I’m bringing too much

[Just_Logans_Dad]

I’m interested to see what everyone else is doing for their camp kitchen solutions. It seems like I’m bringing way too much stuff in my kitchen set up. How much is too much, cooking utensils, dishes: paper or plastic, flatware: full sets or spork combos & coffee prep: percolator or French press etc?

 

[Ubiety]

You are opening the floodgates of opinion ;) Too much, or too little, really is in the eye of the beholder - I have gone through repeated periods of expansion and contraction and what really matters is if you are happy with what you are lugging along. Do you find that you have unused gear at the end of a trip? If so consider leaving it behind. Do you cook for a family/group? If so you will need extras of some things. I constantly evaluate my "trip stats" and that includes considering what I brought and did I need to bring it. For instance I realized that I/we never used the second burner on our camp stove so I downsized to a single burner stove - saves some room and still achieves the same functionality that I/we are used to. I have slimmed down on cookware only carrying a small nestable set; dishes and cutlery are a different story. I never know if it is going to be me going solo or if the family is coming along or if someone else in the group forgot something. The slimmed down cookware will still serve a "larger" group but having extra dishes/cups/cutlery makes sure that everybody has a seat at the table. I used to use paper everything but ended up filling the trash - converting to reusable dishes saves me space in my kitchen and trash. All of this blather is to say do what makes sense to you, go heavy if that makes you happy, optimize if that makes you happy. Seasons of life will change and that will dictate your needs.

 

[reaver]

My recommendation is if you've not used something in a while, try removing it, and see if you miss it.

I personally have two separate kitchen setups. One for myself, and one for when the family goes. My solo kit lives in a medium size mtm tote, and has a pot, frying pan, two bowls, two plates, some cooking utensils, and some spoon/fork/knife utensils. I also have a collapsible tea kettle, and a French press (though I may move that to the trailer, and try a collapsible pour over setup).

I've found that this setup works very well for me, and can cover just about anything I would want to cook.

My family setup is very different, and includes bigger versions of everything mentioned above, as well as a Dutch oven, reversable Griddle, collapsible sinks, Percolator, larger plates, cutting boards, etc.

My wife tends to do most of the cooking when we go out as a family, so she gets to dictate what we take.

 

[grubworm]

this is a very good question...
@Ubiety and @reaver make great points, and yes, there are going to be many different answers and eventually you will find your groove.
but until you do, here are a few points to consider:

i have always been a fan of redundancy. instead of having 1 five gallon container of water, i would go with 2 smaller containers so if something happened to one, i have a back up. i would have an extra LP hose and regulator stashed in the mix. i actually forgot the LP hose that went with the camp trailer one time and luckily i had the single burner portable stove in my truck. it didnt work near as good as my camper stove, but it did get the job done. didnt have a redundant hose, but did have a redundant stove.
i'd pack a 2nd can opener. doesnt happen often, but the one time you are REALLY jonsing for that can of chili and you grab the can opener to find the cutting wheel is broken or missing, etc.
cook wear is a super deep rabbit hole to go down. some go with non-stick and others find that non-stick gets too damaged in that situation. that kind of stuff will be a personal preference that you just tweek over time. i pretty much go with just one good spatula and big spoon for stirring and serving. i'm a spork fan, so my one titanium spork is all i need for getting the food from the bowl to my mouth. we take a stainless french press, but i generally just do cowboy coffee in one of my stanley nesting pots and call it good.
i just went with a cheap chef knife from the dollar store and wrapped the handle better and use a file to sharpen it. a cheap stainless blade sharpened with a file actually does very well since it makes serrations on the blade.
its usually just the wife and i camping, so its a mix of how we do things. some times we just buy paper plates and bowls and sometimes we use the plastic bowls that came with our stanley camp set and sometimes i just use my giant coffee cup as a bowl. i figure as long as i have the basics to cook and prep the food, im good

it is interesting with how little you really need, though. i made a nice storage box with a cutting board lid and then i see the wife cutting a piece of ham using a paper plate as the cutting board. oh, and for drinking, i love stainless tumblers. they handle hot and cold and are very easy to clean and are fairly indestructible.

