Freezer Bag Cooking

I actually wrote this article back in early January. I never posted it because I was planning on saving the content for the Backyard Bushcraft website. However, I have had many hosting issues, and decided to just start posting the articles I have been saving.

I did round two of this today, with a different recipe and it turned out really good.

A while ago I was researching dehydrators, mainly for drying out fruit. I really like dried fruit, especially apples. In doing so, I came across a really cool website called Freezer Bag Cooking.

It seems geared more towards backpackers, but many of the recipes can used for canoe trips, real deep backwoods, or even car camping where you don’t want to have to worry about refrigeration. I did not get the book, just printed off all of the recipes from the website. Looking through them, some of them actually look quite tasty!

As we have been cooking dinner and had leftover ground beef, or taco meat, or onions and bell peppers, I would just throw them in the dehydrator and dry them out for later. I finally got a good supply of my own dried foods in order to try one of the recipes out for the first time. You could of course buy the dried ingredients, but what the fun is that : )

So here are the ingredients laid out for the first recipe I tried. We have instant rice, cooked and dried red beans, dried onion, dried bell pepper, dried tomato and dried taco flavored meat. The recipe called for taco flavored TVP…..YUCK! I tell you something, if you ever catch me in the same room as TVP it is a cry for help. Slap me around and PLEASE drag me back out to the woods! There is also three different spices in the tablespoon: chili powder, minced garlic, and dried oregano.

All packed up in a gallon freezer back, ready to go in a pack:

I boiled one cup of water, and poured it in the bag. The Freezer Bag Cooking website sells fancy cozies for your cooking bag, but I went he knit hat route here.

Wait 10-15 minutes, and lunch is ready.

The best part about this whole thing is there are no additional cookware required, no extra plates and bowls to carry, and no cleaning dishes. Since you should be packing these extra freezer bags out too, once they are empty they have several other potential “survival” uses in case of emergency.

The important thing: how did it taste? I have to admit, it was only okay. There are some other recipes that look better, but I did not have all the right ingredients. The two things that could have improved this recipe is I don’t think the TVP to real meat conversion was quite correct. It could have used a bit more meat. Second, it could have used some more spices. It was kind of on the bland side. I think I will try both of those things next time, and I think it would greatly improve the taste.

I am looking forward to trying some more soon.