Elk Camp Meals

30inchbuck · Jul 14, 2004

LAST EDITED ON Jul-14-04 AT 02:50PM (MST)[p]I was starting a menu for Elk camp.

Since it is two guys in tents.

Meals need to be simple. Quick.
Also looking for techniques for reading meals quicker.

I have a few was wondering about what everyone else does.

Spaghetti and meat sauce. - use the kraft box.

Steak & fried potatoes. - use precut frozen potatoes.

Frozen Stir Fry Dinners.

Hamburger Helper.

Precooked Stew.

:9

HullinPhx · Jul 14, 2004

I assume you have a grill.. and at least a coleman stove... nothing wrong with some sort of Stew!!! Hamburgers and Hot dogs work as well.. Steak night is Saturday night.. A pot full of beans cooking all day long tastes great to.

Jake_Sorensen · Jul 14, 2004

It wouldn't be a hunt without stew. (drooling) MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM good old fashioned hunting STEW. Your menu make me hungry.

Jake

contender · Jul 14, 2004

For the real fast dinner or lunch I take precooked ham and chicken. I only do the full meal when I am not beat.

huntazido · Jul 14, 2004

I try to do as much cooking as I can at home a few days before I go. I usually make a pot a spaghetti, stew, Homemade soup, and green chili for green chili burros. Freeze them and take them up to help keep food in the cooler colder (a necessity in Ariz). Saturday is always steak night. Lunch is usually leftovers from the night before or sandwitches. If I do not have a tag but just go along on the hunt I like to do a lot more cooking and grilling. I would like to start doing more cooking with dutch oven someday.

John

redrabbit · Jul 14, 2004

One of the neatest ways for breakfast which was told to me, was to pre-make omelettes and freeze them in ziploc bags. Heat them up in boiling water while you're making coffee. Taste great.
Another favorite for dinner is to heat Stouffers lasagna up in a covered pan of boiling H2O. The 20 minutes it takes to heat it up is perfect for a beer and appetizers.

AZbowhntr · Jul 14, 2004

Man, you guys are making me hungry. I made the mistake of saying that I eat better when I go hunting than I do at home once to my wife and still haven't lived that one down. I actually meant that we almost always eat steak for dinner and make breakfast burritos with eggs, potatoes, sausage, and cheese in the late morning after hunting earlier. I always try and take as much fruit as I can for in the afternoon. We only eat 2 meals a day and snack in between.

azhntrman · Jul 14, 2004

Ex Soldiers may disagree, but if you want quick and simple, MREs are simple, cheap, fairly tasty as long as you do not eat a steady diet of them and chalk full of calories. All you need is a small propane stove, water, a pot to boil the main meal with and your good to go. If you buy a case of them you will get a variety of dinners. Clean up is simple because you have no dishes to clean since the meals are self contained.

BullHunter20 · Jul 14, 2004

The only meal I eat is stew and rolls.

elk_horn · Jul 14, 2004

Dutch oven... put boneless ribs in the bottom pour 1 large bottle of catsup & 120oz can of pepesi put on the coleman stove at low heat about 2:00pm and eat ribs for dinner at about 9:30 pm when you get back to camp. You can through in some carrots and cut potatoes too if you'd like. Oh and some potatoe dinner rolls go nice with it also.

ELKMASTER101 · Jul 14, 2004

DENNY MOORE,
they make some goog meals potato meat & gravey in plastic containers, like mris. just pop them into boiling water, in 10 min/. you have a great meal and the rapper burns.
but it seams never to fail i always take in way more than what i need.
I shoot for the first meal, the night after the first day of the hunt, to be ELK tenderloins.

Phantom Hunter · Jul 15, 2004

Everyone has good ideas and I have used most of them over the years. One thing I have learned is to be sure your meals include plenty of carbohydrates. Carbs are what fuels the muscles day in and day out while hunting. Protein and fats will take longer to digest but will provide heat for the body during cold weather. We always cook everything possible before the hunt and "heat and eat" during the hunt as we usually don't come in untill well after dark. The night before the hunt is our steak and potatoes night. If someone tags out early, they will take over cooking chores and sometimes bake a cobbler in the dutch oven.

Phantom Hunter

30inchbuck · Jul 15, 2004

The precook meals are great.

I plan on being very nice to the wife before the hunt.

She usualy will cook green chili chicken enchiladas. And fix a big bowl of salsa. That will be eaten on the first night.

I have a quick breakfast planned. Oryx sausage, potatoes and egg burros. I have a disk to cook this on. It usaully takes about 5 minutes to ready.

Well menu is planned, scouting trips planned, shooting bow every evening, hiking 5 to 10 miles every weekend, tents being fixed, equipment cleaned and ready.

Elk camp - 2 months of preparation - 12 days of hunting - lifetime of memories!

45 days and counting

Waygoner · Jul 15, 2004

Precook your meals and put them in seal-a-meal bags and put them in the freezer. In camp, drop them in boiling water and heat thoroughly. Slice the bag open and eat!

As a former restaurant owner, I've become camp cook for our outfit. We've had some truly gourmet meals, including buffalo filled raviolis topped with red chili pesto.

