BWCA What's the "fanciest" meal you've made in the wilderness? Boundary Waters BWCA Food and Recipes
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      What's the "fanciest" meal you've made in the wilderness?     

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Jackfish
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11/30/2015 09:01PM   (Thread Older Than 3 Years)
What qualifies as "fancy" is up to you. Maybe something wilderness elegant that you made for your crew, spouse or significant other? Anything else that made it a special meal?
 
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11/30/2015 09:59PM  
Shrimp and andouille sausage jambalaya, PJ's dog ate 1/2 the sausage though. Still good, served with a surprise bottle of chianti on Kekekabic.

butthead
 
myceliaman
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12/03/2015 05:37PM  
We've thrown down some serious meals..
Buffalo Prime Rib, garlic mashed, steamed Asparagus. Absolutely spectacular. We replicated a meal we had at Grand Teton Lodge..
Grass fed flat iron Grecian steaks, wild rice pilaf, steamed Asparagus

Here's the marinade recipe. Garlic, shallots, red wine Vinegar, olive oil, lemon zest,Rosemary, thyme and grainy country mustard. This is awesome!! We mix the marinade and put steaks in prior to leaving the first morning. Cook over the fire. You'll thank me I'll assure you.

Funny how asparagus pops up in both meals. love me asparagus with lemon butter and coarse salt...
 
muddyfeet
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12/05/2015 07:12PM  
LOVE asparagus out in the woods. It always makes our first night steak feast. Just toss it with olive oil, salt and pepper, and roast right on the black fire grate.

...and legend has it that eating asparagus before imbibing prevents hangovers and allows for an early 2nd day on the water....
 
CrookedPaddler1
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12/07/2015 01:11PM  
I would have to say a meal made by my friend, Art Gloor, that consisted of lamb chops and who knows what else......on Thomas Lake during late March while fishing Lake Trout through the ice in a t-shirt! What a fantastic trip and meal!
 
Chicagored
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12/09/2015 05:12PM  
Venison steaks pan fried with salt and pepper with a side of walleye fillets sauteed in butter with old bay seasoning, garlic mashed potatoes, coleslaw and sourdough bread baked on the trail. A nice bagged merlot to wash it down.
 
12/14/2015 07:02PM  
Ribeye,corn on the cob, twice baked potatoes with cheddar cheese and sour cream , garlic cheese biscuits, topped off with an apple crisp.
 
NotLight
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12/14/2015 07:59PM  
My grandfather absolutely loved pot roast. My mom made it every time he came to visit us. My grandpa would eat everything my mom put on his plate, AND get seconds. PLUS, when he finished, he'd put a plain piece of bread on the plate to soak up any leftover juice, and then eat the mushy bread. I never understood that as a kid. I couldn't stand pot roast - mushy vegetables, brussel sprouts! And my mom made it all the time - yuck! (I couldn't leave the table until I'd eaten one brussel sprout. So I'd sit there and stare at it until it became a COLD mushy brussel sprout... the memories...)

I asked my grandpa one time why he liked pot roast so much. He said that as a kid, all they ever had for dinner was boiled potatoes and water (I think there were 9 brothers and sisters). But, once in a great while, his dad would get a piece of meat and boil it with the potatoes, and the fat from the meat would make the potatoes taste absolutely out of this world to him, because he never had any fat or meat to eat as a kid. But he also said, more often than having meat, they had nothing. So they'd come to the dinner table, say grace, have some water from a pot with no potatoes or meat, and go to bed hungry.

I have about 5 different sized little homemade folding backpacking/camping tables. I put an "elaborate" amount of time into making them (even though they aren't that fancy). I always bring a table on any sort of camping or backpacking trip. For me, that's "fancy". I have a couple tables that are only about 8" square - they are really nice for balancing a canister stove so your food doesn't tip when backpacking.

But, the main point of making and bringing the tables, isn't so much as the function. It's that they help me remember my mom and my grandfather, because they remind me of that story. The tables also remind me to be grateful, even if I have little. So it's kind of a ritual for me to do all this elaborate messing around so I always have a little table.

My favorite camping meal is to set up a little table, put a mug or spoon or bowl or whatever we have on it. Then, just sit there for a while, and have nothing - at least for a little bit. Maybe that doesn't quite count as "fancy", but it's something I actually put as much thought into as if I did something fancy.




