Cooking in landscapes – it’s about hiking in the wilderness and eating well. This wilderness cooking book is designed for you who love to go hiking, canoeing, skiing or fishing for few days, a week or even two – and wish to keep your backpack light – and enjoy good food. All the recipes are based on dry incredients – light to carry with you. And they are such that you’ll get enough energy to do sports and survive in the wilderness – even if you don’t eat meat. All the dishes are also wheat and gluten free. The meals can be prepared with a portable gas stove (Trangia) or in a pot over an open fire. The portions are for two people but you can easily tailor the recipes for larger groups. Notice: The recipes are in grams, so you need a digital scale.
Hiking is my passion. I’m happy to share here all my favourite recipes and tips how to dry your own vegetables. This blog is a translation – the original blog is in Finnish: www.tunturikeittio.com
Wilderness Cooking Book is based on my hiking diaries
I made this Wilderness Cookingbook for myself so that future hikes would be easier to plan, and so I would not need to do all the cooking myself, but I could give clear instructions to my friends.
It was my mother who introduced me to hiking in 2005. Since then I’ve gathered notes of all the long hikes I’ve make every year, to learn more – from mistakes or from people I met in the wilderness. These notes became a collection of diaries – full of recipes. Once I mentioned to my friends, colleagues and customers about my cooking book type of diary, they became enthusiastic. I realised that this could be fun and useful also for other people. Initially this was meant to be a real book – you know, on paper – but I was getting never ready. So here it is online, I can add recipes all the time – and you may comment!
Situations are not always optimal for gourmet cooking
Some of the dishes are quick and easy to do in difficult circumstances without any advance preparation. Some meals might require catching a fresh fish or having lots of clean water.
Typically it takes 15-25 min to cook a meal with a camping stove that has a gas burner – once you have soaked the dry ingredients for a while before beginning to cook.
The recipes are tagged to make it easier for you to take into account specific situations:
- Easy ingredients = easy to pack at home as all of the ingredients can be found in big supermarkets and health food stores. You don’t need to dry the ingredients yourself, so you can go hiking spontaneously without days of preparations.
- No soaking = can be cooked immediately, no time needed for soaking the dry ingredients. Suitable for example when you’ve been fishing all night, getting hungry but no fish – let’s make something fast.
- Little water = this recipe takes less than 5 dl of water. Suitable when you can’t find a spring / lake / river and you need to cook with what you have left in the drinking bottles.
- No gas / fuel = this recipe does not require cooking or it can be made on open fire.
- Fast = this recipe is more simple and faster to make than the other ones. Suitable when you are cooking outdoors in a rainy weather, in winter or just being tired.
- Challenging = this one is a bit more complicated or takes more time than most other recipes.
- Festive = something special for special moments. Add little bit of luxury to your hiking experience!
How to cook with dry ingredients?
Most of the recipes are based on dried vegetables, which are soaked before cooking for at least half an hour, preferably much longer.
You can put the lunch ingredients to soak in the morning and carry them in your backpack while walking.
You will need a jar for soaking the vegetables. Suitable one is about half a liter big, big-mouthed and it has a good tight lid. If you do not soak the dried vegetables in advance, they will soften in about 20-25 minutes, note that the total cooking time. You can also bring the vegetables to boil and then let them soak in the hot water before continuing with cooking – this saves fuel.
Some of the dry ingredients can be found in super markets, some you have to dry yourself. More about how to dry vegetables on the next page >
Being in the middle of the wilderness is a special thing – so do not settle for prepared food – upgrade your experience by cooking delicacies yourself!
Disclaimer:
I am not a nutritionist, nor do I have any sort of professional training in food preparation. I am just a hiker who likes to eat well and has taught herself how to cook. I do not take any responsibility for the use of any materials or methods described on this website, nor of any products mentioned in them. The wilderness can be a dangerous place, as can cooking.
The recipes have been put together by Piritta, who loves hiking in the wilderness and eating healthy food.
Cooking in Landscapes 