Howdy from Denver

Very wise choice cooking at home. That’s the best plan then do it with your backpacking kitchen gear at home. But as you say everything tastes better after you’ve been hiking. We did a super fine blast of a hike earlier this morning and girlfriend is making her gourmet grilled cheese with tomato soup for lunch here back at the ranch.

For windscreen I start with a stove we have been using for twenty years, the Snow Peak Gigapower, got the newer, lighter version that also modulates lower a couple years ago. Then the OEM windscreen which isn’t really that good of a windscreen by itself so I added an upper titanium foil windscreen that totally protects the flame in any weather. The upper wraps the mug and held in place with the home sewed cozie so the drink stays hot and the mug doesn’t burn the hands. Everything, the stove, fuel canister, lighter and knife goes inside the mug for travel and the lid fully closes. Used it this morning up in the wilderness to brew some Ceylon green tea with natural peach flavoring to go with the crispy pecans girlfriend makes in her Excalibur dehydrator, some seriously good chocolate, blueberries and strawberries.







this is how it packs, almost the same volume as the mug

I have resorted to bringing gallon zip lock bags then throwing the dirty dishes in there and worrying about cleaning when I get home.

The lightweight non stick fry pans actually aren't hard to clean. The Outback oven is a good oven once you learn it. My favorite was Betty Crocker pizza dough mix and make pizza. It's a water only mix and I would mix it right in the pan. No other mess. I also brought a small Nalgene of pizza sauce, a small bag of shredded mozzarella and usually sliced pepperoni (they are also all foods that don't need cooking or water to eat if need be). I did also bring a 12" aluminum camp plate for cutting and serving.

There is also water only cake and cornbread mixes that it can do a good job cooking up.

If I wanted to go lighter I would bring just the fry pan, a Ziplock bag of water only pancake mix and a small jar of Ghee and make pancakes. I mix the batter right in the bag.

The idea was real food with light dry ingredients and local water. Food with water weight gets heavy fast for multi-day trips.

ErnieW I like your ideas for pancakes, and food that can be eaten cold, if needed.

swiftdream Good to know the titanium will hold up.
I took my son to get a Spyderco on his 21st birthday. It was nice to be able to look at and handle the knives because he has small hands and he's a lefty. Premium service, especially at the register.

Trinity, I really like your knife choices. Once I got a Dragonfly, a small folder weighing 1.16 oz, it took over every knife need outside the kitchen. One is always in the hiking gear. After that my Delica did seem like a big honking knife. I’m totally blown away with what the Dragonfly can handle.

The cozie is the end of a sleeve from an old Nike Fleece I found in a thrift shop that looked brand new at the time. Wore it for years and cut the end of the sleeve off to the right length, cut a round piece out of the body and hand stitched it while inside out. Turned it out right side and it looks okay and works very well. The fleece has a thermal weave that’s different from most. It’s not as effective as Reflectix but is prefect for beverages and light soups.



To add about the Gigapower stove, its shorter than some of the current crop of top stoves so it lays flat on the bottom of the 650 titanium mug.

My cooking kit: