Menu plans

Submitted: Saturday, Mar 21, 2015 at 14:24
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We are doing a trip along the Gibb River Road later in the year. Would like to know what menu plans people use and what butchers in Broome will cryovac meat for you. We will only have one fridge a 65lt and it's our first big trip. Thanks
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Reply By: Member - Tony F8 - Saturday, Mar 21, 2015 at 15:20

Saturday, Mar 21, 2015 at 15:20
Our menu doesn't change that much from our home menu, we take minimal tinned food, only some basics like peas, beans (kidney beans), corn. We have a wide range of food on the the road from the basics like curries and stews, bbq'd steak, lamb, pork, sausages, chicken and a couple of roasts, through to lamb and feta puffs, garlic cream potatoes and greek orange semolina cake. It's really up to what you like to eat, we find that between a good camp oven, bush bbq and a couple of cartridge stoves (haven't blown up yet) you can replicate what you have at home. Their is only the two of us and a 40lt engel and have not gone hungry yet, we recently added a 27lt engel as myself and the girl enjoy ice("Glad Ice Cube Bags) in our afternoon drinks, the 27 is now the dedicated freezer.so we will have more options. Remember not to carry your onoins and potatoes together and use the mesh bags for them, they will last a lot longer. Red cabbage, great for asian dishes and on wraps with leftovers for lunch will last for ages.
We find a great product if you have flies bothering you and your camp, it's called permoxin, mix as directed in a spray bottle and spray it on your table, chairs etc and forget the flies, it's a agricultural product used to keep flies and insects off horses.
AnswerID: 551339

Reply By: Member - John and Lynne - Saturday, Mar 21, 2015 at 17:42

Saturday, Mar 21, 2015 at 17:42
We also just eat much the same as at home - just keep it fairly simple. Butchers will usually cryvac for you and this saves space. I often ask them to freeze the packs overnight and collect them frozen in the morning as we have some freezer space. Beans like kidney beans and chick peas are great to stretch or add to meat dishes. Packs of dry lentils take less space and weight than tins and cook fairly quickly in soups etc.

Tinned tomato puree and small packets of tomato paste are useful, as are a few small ziplock bags of spices and dried herbs to help ring the changes. Dried mushrooms and dried peas are very handy. Rice is better value than pasta as it takes less space and less water to cook and leftovers can be added to soups or other dishes. As well as a camp oven and stove we have a Weber Baby Q BBQ which we sometimes take. If you have room for something like this it doubles as an oven. A very useful thing is a Thermal Cooker like Thermo Pot (Aldi often have a good cheap one on special). This enables us to cook soups and stews while we travel or leave the camp for the day and only requires a few minutes of cooking on gas before the food goes into the insulated container so it is very economical on gas and easy to use, especially good if you are somewhere it is not possible or convenient to light a fire. This broadens the menu options and reduces the time spent on meal preparation. It is worth the space!

A couple of packs of lamb shanks or chicken legs are a space saver that open up lots of options for stews or curries and thick soups and you will easily have enough for more than one meal. Rolled oats for breakfast porridge work well for us when weight and space are an issue and we need a sustaining but simple breakfast. We are happy with powdered milk when far from shops and watching space and weight.

I have never succeeded in really planning a detailed menu far ahead but we always seem to eat well! Good advice about onions and potatoes. Don't forget the garlic.
Also don't forget to allow for WA quarantine restrictions if you are travelling from the east! Lynne
AnswerID: 551348

Reply By: Member - Mark C (QLD) - Saturday, Mar 21, 2015 at 21:05

Saturday, Mar 21, 2015 at 21:05
Be sure to add either caught fish or frozen fish from the local trawlers/professional fishermen. In Wyndam we picked up frozen prawns, queen and Barra for really good prices and good quality. We run two fridges, one freezer and one normal use.
Mark And Helen QLD
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Follow Up By: JATich - Sunday, Mar 22, 2015 at 10:39

Sunday, Mar 22, 2015 at 10:39
Thinking we may need to invest in a smaller fridge to use just as a freezer. Thanks
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Reply By: Fab72 - Sunday, Mar 22, 2015 at 09:01

Sunday, Mar 22, 2015 at 09:01
Wow you guys are experienced.
I do all the cooking at home (I finish work before the missus) and so I am quite a good cook, but when it comes to being out on the road, I want to feel like I'm getting a break from the kitchen. Hence I keep my meals very basic.
Hotdogs with cheese and bacon (Canned hot dog snags).
Continental Pasta N Sauce packs with a bit of steak on the side.
Harvest branded canned stew on some fresh mashed potato.
Various soup varieties (canned) including the "Chunky" types.
Standard BBQ with veggies (Corn/Peas/Carrot mix from a can), fresh mash.
Baked spuds with bacon pieces, pineapple, sour cream and cheese.
Ye ole sausage sizzle with coleslaw and onion.
Green apples cored then filled with sugar and cinnamon baked in the coals and served with thickened cream (apple pie dessert).
Noodles (more of a lunch time thing).
Jaffle toasties stuffed with anything... I usually use pizza like toppings in these like black olives, salami, cheese, roasted capsicum etc.