TCR1 · Jul 15, 2004

Was wondering some of the same things. The difference is that I will be hunting solo and have a 1.5 mile hike up a steep draiange to get to my camping area. Since I will be in the woods close to the animals, it seems like cooking would spook the elk out. What foods can a guy take to elk camp that wouldn't require cooking, but would be good eating and light?

chambero · Jul 15, 2004

Freeze homeade chili at home and then just heat up.

Grilled bratwursts one night when you are way too tired to cook. Much better than a plain hotdog.

Hamburger helper has always been a staple.

Steaks and fried potatoes the first night in camp.

ELKMASTER101 · Jul 15, 2004

if you realy want to become invisable, eat nothing but vegatables for 2 weeks or so prior to the hunt,
take then only carrots, cellary, apples, pears,
peanuts, hard rock candies, and a water purrifier,
there is pleanty of grazing out there while you hunting,
nuts berries, cabage leaves, grasses, mushrooms, roots,
I'd stay away form the bugs, they will make you smell like a conavore.
though there are some nice plump grubs hanging out under some of those downed trees,
Damn, my mouth is watering just thinking about the feast.

alsatian · Jul 15, 2004

You might consider some of the following:

*A mix of granola, trail mix, and M&M candies (called GORP in backpacking parlance for some reason. I like vanilla granola. You can blend up your own trail mix from raisins, sunflower seeds, almonds, chopped-up dates, dried banana chips). This is something I would eat at lunch and at breaks when I stop to rest.

*Beef jerky

*Cheddar cheese and dry crackers such as rye crisp

*Fruit roll-ups (dried fruit rolled very thin)

*For breakfast you might set some dried fruit out in water overnight, in the morning mix dried milk with the water, add Muesselix dried cereal or other coarse, multigrain cereal.

All of these things are light and don't tend to spoil in the coolness of the mountains. You might get a very light backpacker stove and do some cooking at dinner, but I would skip the cooking at both breakfast and lunch -- you are on a hunting trip not a gourmet excursion. Granted, if you were on an outfitted pack hunt it would be nice to have sausage and eggs for breakfast and robust dinners at night . . . but you are on a solo backpacking hunt.

TCR1 · Jul 15, 2004

Thanks guys. I hate to go without meat, why else would I hunt!

I hadn't considered beef jerky really. Seems like I need to open my eyes a little wider before the season starts. I already have a good backpacking stove, but really didn't want to use it. I will take it along in case it gets very cold and I need some hot chocolate or something. I guess boiling water and throwing some instant oatmeal in won't create too much odor. bacon and egg breakfasts will be reserved for my bear hunting. maybe just bacon breakfasts in that case. I guess some energy bars, trail mix (probably should skip the M&M's for melting reasons), and fruit will constitute the lunches. dinner might be some instant rice and vegetables. seems like that would eliminate a lot of the odors I was wotrrying about and they provide 10 minute meals (minus the wait for boil time at 10,000 feet).

Thanks again...this thread was very helpful to me!

alsatian · Jul 15, 2004

If you are at 10,000' hunting Elk I doubt that the M&Ms would melt unless you used a magnifying glass to focus the sun's rays on them. I back packed from 8,500' to over 12,500' in August in SE colorado with M&Ms in my GORP and had no problems. In fact, I seem to recall the temperature hovered around 40 degrees in the shade on good days at 11,500', in August.

About the backpacking stove, I didn't think about what odors the stove might put off, possibly shying off elf. Then again, many pack hunts set up camps and maybe use gas stoves and certainly the smell of cooking food, and they seem to find elk. Just set up your camp from where you plan to hunt and encounter elk.

What is your plan for getting an elk down out of the mountains when you bag one? I ask because I am interested in backpacking into Elk country for a hunt, perhaps in 2005, and this is a problem I have not satisfactorily solved.

Montanahunter · Jul 16, 2004

This is my usual diet, instant oatmeal peaches and cream and a bagel with p.b.and j for breakfast, a zip lock of gorp during the day, at night freeze dryed meal and premixed dry milk and pudding in a zip lock. If you eliminate the stove you can do fine without the freeze dried and oats-eat more jerky and bagels whole wheat date bars, energy bars.

RACKMASTER · Jul 17, 2004

breakfast burritos all day long! many ways to cook them ,heat them! and you can add any thing you want to them! and if you have a small enough bottle in your pack of tapito,tabasco,(hotter the better)
you can eat them dam near frozen!
dry saliami is good!(won't sour easy),power bars! lots of water in the camel pack!
Rackmaster

jamaro · Jul 17, 2004

I am full of useless triva... GORP stands for.... are you ready..
GOOD OLD RASIN AND PEANUTS....

man I need a life...

I mircowave a bunch of baked taters prior to the hunt... I can make mashed taters. or just heat them up...

I also like to make fajitas... but the veggies in one plastic container... put cold water in the contaniner it will keep them fresh... Also... Pre-cut all of your meat, it will make life alot easier...
BUT DON"T LET ANYBODY SEE YOU DOING THIS.. they will expect you to cook next time they come over.

Quesidillas are also quick and easy..

jason