one pot meals

It's time to start picking up food supplies for the spring trip.  Somehow it fits into my budget easier if I just toss an item or two extra in the shopping cart each weekend.  Buy April we'll have plenty of food for the May trip on the Eastern Shore.

I've been noticing more and more of these pre-cooked meals, or side dish at least, on the store shelves.  Bruce and I started using some of these, like the tortilla stuffers, above left, and Madras Lentils, on our last few trips.  Some of these make great stand alone meals, and some make a fine dinner when meat - it could be a foil packet of spam or freshly caught fish - or veggies - chopped onions or potatoes - are added.

There are a lot of things I like about these pouches.  They are inexpensive, easy to store, the plastic pouch takes up little space in the trash bag once the meal is consumed and, most importantly to me, they are very quick to prepare.  Often times it involves bringing a half cup of water or less to a boil, adding the contents of the packet and letting it steam for a couple of minutes.

I'm particularly impressed with the ready to heat rice and grains from Seeds of Change which I just found this morning.  That is their Caribbean Style Rice, above.  How about that with some fresh caught trout?

I'll experiment over the next several weeks with these meals, trying different combinations and seeing what works best.  By May we should have a pretty nice menu for the trip.  I mean chicken and quinoa with poblano chilies - what's not to like about that?

In the fall, when I plan on making a two week solo trip, these pouch meals will certainly be on board.  Between these - and I'm showing just a few meals here, there are several variations at the story - fresh veggies, instant mash potatoes, cous cous and whatever else I can find, I should do alright.  When solo sailing I find I'm pretty beat at the end of the day.  The idea of a one pot meal, cooked on the JetBoil GCS, with just a single pot to wash, sounds very appealing.

steve