Quick Simple Dinners?

RoadLife wrote:

NYCgrrl wrote:

DougE wrote:
My rig doesn't freeze. It's a 12v cooling chest without a separate freezer. I can set it to refrigerate or freeze, but not both. Thus the consideration of taking vacuum sealed items when I hit the road.

I'm not sure why you are considering a vacuum sealer if you've no dedicated freezer. It's a useful tool but mostly for the freezer. It's only other cost effective use is vacuum packing dry goods to keep mealy bugs out.

ETA: I'm thinking on this more. Don't want you to spend money on vacuuming sealing if not needed (and trust me I use one whenever possible)yet do'nt want you to miss the benefit of it either. How long is your extended trip?

Actually, my vacuum sealer says it keeps items fresh in the frig for 5 times longer. It is keeping the air from the food.

O and the sealer does exactly what it sez it will and quite nicely too! I think I better understand why you want to vacuum seal after making foil packet meals/ hobo packs. Doing that wont further extend the lifespan but it will allow you to just place the prepped food atop a grill after opening the vacuum seal that ensures that water doesn't enter the food. Makes great sense if you are storing the frozen food in a cooler.

Currently my longest camping trips are between 2-3 weeks (tenting on sites w/o electricity) and I dedicate one cooler to frozen foods. The food remains frozen for up to 8 days with care and help from the weather.

For those of you that like foil packs, take a look at Reynolds Wrap site. you can choose your main ingredient and your meal time and it will give you options.. there are hundreds of foil pack combinations... just choose what you like

I love my vacuum sealer for cooking at home, freezing and having to travel with me. I also precook burger or sausage and divide into multiple containers.. a pound is too much for one meal.. then I freeze, makes it quick and easy to use when traveling.

I just bought a box of single serve size boil in bags of pasta. Ronzoni Pasta Portions According to label, penne takes 3 minutes.
should be easy to add some stuff with and have quick easy meal.

DougE I would think that foil packs would work well for you, but if you visit a market of some type, farmers or grocer, you could hold a lot of vegetables for a long time in refrigeration or in storage as long as they weren't cut. Maybe keeping the ingredients intact until you need them would give you more time.

You can also make Kraft macaroni and cheese, add diced ham (in a packet by the cold cuts), peas and a dollop of sour cream and mix it all up. I got that recipe (basically that one) from the Kraft website. Easy and the kids love it.

Buy chicken, beef and whatever else you like and a bottle of Italian dressing. Separate each meat into its own zip lock bag, add salad dressing and let it sit 6 hours or up to two days.

Get a skillet, put the meat in skillet and sort of fry it off... Throw in small cut up asparagus or Brussels sprouts, spinach,. Etc. that is all or you can add cream of mushroom soup or whatever you want. Throw out the bag of Italian dressing..you really only want it for the marinade. use some butter or oil to cook.

Meat and vegetables.

My thinking is that if I freeze first, there is no liquid for the vacuum sealer to deal with, the food will experience it's absolutely lowest threshold of deterioration while frozen, and it should remain frozen for at least a day after I move it into the camping fridge. Doesn't this give me the absolute maximum lifetime under the circumstances?
Unless I decide to take a trip to Alaska, my maximum trip in the continental US would probably be 3 weeks in duration.

NYCgrrl wrote:

DougE wrote:
My rig doesn't freeze. It's a 12v cooling chest without a separate freezer. I can set it to refrigerate or freeze, but not both. Thus the consideration of taking vacuum sealed items when I hit the road.

I'm not sure why you are considering a vacuum sealer if you've no dedicated freezer. It's a useful tool but mostly for the freezer. It's only other cost effective use is vacuum packing dry goods to keep mealy bugs out.

ETA: I'm thinking on this more. Don't want you to spend money on vacuuming sealing if not needed (and trust me I use one whenever possible)yet do'nt want you to miss the benefit of it either. How long is your extended trip?

Actually, my vacuum sealer says it keeps items fresh in the frig for 5 times longer. It is keeping the air from the food.

Now here's a ?. I use the foil pack method and have a vac sealer. Could I make my foil packs and then vac seal them and freeze?

DougE wrote:
My rig doesn't freeze. It's a 12v cooling chest without a separate freezer. I can set it to refrigerate or freeze, but not both. Thus the consideration of taking vacuum sealed items when I hit the road.

I'm not sure why you are considering a vacuum sealer if you've no dedicated freezer. It's a useful tool but mostly for the freezer. It's only other cost effective use is vacuum packing dry goods to keep mealy bugs out.

ETA: I'm thinking on this more. Don't want you to spend money on vacuuming sealing if not needed (and trust me I use one whenever possible)yet do'nt want you to miss the benefit of it either. How long is your extended trip?

DougE wrote:
Does making up a foil packet dinner, freezing it, vacuum sealing it, then throwing it in my fridge for the trip make sense?

It does to me. I like foils packs myself. When my son and I took fishing trips we generally made a trip to a local grocer and bought what ever vegetables looked good and some smoked sausage. We would then make up packs with spices and foil brought from home. I don't know that we ever found any vegetables that weren't good.
We would ad a little water or beer, put root vegetables on the bottom, green next and the sausage on top and double wrap. We would cook them directly on the coals.