Vegitarian Camping

BoxANT

BoxANT

Joined
Mar 23, 2008
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My Girlfriend is a vegitarian (i am not, i <3 bacon). We plan on doing some weekend camping this summer and I have been brainstorming on the food situation.

The idea of lugging around a cooler filled with boca products doesn't really appeal to me. However, living on protein bars makes me wanna :barf:

Does anyone have any experience with non meat camping? Any ideas on products that can be easily stored/carried and don't taste like :foot:?
 
Canned mixed Chili beans and canned lentils....good source of protein and don't taste half bad !!!
 
Pasta for me when its a meatless night.

Is she Vegan or does she eat any cheese/milk/butter?

DancesWithKnives
 
If you make the beer Anchor Porter, you get your food and drink from the same bottle!

DancesWithKnives
 
There's a ton of veggie food out there, just takes a bit of looking. Check with your local health food store or large grocery stores with organic sections (you can quite often find meat substitutes there).

One thing I like, when I can find it is Fantastic Foods (I think they're based in California) Vegetarian Chili in a cup. Boil up some water, add to the cup, eat with or without crackers (all different kinds). Not only is it good, no mess to clean up afterward - toss the cup into the fire and lick the spoon clean. :D I hate cooking outdoors anymore.

Another thing you can do before going is make up some veggie packs - sliced carrots, potatoes, onions and wrap in foil. Bake in the coals of the fire. Open it up, when done, add some margarine, salt and pepper and it's not too bad at all. A can of mixed vegetables, heated up by the fire can be ok as well. Remember things taste a lot better outdoors, than they do at home.

One thing you might like about this is no cooler, although if you take a cooler you can get all kind of meat substitutes - veggie hot dogs, burgers, etc.

If your girl friend is a vegetarian, I'm sure she must know things that can be taken. Have you actually tried talking to her about it? :confused:

Martoonisotu gave you a great suggestion - there is all kinds of things you can make with TVP. There should be recipes on line and also vegetarian cook books at the library. Experiment with things before camping. Even if you're a dyed-in-the-wool meat and potatoes guy, (remember, potatoes are a veggie! :D) there will be some things you like.

My mother was a vegetarian all her life, my wife for the last 45 years or so, and I was for 6. One of these days I'm going back to it.

Anyway, good luck.

Doc
 
I carry a veggy pot & cook potatoes, squash, & corn & sprinkle Mrs. Dash on it. very good. I do this when I dont want to carry a cooler.
 
If you have a dehydrater take any cooked meal that she eats (1 pan type menu ) and dehydrate it and seal as air free as you can, this can be cooked on the trail simply by covering with water and heating to a boil and BAM you got a meal.
 
Hummus mix with pitas and olives are good.

Couscous with tofu and mushrooms sauteed in tamari and garlic is pretty decent.
 
+1 on the dehydrator...my wife wants to try making dehydrated pasta sauce for backpacking along with other ideas.

There are a lot of vegetarian backpacking food options out there:

http://www.packlitefoods.com/cgi-bin/ccp51/cp-app.cgi

Heck, there are even vegetarian MRE's! My wife makes a mean bean and rice burrito with tortillas (that's usually our first night out so the tortillas don't go bad). Plenty of trail mix (even some good vegi-trail mixes).

I'm a bonifiied "meat-o-saurus", but there's a lot of very tasty options if you do a little research. I do highly recommend you try a few of the recipies at home before taking them camping/backpacking.

ROCK6
 
My wife is a veggie too - and at times a vegan.

Grab a inexpensive vegetarian cook book (I would wager she has one) and look up substitutes. It is EASY these days. Boca burgers, TVP (nice suggestion above), and the like will work.

Now let me say this as well. I eat this stuff all the time - and it has gotten REALLY good - the taste usually isn't a problem.

Also - you are sooooo gonna get brownie points for asking and hooking this up. ;)

TF
 
Throw in some bags of Stonewall's Jerquee! Man, that stuff is good. Also, learn about edible plants and mushrooms. GOODAY! :)
 
If you have a cooler for your bacon, there is no need to not store some of the things she likes.

