technically you're supposed to refrigerate it but it's been fine when I've used it. With some dried apricots and nuts and cous cous you can do something that's nearly a tagine. And you can also eat nuts and dried apricots on the bike

Bacon and eggs for breakast is hard to beat. Especially up a mountain with a view above the clouds and some goats for company. That's my all time best camping memory.

A non stick pan is essential. I hate camping pans which aren't non stick. I might get this Evernew 0.9l non-stick ti pan as my only pan for future trips. Wide enough for frying and deep enough for boiling things. 140 grams. No plate. Eat out of the pan with a ti spork. No washing up. Clean the pan with your fingers. https://ultralightoutdoorgear.co.uk/eca422-titanium-non-stick-pot-2-0-9l/

Pasta with a tin of tuna is my usual standby. Sounds boring but it's so fast and so easy to buy and carry, and it's always delicious outdoors after a day of riding. Maybe add cream, cream cheese, nuts. Yummy. And I always pack sea salt flakes and tabasco.

I've tried lots of portable coffee gadgets but I don't like that cafetiere taste. My favourite result so far has been from a v. small camping moka pot with ground Illy. Quite light cos it doesn't have an upper chamber. Just a pipe to shoot the coffee direct into your cup. You can save a few more grams by cutting off the platform and replacing the pipe with a plastic tube. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Single-Tube-Operate-Latte-Coffee/dp/B0BCCC46SJ?th=1

But I'm not sure it's worth the faff and the weight. I might force myself to adapt to v. strong instant coffee with powdered milk. There are lots of posh instant coffees these days. Maybe 3 spoons in a small cup would give me the caffeine hit? If so it's 100 times better than no coffee at all. I shall do some testing at home.

I got an omnifuel ti primus stove for my last trip https://www.outside.co.uk/primus-primus-omnilite-ti-stove.html?utm_source=googleads&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=googleshopping&gad=1&gclid=Cj0KCQjwoK2mBhDzARIsADGbjepbiVdQO9EyI0M2e_N5oEFXlnW1mIA76Pr_jEtk_7_uK_uJxN7uofsaArPREALw_wcB and used petrol in it, which was horrible. Nasty fumes. And trying to buy minute quantities of petrol at filling stations. 341g exc. fuel and fuel bottle. Probably 800g total? The bottle needed its own cage so that it didn't make everything stink. Never again. Next time I'll burn twigs in a folding pocket stove like this. 114 grams. https://ultralightoutdoorgear.co.uk/titanium-wood-burning-stove/

My next trip might be with my cat, but she's easy to feed.

non-stick pan

Ultralight pans don't have the thermal mass for even cooking, so non-stick doesn't help very much. Trangia Duossal pans or similar are the ticket

Eat out of the pan with a ti spork.

Can't do that as it'll scratch the coating off, that's why non-stick pans are for wooden utensils only

Clean the pan with your fingers.

The detached head of a silicon spatula, used as a pot scraper, actually works and is hygenic

3 spoons of coffee

The lightweight way is to stop being addicted to caffeine

folding twig stove

These are a novelty item only, no end of practical issues. Anyone doing it regularly uses gas or alcohol

stop being addicted to caffeine

Lol sure, why not just advise me to roll over and die?

Excellent tips!

Trangia Duossal

So my One Pan to Rule Them All would be a 1 litre Duossal. 150 grams. 5.9 cm diameter. Just enough for bacon and eggs. https://trangia.se/en/shop/saucepan-1-l-outer/ With the separate Trangia handle, which I've always liked. 48g. https://trangia.se/en/shop/handle-th25/

folding twig stove a novelty item only, no end of practical issues

I would very much like not to carry gas or liquid fuel, so perhaps I could overcome these issues -

1. Fire bans and concerned locals telling you not to have a fire: screen the stove behind bike/panniers/clothes (also works as a wind screen)
   
2. Actual risk of setting fire to the undergrowth: clear a bare patch to put the stove on. Be nice to have an implement for this. Preferably something which I'm already carrying. Can't think of anything.
   
3. Starting the fire in damp conditions: pack some dry tinder, e.g. a tampon. Then add lots of wood shavings, made on the spot. (I would pack my best knife. Any excuse to use it.)
   
4. Lots of black smoke which attracts concerned locals: cook supper after dusk. Cook breakfast after most of your packing is done, so if a local approaches you'll be about to leave
   
5. Masses of soot on the pan and the outside of the stove: don't clean them. Pack them v.v.carefully in cloth bags to stop the soot migrating in your panniers.
   
6. Lots of wood needed: the food I cook doesn't take long (fry the bacon 'n eggs, or boil water for pasta)
   
7. Poor control of cooking temperature: I can live with this for the v. basic cooking that I do. I don't mind holding the pan above the stove.
   

The lightweight way is to stop being addicted to caffeine

Or just accept petrol station coffee (and a shit)

what's wrong with carrying liquid fuel? I've never heard anyone object to it.

Because it's heavy and not many places sell it. Where are you meant to top up your supply? (Assuming you're in foreign parts.)

Most people use 60-80g of fuel per day, which is not heavy at all!

You can buy it everywhere, that's one of the main attractions. As well as Meths, you can use anything with more than 90% alcohol, which every hardware shop or pharmacy will stock. You can even burn booze if you have to.

Fire bans and concerned locals telling you not to have a fire

Wtf. You should absolutely not be producing any flame under these circumstances! Have a cold fucking breakfast and cold brew coffee FFS. If you absolutely must have something hot then buy it from a shop.

You can even burn booze if you have to

Give up coffee and then burn booze?!

You monster!