56 Lunches, and 56 Backpacking Snacks

  Here is the tub of 56 backpacking lunches.

Basically most lunches consist of some kind of cracker that travels well (as in they aren't just a pile of crumbs when you want to eat them- although how you package them is important too), a veggie snack or salad, and a small treat. I carry a separate lunch bag which always has peanut butter and cheese in it. We've found that Colby and Mozarella travel well even in heat. Cheddar turns into cheese slime.

I have a variety of crackers this trip. There aren't four basic menus because I just bought crackers that I either know are good, or looked like something worth trying. Then you divide the box into however many servings you can get. I try to go for about 150-180 calories of crackers, which might be 2 crackers or 10. I also like ones that are actually big enough to spread peanut butter on. I did get one kind of small one this time, but it's tasty and was discounted, so, hey.

I have 3 odd ones that are some kind of flavored cracker with salsa. This is a fine option, but I didn't want to take the time to dehydrate a bunch of salsa. I had enough dried for 3 lunches. I used it up.

Here's a sampler-see pic below. Starting top left and going clockwise and ending with the one in the middle.

1. These are the small crackers. 10 Harvest Wheat Toasted crax; a pickle, mushroom, and V-8 leather mix,: Riesen candies.

2. 2 Wasa Whole Wheat crax; an easy salty mix (see next pic); and gorp.

3. 2 Rice cakes (low calories but filling. Super lightweight but bulky); veggie plops (dried cottage cheese with veggies); gorp again (hey- I just pulled some out of the tub. It's as random as it will be when I eat them.)

4. 6 Carrs Whole Wheat crax; Rabbit Salad (basically just dried veggies with seasonings but see more below); fruit torte.

5. 4 Stone Wheat crax; butternut squash leather; 5 mini Tootsie Rolls.

6. Cheese crax (whatever fit in the little box); salsa leather; fruit mix.

7. 8 Pretzel crax (yummy, but they won't pack well- too wavy); Rabbit Salad; 5 mini fruit Tootsies.

8. 4 whole wheat crax (can't find the box, but I don't like them very much- they are sweet); veggie plops; gorp.

9. 5 Melba toast crax (got these at the discount store. If they had more, I'd go buy them. They are prepackaged in fives- perfect); veggie mix; mixed mini Tootsies.

So, I LOVE my veggies. I have quite a few salad recipes, but I am trying to keep this simple. The backpacking isn't 56 days in a row. I'll have lots of fresh food options when day hiking. So, I didn't make any salads. They are more work, and doing them on this scale would have taken a ton of time. I also didn't make the sweet potato chips that I like because they are also a lot of work. I did experiment with just a mix of dried veggies that you can eat by the handful. I've tried a LOT of different veggies this way, so I just did a selection of ones I know dehydrate OK. Filled the dryer, and divvied them up (got 10 packs from what you see below). The slab in the middle is the butternut squash leather (pre-seasoned, yummy).

What's in the Rabbit Salad top to bottom is mushroom, tomato, green pepper, slightly pre-cooked cauliflower, cucumber, and slighly pre-cooked carrots. Threw in some seasonings.

The other thing I wanted to show you was an easy, easy veggie mix, thanks to the new store across the street that has bulk stuff as well as discount stuff. I had previously tried the dried peas. They are sort of toasted in a little oil with salt. They also had toasted corn. I got those and combined with shoestring potatoes for a salty veggie mix.

And now you are seeing 56 snack sets. When I hike 10-mile days, I don't really need an afternoon snack. But I'll be doing 15 miles. So here's a tub with 56 packs of 2 snacks each. Just grab one for each day needed and I'm good to go!

Here's a selection- I packaged these somewhat randomly except that I tried to vary them so I don't get 2 similar bars on the same day. What you are seeing L-R is fruit mix with a peanut butter date roll, Snyder's pretzels with a trail shake, a Kind bar with a trail shake, a Nature Valley peanut bar with Riesen, and a different fruit mix with a trail shake. I'm not going to list all the snack options. I scored some great discount buys on various things I am willing to eat, made at least 3 kinds of fruit mixes, etc. Monica and I made a quadruple batch of the date rolls because they are energy dense without a single unhealty ingredient. And, Sue packaged up 55 salty mixes the other day. There are a lot not pictured including good old gorp.

I also have the 5 days of food for the start of the hike all set which are in addition to these 56. I am using meals I had stored that came home from other trips that got cut short. I will have hot meals on those December days. There are some odd menu choices, but I wanted to use up odds and ends of stuff I had on hand.

I just weighed all this, and it's 67 pounds of food for 56 days. That's 1.2 pounds per day- exactly spot on for what I usually carry. I haven't figured in peanut butter and cheese yet, so that will be a little more, but that's as it should be with adding the afternoon snack.

What remains is to make snack sets for the rest of the day hiking days, so there is NO HASSLE on the trip. The support person will pack my lunch- I carry fresh veggies and usually an apple on those kinds of days. Breakfast and hot meal are in the trailer. I just grab a snack pack, and I'm all set! I have a ton of snacks yet to package up, but not quite enough. I just need to count and see where I stand. Closing in on the food project!

In other news: I worked on food in the morning, and then worked on the trailer- the last nice weather day for a while. All I managed to accomplish was to get 7 of those custom braces fastened to the walls. But I had to figure out exactly where they had to go, cut them, glue them, and then fiberglass them. I lot of figuring stuff out went into that.

25 BIG ITEMS to complete- (37 done). Did 2 small ones and added some and 39 small ones to do (28 done). 20 days to go.

See 56 Breakfasts See 56 Main Meals