I'm guessing this thread is partially my fault, isn't it.
Well, let's start at the basics. Nothing fancy, nothing that you need a specialty store for (there goes the whole, pre-cooked, canned chicken) but some things might need to be surplused from a fast food place or bought from Minimus, and aren't terribly weird.
Resume: I camp, I spent too many years in dorms, and I'm a bachelor who likes good food. In the dorm, I always had a milk crate full of canned and dried food, a hot pot, a contraband slow cooker (for some reason, RAs never noticed the contraband item when I made red beans and rice with sausage), a sprout pot, and in the car, an ammo can that I used as a grill with charcoal. Ramen, rice and mashed potato flakes are the staples, peanut butter, canned meats and nuts are the part the tells you you've eaten. Canned and dried fruits and vegitables are your friends. And a peanut butter jar full of sauce packets, a couple of instant gravy pouched, and a half dozen seasoning shakers, keeps it from being boring.
Remember, ramen is your secret weapon. You can add almost anythign to ramen. Hard boiled eggs (if I think a bug out or serious storm is likely, I usually hard boil the eggs in the fridge, they can take a day in the pack if they are in the shell, cool and wrapped in a towel with they go in), canned or dried meat, canned or dried vegitables, even cheese, they all can enhance the 6 for a buck wonder.
Take one of the 99 cent bags of BBQ potato or corn chips. Break them up. Add the flavor packet from a beef, BBQ beef or chicken, or chili beef or chicken ramen packet, and a small packet of BBQ sauce. Pour in drained ramen noodles. Shake, and eat.
It is VERY salty, careful with this if you are on short water, and it is pretty famous in prison, so if you are in a group that doesn't know you, it might not have a possitive impression. If you don't have the BBQ chips, add a double handful of crunched up crackers to a freezer bag, and use a couple more pouches of BBQ sauce.
If you want, add a packet eacy of honey and a spicy BBQ or buffalo sauce, using plain crackers or corn chips, and add a big can of chicken- instant buffalo-ish not-wings with noodles. If you are really living well, you might have a packet of shelf stablized blue cheese dressing that you can drizzle among everyone's servings.
Cook one package of chicken ramen, without adding the flavor pack. Drain off the water until you have just enough to cover the noodles. Pour it into a freezer bag that you've placed in a spare watchcap (which you are going to use as a cozy). Add the seasoning, a can of chicken, and two big dollops of peanut butter (chunky is better, and the low fat stuff needs more water). Add peanuts, seasame seeds, soy nuts, and/or rasins if you have them, but if you are using gorp, pick out the chocolate. :P If you have some curry or chili powder, NOT tobasco, give the bag a shot one of them. Seal the bag after pushing most of the air out. Squish everything around, wait five minutes for the chicken to heat. Taste it before you add more curry/chili or garlic. No need for salt.
Very tasty. You can make it by putting the noodles in the bag and pouring water over them, but that just means it takes longer. That's based on a west African dish, but similiar flavors are found though Asia. Some people add cocanut, but since I don't like cocanut....
Set aside the flavor packet from ramen noodles. Into a freezer bag, add the noodles, some pepperoni (snack stick form is fine) or rehydrated jerky, and a spoon of tomato paste (a small can gives enough for four servings of this, but it doesn't save well without the fridge). Add any vegitables and herbs you want, maybe shot each of garlic and onion powder (or some dried minced onions). Pour in very hot water, and let it soak for ten minutes in the cozy, squeezing it every few. Open bag, shake on parmesan cheese, pepper flakes, what have you.
It's kinda like a cross between ok spagetti and mediocre pizza. But on day four without power, it's pretty tasty.
In your eating bowl, empty an instant mashed potato pouch. Add a small can of strained corn or green beans, and a small can of ham/beef/turkey. Add boiling water until it is the right consistancy.
Camper's shepards pie. If you want, add part of a gravy packet to the mix before the water. If you have fried onions, they go great with this as a topper, but if they get soaked, they loose thier crunch. They keep thier flavor, though.
Into your pot, pour one can each of corn, beans (I like limas, but others use butter beans), two bullion cubes and enough water to cover but a fingernail's depth. Bring to a boil. Add instant rice, enough to absorb the moisture.
If you want, before you add the rice, add a packet of instant gravy rather than the bullion cubes, makes this into a sauced dish.
Feeding a bunch of people can be easier than it lookes. Canned soup, reheated. Add up to 1/3 of the soup's volume in extra water, and you won't loose much flavor and feed a fourth more people. Add canned veggies if you want, with thier water, along with bullion or ramen flavor packets (one per every other can of veggies) to stretch and keep flavor. Add instant rice or potato flakes until the moisture is absorbed. One pot, no bake casserole. If you have something fancy, like fried onions or crunched potato chips, shake some on as a topper.
You can do this with chowders and cream soups as well, but use potato flakes, not rice.
Dorm chili blanco is easy. One can of chicken, one full sized can of white beans (you can use red, but it then it isn't a white chili, now is it?) is put to simmer with a packet of taco or chili seasoning, or a couple of packets of chili sauce or salsa. When heated, add enough rice to absorb the water.
Cover fresh (or dried, that have been soaked) berries of any kind, raisens or apple chunks with a little water. Add sugar and cinamon to taste. Simmer slowly until the fruit has started to disintigrate and the water has become a sauce. Pour over instant oatmeal or a plain donut (stale is fine). Good dessert if you are feeling so civilized, or as a breakfast on a cold fall morning.
If you have a tiny flask and are so inclined, a bit of brandy, cognac or rum added makes this just right as a mellower.
To make a fast minimeal out of hot chocolate, add a big spoonful of peanut butter. Use a big mug if you can, and stir until the peanut butter is dissolved. A little milk or creamer if you have it makes this smoother.
Or some instant coffee. Or a spoon of jam (strawberry is yummy in this). Or dissolve an altoid or starlight mint that you've crushed. Or a quarter shot of brandy. And if you really need a sugar rush, a spoonful of canned frosting.
Soak an ear of corn in water (salted or unsalted, your choice) for an hour. Rake some hardwood coals aside, and set the corn on them. Rotate them a few times. They are steamed and ready to eat when the husk starts to brown and the silk is burned away.
Serve with salt and butter (if you have it). To fake butter, good luck- there are plenty of butter powders, but none of them turn into a very good substitute for this. But as I mentioned before, a little bit of lime juice and some mild to medium salsa gives corn a very nice tanginess, just barely sweet, just barely hot.
And the best thing to have around, if you are bugging in, is a sprout kit. Bean sprouts, wheat sprouts, whatever you like. In two to three days, you'll have tasty little green bits of vitamins and minerals. You can cook them, but you shouldn't. The kits aren't very big, they can be as small as a pickle jar, and they last for a year or so. By the time your fresh fruit and vegitables are gone, the sprouts are ready and begging to be bitten.
And if you need energy, and don't have the time to wait more than five minutes, half fill everyone's bottles with orange sports drink (I like Gatorade, but Powerade will be fine) and add a can of Mountain Dew. This, on an empty stomach, is practically like injecting the caffiene. Three warning with it, though. One, it is a shock to your system, so if you have a heart issue, don't try this. Two, when it wears off, you hit a wall. Three, some people get "high" or "drunk" off the mix, usually a very hyper, giggly drunk, but thier brains are still a little out of it. Use with caution and in emergencies only.
Or before a calculus exam. <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> People used to wonder why I was so wired in college.
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