Im going on a couple of 2-4 day backpacking trips in the coming months at altitudes of 8-10,000 ft. I have a jet boil and another msr stove. What do you use to cook, and more importantly what do you like to eat? Im sick of the basic old freeze dried food and im not very creative. PLEASE HELP!

Jambalaya with summer sausage

If you want something other than "just add hot water" meals, you'll need to ditch the JetBoil. Pretty hard to cook or simmer on it. I used to use the Whisperlite, which gave me more options for cooking meals, but decided I'd just stick with the convenience of the Jetboil. So I opt for "just add hot water" and don't care if I have fine backcountry cuisine.

There are some pretty exotic flavors now in the FD foods available. Lots of suppliers with delicious stuff. I love the FD experience as just an accepted part of my camping in the back country, so JetBoil and I have a good time.

Use a whisperlite and make pizza. It's just the best. Or, keep the jetboil and make some fun single pot dishes, anything from basic good old mac'n cheese (with chili powder, sausage, anything thrown in) to something more creative like chili or jambalaya with some hot chocolate mix mixed in. Just because you only have one pot that'll boil water doesn't mean you only need to eat freeze-dried stuff.

Bacon is always clutch in the moment when you are faced with a hunger so horrific that you truly believe that you can no longer go on. Fry some up before you go and have it ready for that very moment.

I don't know about bacon but I can go for dry meat like beef or turkey. Instant oatmeal may be our breakfast food for a week. I can personally live on chocolate.

Btw im looking for a sleeping bag western mountaineering or montbell 20° super lightweight and packable under $200

Take a look at hawkvittles.com/ for more interesting options for FD food. Def cough up the extra coin for the not so mass produced varities of FD food. I got a hot pepper mac n cheese at EMS one time that was from some small organic company that was far better than MH or BP grade stuff.

My standby for backpacking is a box of flavored CousCous and turkey jerky. Boil the jerky with the couscous water and then enjoy. Tuna pouches are also good with toritillas and hummus.

You can't go wrong with burritos for dinner. Bring some Zatterans(spelling?) Spanish rice mix, tortillas, cheese, and some hot sauce. Pretty cheap and mad tasty. Mac n' cheese mixed with canned tuna is another good one. You can take the tuna out of the can and put it in a ziplock for better packing. For breakfast if you have a little extra time you can make granola by frying the oatmeal in a little oil with brown sugar, cinnamon and nuts. I do that sometimes because I get incredibly bored with the texture of oatmeal.

I always throw in a handful almonds to my oatmeal for more stick-to-my-ribiness.

EatNGood' natural cookies, baked and created by Army Sgt.David Payne. Gluten free and vegan. Flavors like cranberry pecan and choc chip. 6 gm protein and 125 calories per serving. Include ingredients such as organic milled flax seed, organic buckwheat flower. Can be found online at www.eatngood.com or in mid Atlantic Whole food stores starting this fall. 12 pak of 1 oz. cookies goes for 7 bucks. Healthy and tasty snacks for sure.

Rice and dried lentils and throw in some cured sausage for some fat and extra protein. Or eat the sausage while you're waiting for the rice and lentils to cook.

Measure out the dried stuff into 1 small ziploc per meal and add spices to each bag as desired (you can vary the flavor for every night!). Bring the bags home after, rinse, and reuse. As a bonus, it never seems to stick to the pot the way oatmeal does.

This does work best on a stove you can simmer with.

Get a food drier and dry the following:

Cooked bacon
Yogurt
Any fruit and veggie
And yummy smoothis
Home made beef stew
Any crockpot meal
Any fantastic hot dish you can think of

Princess Mia I don't cook neither is there anywhere to put a crock pot or a dehydrator. But thank you for ideas. Its gonna be Mac and cheese, granola , dry milk, instant rice pb packets. The trip is geared up to go in a week! !!!!! Thanx for your input!

Sounds yucky!!! I think I would stick to FD.......
Have fun!!!

You have successfully dried beef stew in a food dryer? The one I had was pretty weak. I can't see it being able to do that.

Peanut Butter with rice crispy cereal and hot cocoa powder on a wrap...its like a reeses cup with a lot of protein and carbs.
Any cheese can last 5 days as long as you only touch the wrapper and not the cheese itself...the oils and bacteria on your fingers will cause that one spot to get moldy without a fridge.
If you get the just add water bisquik mix, mix it up and then pour a table spoon or 2 at a time into boiling water you can make dumplings to add to a stew or something. Id do a search on www.backpacker.com and go to the menu planner or just search 1 pot meals.

We tried Enertia Trail Foods on our recent trip. We ate their stuff for over 20 days as we completed the JMT. Neither of s got tired of the food and agree that it is much better than MH or BP, plus it's significantly cheaper.

I hiked the Colorado trail last summer and took freezed dried foods and enjoyed them for the most part. I went to Costco and bought several boxes of 12 which saved me money. Only problem was that I got sick of a couple of them after 6 weeks! But they are the lightest thing you'll find to carry. If your doing a lot of miles you might want to consider weight. On top of the fd food I bought in bulk nuts, candy bars, pop tarts, and still didn't have enough calories which is very important to take into consideration. I only started off with about 1500 calories day and ended up bumping it up another 1000 and still lost about 15 pounds. Granted the weather and terrain was brutal! I know a guy who does long expedition type stuff and takes rice and beans. I would go crazy just eating that.

Also I bought a really light and inexpensive sleeping bag from Dick's sporting goods along with a silk liner from REI, and with a combination of the clothes I brought on the trail I stayed pretty warm even at 12,000 feet with rain and hail, but I also had a tent which helps.

check out "freezer bag cooking" for some easy recipes. There are hundreds of recipes on that site and you don't need a dehydrator for a lot of them - just stuff you can find in the grocery store.

We've made this one and liked it a lot:
www.trailcooking.com/recipes/cranberry-chicken-rice-version->>>

The "chicken stock broth concentrate" was from Trader Joe's and came in small packages like soy sauce does.

This is a simpler version of the same recipe:
www.trailcooking.com/recipes/cranberry-chicken-rice