The mornginstar farms has the best fakin bacon. And their grillers taste the closest to real burgers (at least from what I remember). The veg sausage rounds are arguably best/closest to the real thing. (been veggie on and off for ~20 years, but never ate much meat anyway)

breakfast:

This is very good and some confirmed biscuit and gravy snobs have complimented it accordingly.

Make a roux (I like it a bit on the 'nutty' side) and add her spice of choice (paprika, pepper, salt.. (smoked salt is extra taste), Saute vidalia onions w/ butter salt/pepper, coarse chop 3-5 morningstar farms veg patties, through in some of the fakin sausage links chopped too. You can bring biscuits or make them depending on your outdoor baking skills. Garnish with what ya fancy.
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Lunch

Portobella burgers w/ roasted red pepper, red onion, etc. Add cheese if desired (fontina is good with this option, but whatever you like will work)

Sweet potato fries (cut, toss in oil and spice you like (old bay does a good job) and saute/fry on iron) Salt after removal if needed.
_________________________________________________
Dinner

I've also prepacked pastas, etc. Since it is summer try some oil/wine based sauces with artichokes, capers and/or kalamata olives, cherry/grape tomatoes, red pepper flakes (or some type of 'heat'), toast some pine nuts beforehand and pour in at end. Oh, and don't forget to grate the cheese or to mix it up go with feta instead. (could even add a bit of fresh orange (zest too) to the sauce..)

Try some decent ravioli, dredge in flour with herbs/salt/pepper, fry in cast iron for appetizers.

Pair it up with a vinho verde or spanish alborinho and you are golden or martinelli's if sans octane is desired.

Easy (1-2 pot cooking options here), you can prep together, tasty, and again scorin some points.


Good luck!
 
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This has a lot of great vegetarian recipes

Trail Food: Drying and Cooking Food for Backpacking and Paddling (Paperback)
by Alan S. Kesselheim (Author)

A review online:

I have several books on dehydrating your own trail meals and this is easily the best. It is concise and full of good ideas and recipes. The guidance is flexible enough for the lightweight backpacker or for the canoe or pack mule traveler. For example, some of the recipes call for a dutch oven (too bulky and heavy for the lightweight backpacker) and others are suitable for a one pot meal (ideal for the lightweight backpacker).

A nice feature is the chart of drying temperatures and times for different foods. Also, the chart of calorie and protein content of different foods is important to making sure you get enough calories to keep going in the field and enough protein to keep your body from consuming your muscle tissue for fuel. There are also plans for building your own dehydrator for the do-it-yourselfer. The suggested one week meal plan is a good guide to get you started on packing for a trip.

The emphasis of this book is on drying individual ingredients and then rehydrating and combining them at meal time. This allows you to be more flexible in your meals, but takes a little longer at meal time. However, it also tells you how to use your own recipes to prepare a conmplete meal and then dehydrate it. Precooked spaghetti, rice or beans rehydrate and cook faster in the field. The book recommends having both types of meals with you for variety and flexibility. You can also dehydrate canned foods like vegetables or canned chicken, tuna or salmon and use them in your recipes.

This book is concise and a fast read, but packs a lot of information. This means that you need to pay attention to pick up all the important points. Fully half of the book gives infomration on dehydrating and meal planning as well as other important instructions and the other half gives some excellent recipes.

One important point (based on experience) is to be sure to try the recipes at home on the same stove and cooking utensels that you will have in the field. You want to make sure that you have everything you need and know how to use it BEFORE you are in the field and cold and wet and tired and hungry. That's not a good time to find out that you need another pot or that your pot isn't large enough to properly prepare your recipes!

"Trail Food" is all you need to dehydrate your own meals, but a few other general books on dehydrating wouldn't hurt to help you gain a full understanding of all the nuances of dehydrating.
Click to expand...

http://www.amazon.com/Trail-Food-Co...bs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1211549730&sr=8-1
 
I like meat but also bring lentils (dal) with me. They go in a ziplock with water to presoak and they cook real fast and are tasty.
 
peanut butter, cocoa powder, crackers, bisquick, corn meal, seeds and nuts, Don't forget fresh veggies that are hardy like cabbage, carrots. Daikon radishes are great roasted over coals.
 
Heck, you know what they say...since vegetarians are always saying that their meat substitutes taste just like the real thing, just give them meat and tell them it's the substitute. They'll never know the difference.
 
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