There's just a few. I have no option but to travel light so a small BBQ, a single canister gas stove, an open fire and a 27L Waeco is all I have at my disposal. All of the above can be done using a single saucepan, a frying pan and a BBQ hotplate.
Hope this helps....Fab.
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Follow Up By: Fab72 - Sunday, Mar 22, 2015 at 09:08

Sunday, Mar 22, 2015 at 09:08
I forgot my favourite..... Sunrise Butter Chicken. The one that comes in the box with two separate packs. Sold as a microwave meal but if you throw the two in together in a frying pan it does the same trick. You can also add in any extra veggies to make it more stir fry like. There's about 6 different flavours in this range including curry rice, sweet and sour, black bean etc.

Fab.
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Follow Up By: JATich - Sunday, Mar 22, 2015 at 10:42

Sunday, Mar 22, 2015 at 10:42
That sounds a bit like me too Fab72, I have made some bulk meals and will cryovac them, reheat by boiling in a pot along with rice or spuds. The hot dogs in a tin, do they taste ok? Chicken in a tin is just awful......
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Follow Up By: Member - John and Lynne - Sunday, Mar 22, 2015 at 10:46

Sunday, Mar 22, 2015 at 10:46
Great menus! I especially like the baked apples - must try those!
I admit I get a bit carried away about camp food these days. Once our camp menus were more like yours. Then the challenge was "quick and easy that the kids would eat"! Now we are retired we have the luxury of being able to take much longer trips and we have more time to play around the fire or stove. So now we enjoy the challenge of being able to cook ANYTHING we fancy while we are camping just using the food we can carry. Lynne
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Follow Up By: Fab72 - Sunday, Mar 22, 2015 at 12:31

Sunday, Mar 22, 2015 at 12:31
G'day Jatich,
The hot dogs in a can are literally just longer versions of frankfurters....not the whole assembly in a can USA style. No way!

The rolls I take fresh, the bacon pieces are pre-cut ones either from the cold section or the deli section, the cheese is what ever you like (Pizza blend or even Coon Tasty sliced cheese is fine), the onion is self explanatory.

I heat the hot dogs in their own juice (add just a bit of water) in a saucepan, until they almost boil, then take them off the heat. Then throw a frying pan over the same element and cook up the bacon pieces and onion. The cheese will melt on its own with the hot fillings.

I don't mind the rolls cold, although the kids like theirs cut, buttered and heated for 30 seconds over either a fire or in the same frying pan....white side down so it doesn't get greasy on the outside of the roll.

I agree chicken in a can would be awful.

Fab.
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Follow Up By: Fab72 - Sunday, Mar 22, 2015 at 12:39

Sunday, Mar 22, 2015 at 12:39
Another quick and easy meal/pasta sauce is to thinly slice some salami or metwurst, then cut it into half circles. Brown it off a bit in a saucepan until the oil leaches out (no need to add any extra oil).

Thrown in some onion, garlic and basil (to taste), a small hand full of black sliced pitted olives and a medium sized thinly sliced red capsicum.Cook until the capsicum becomes soft, then throw in a couple of tins of chopped tomatoes. Cook til it thickens to your desired consistency. Add chilli if you like.

Tastes great on penne pasta or as a rose' sauce over white rice.

You'll probably notice that the ingredients are almost identical to my jaffle iron pizza toasted sandwiches. That's no coincidence. I try to limit the stuff I take but cook it differently to offer variation.

Fab.
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Follow Up By: Bob Y. - Qld - Sunday, Mar 22, 2015 at 20:25

Sunday, Mar 22, 2015 at 20:25
Thanks for the menu suggestions, Fab.

Already use a few of those at home.......nothing like a piece of rib fillet with a Continental pasta 'n sauce, in lieu of usual veges.

Harvest make a sweet curry too, that goes well with some boiled rice. Regrettably the Harvest products are a bit fattening........they go really well with a couple of slices of butter 'n bread!

Bob

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Can't remember most of it.

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Reply By: Member - Megan and Kevin D (AC - Sunday, Mar 22, 2015 at 16:19

Sunday, Mar 22, 2015 at 16:19
After a good few years travelling, we have developed an approach we think works well - or at least it works well for us. Firstly, as others do, we eat much the same as we eat at home. Both Kevin and I like to cook and each has preferred methods of camp cooking. So we take turns at preparing meals. Despite having a small van, we nearly always cook outside - that's just a habit formed over years of camping.

Well before we leave, we each decide on four meals that will be ours to cook. That gives us a variety of eight dishes. We don't have to stick to using one of our four meals but we do shop for those meals before we go. We are then free to use our ingredients as we like but we don't take heaps of extras and "just in case" ingredients.

As an example, we enjoy Thai green curry and rice at home and I am usually the person who cooks it so I choose it as one of my four. To be ready for it, we'll pack parcels of chicken tenderloin, a tub of green curry paste, Ayam powdered coconut milk and Tilda Basmati ready cooked rice. That's enough for a very basic meal. I would pack a couple of small tins of chick peas and might use one of them in the curry. If we had, for example, zucchini or beans at the time I'm cooking the curry, I'd add that. If not, maybe a potato or onion etc. If none of those "extras" are available, the plain curry is still great. If water is an issue, use tinned coconut milk.

Anything is great when you're camping!

We do shop along the way, mainly for fresh vegetables or staples like museli and bread. Sometimes we get tempted and buy something totally different but we would probably cook that that night or shortly after.

I could go on about this but hope what I've written is sufficient to help you. We have two fridges (both with freezer compartments) and drawers in the back of the Landcruiser which are fantastic for food storage. We have some space in our small van but not a significant amount.

Have a wonderful trip.
Megan



AnswerID: 551399

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