Put Some Spice in your River and Camping Trips
by Mary Zaborowski
How many of you order either take-out food from a restaurant or get food from a fast food drive thru, only to find lots of condiments at the bottom of the bag? What do you usually do? Pick out what you want and throw the rest away? Wrong!!! Have some zip-lock bags ready to sort out what can be kept on the shelf and refrigerated.
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Mary & wanagan |
In preparing for various lengthy river expeditions, for example: The Bloodvein River, the Hayes River, the Grass River, the Pigeon River, all in Canadian Boundaries, I found out in packing foods for all those trips, I included various packages of spices and condiments to add to the meals for the individual's taste. My paddling buddies Dana Enos and Paul Woodcock will testify of "Just ask Mary, she will have almost anything to make the food taste better." For fresh caught fish was lemon pepper over a camp grill. For the rice mixture I had packets of mild and hot salsa. A good key in collecting these is to watch for dates on the packets and try to mark when you got these. After 6 months is a good rule to clean out and start over. The new seal-a-meal products are good too in organizing meals. Look at the new packing of various meats; tuna, chicken, and ham meats, one can really have a good evening meal around the campfire. Even some of the freeze dried meals are not too bad in taste either. Most of these are reasonably priced and the packages can be burned, so you don't have to pack out the trash. I get the small plastic jars and small bags from spice stores and hobby stores for easy packing, yet reasonably priced. I found they even make a one cup French Press for easy coffee making. How wonderful and various the flavors that can be packed and used, and can be burned.
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| Condiments |
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Some of the condiments and items I've collected for trips would include: salt and pepper packs, mild and hot salsa, ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise, crushed red pepper, grated parmesan cheese, soy sauce, honey, lemon, sugar, sugar substitute- pink, yellow, green, and blue packets, syrup, Mrs. Dash salt free seasonings, plastic small bottle of butter buds, various dipping sauces, BBQ sauces, duck sauce and horserelish,steak sauce, chili seasoning, package dressings, hard mints, and coffee creamer in packets. These are just to name a few to help in your future camping and river trips. I hope to make the food tasty for you after a hard day of paddling, hiking or just camping in the wonderful outdoors. However a plastic container can keep these from getting crushed and help with sorting them out for easy access at meal time.
If you're camping or paddling with me on the river and I'm in charge of the camping or river evening meal, you can bet I'll have that extra flavoring for your taste buds. Preparation is the key to a good campout or river trip. Especially that evening meal around a warm campfire, with just the right flavored food!!! Yet don't forget the after dinner mint!!! Get out in the outdoors this spring, summer or fall. Good camping, hiking, paddling or whatever you enjoy in our wonderful outdoor world of adventure.
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| The author, Mary Zaborowski |