 
12/15/2015 08:31AM  
That's a wonderful story, NotLight. Memorable.

Along that vein, my own grandfather, who survived very bleak times during the depression, always had no sympathy for us "young'uns" when we would complain that the meat was tough. His favorite comment was "It's a lot tougher when there's none." I always thought it was just a funny thing to say, but my Mom assured me that there were, indeed, times when "there was none."

Most of us have no idea how blessed we are. Thanks for reminding us of that. :-)
 
12/15/2015 08:34AM  
We didn't do "fancy" on a canoe trip. We eat fancy meals at home sometimes, and have quite a bit of experience in upscale restaurants in our normal life, especially when traveling. My definition of wilderness traveling didn't include "fancy" food--I didn't go there for the "eats", but just for "being there".

I guess our best meal was usually our first night out, when Spartan1 always told me it should be steaks and oranges. We would each have a big orange, and we usually would just do the steaks in a big frying pan, not on the grate. Sometimes I would do a pan of hash browns, too. We didn't take wine, but a bit of good bourbon and filtered water made a meal of it. That's as "fancy" as it ever got. Good enough, too!
 
12/15/2015 03:54PM  
our group, 1 meal midweek to break up the fish meals we bring in steaks like ribeyes. our side dish- we dice up whole potatos-1lb bacon-vandilia onions. triple wrap them in foil and flip on the fire grate for 3-4 hours. the potatos soak up the grease and it is so good, we call them ranch potatos.
 
12/16/2015 01:26PM  
Our "fancy" meal on our first night out last spring was grilled finger steak and walleye kabobs, sauteed mushrooms and onions, hash browns and caesar salad.

To clarify, finger steaks are the strip of extremely tender and flavorful meat that wraps around the center portion of a ribeye. I get them from a cousin who is a meat cutter at a local meat market. (evidently some customers don't want that tasty piece of beef included with their steaks... go figure!)

I cut both the steaks and walleye fillets into chunks and skewered them with red bell pepper and onions on bamboo skewers. Set them on the grate over the fire and drizzled them with a mixture of garlic, ginger, soy and honey about 5 minutes before they were ready to eat. Served them with whole mini portabella mushrooms and onions sauteed in ghee, crispy hash browns and a bagged caesar salad we brought along.

Of course I enjoyed three fingers of Johnny Walker Blue poured over what ice was left in my water bottle while I was cooking.

It sure tasted like a meal fit for a King!
 
12/16/2015 03:13PM  
quote Spartan2: "That's a wonderful story, NotLight. Memorable.


Along that vein, my own grandfather, who survived very bleak times during the depression, always had no sympathy for us "young'uns" when we would complain that the meat was tough. His favorite comment was "It's a lot tougher when there's none." I always thought it was just a funny thing to say, but my Mom assured me that there were, indeed, times when "there was none."


Most of us have no idea how blessed we are. Thanks for reminding us of that. :-)"


+1 Each and every one of us is blessed, and have many things to be thankful for, in our own right.
 
paddlefamily
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12/17/2015 08:50PM  
We made trout sushi once using wild rice.
 
Charliepete
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01/04/2016 03:57PM  
Steak night is the fancy meal on our trips. Dry aged Ribeye's with Potato Hobo packs over the fire and sometimes corn on the cob as well. Since converting to an Aluminum Dutch oven we have started getting quite bit more fancy for breakfast. Juevos Rancheros has become a trip favorite and isn't that tough since I smoke the pork shoulder ahead of time and just combine the corn tortilla, potato, two kinds of salsa, cheese, and eggs in the morning (it's a layering effort in the Dutch oven). Some of the egg bakes have gotten fancy as well. Good old scratch made biscuits and gravy is pretty darn tasty up there as well.
 
billconner
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01/04/2016 08:42PM  
Fancy in the woods is interesting. Pizza from scratch seems fancy compared to freeze dried anything. Deviled eggs one night was maybe more out of the ordinary for us. And last trip baked and frosted a chocolate cake on my Dragonfly. Grilling meat doesn't seem fancy as such, but sure sounds (and smells and tastes) really fine in the woods. Actually zups wild rice brats and fresh cole slaw (made in camp) was really good too. Trying to perfect fresh bread in a JMO.
 
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