 

[John and Mandi]

It definitely depends on what you are cooking. We can't do the hotdog and sandwich thing anymore so we cook the same meals we do while at home. The amount of cooking equipment we carry is absurd but we are southern so food is required to be one of our things. We also carry a huge assortment of spices and random ingredients because we no longer like to plan out each meal and prefer to wing it, not the best idea but it works for us. If you are wanting to pair down then planning out the meals and carrying only the necessary kit is the best place to start. Don't skimp on your favorite things though. While we can do cowboy coffee we prefer the press. Do we need a collapsible kettle instead of a pot, nope, but it cools much faster than our thick bottom pots so it gets us on the road faster when we need. It also helps to try and get the main meals to one pot wonders like chili, stew, curries etc (much easier in winter). We use our saute pan the most, even for the one pot ideas we just mentioned. Instead of cooking rice separately we change the meal to a soup or curry. We have adapted quite a few recipes to one pot wonders like chicken pad thai and picadillo. We usually drop the carb and add more meat so beef and broccoli are just that. The marinade can be a pain but for a weekend it can be prepared at home and just cooked on the trail, something we have done forever. We shy away from mixes so we carry a ton of ingredients but the mixes or pre-mixing would save us a little space. Even breakfast is cooked entirely in our saute pan. Bacon then add sausage, fry the eggs in the bacon grease, lastly Johnny cakes to soak it all up until golden brown. Not everything is piping hot since it's cooked in stages but who doesn't like to snack on bacon while breakfast is being finished. If you are a serious cook, you'll need to move up in vehicle and not down in stuff.

 

[a12houk]

I'm a big fan of less=more.
When going solo - I use a single burner butane stove. I have a small storage bin with all my utensils, a second small storage bin with 3 cans of fuel, and a 3rd small storage bin with wash rags & soap which becomes my catch basin and sink. I bring a single large frying pan with a lid. All of this fits in a single yellow lid Costco bin with some room for hand wipes and a cutting board.

Some people like to go super gourmet and need/desire more than that. I'm super pleased with a pan seared steak, eaten off the cutting board.

Now when my wife comes along, I have to bring a 2 burner stove and a metric poop load of extra kitchen gear. Takes 2 Costco totes plus a propane oven.

 

[Viking1204]

I agree with @Ubiety, every time you go camping you find things you wish you had and things you didn't need. I think it just takes time to realize exactly what you want to take with you. I personally loathe doing the dishes so I use paper plates and bowls and typically don't have a problem with too much trash, if its paper it goes in the fire! I have a nesting no stick pot set and clean those and the utensils by rinsing with water and then finishing off with Lysol Dual Action wipes. For me having a 12V dual zone fridge/freezer has been a game changer. Before I had to take multiple coolers, everything was always watered down. Ice for drinks was half melted so didn't last long. Not anymore, everything stays cold and dry and the ice is solid! Again take what makes you happy LOL!

 

[John and Mandi]

I will add, our pressure cooker has really changed the game. We started with a dutch oven but that wasn't our thing. We picked up a pressure cooker, mostly do to meat quality, and boy did it improve our meal selection. If we are around others, once they hear it someone almost always comes over to see if some idiot has a pressure cooker. Of course they never mind a little taste after we've gotten to know each other. There is a great blog post about people's favorite pieces of gear and the dutch oven vs pressure cooker debate is a theme. It's silly but a good bit of fun when competing for best meal at the overland pot luck. We also make our own bone broth and no longer simmer it for hours and hours, the pressure cooker has cut that down to minutes. Anyway, we're the odd man out here since we were fulltime for so long so we're a bit spoiled and posh with our meals and level of equipment.

 

[Viking1204]

I will add, our pressure cooker has really changed the game. We started with a dutch oven but that wasn't our thing. We picked up a pressure cooker, mostly do to meat quality, and boy did it improve our meal selection. If we are around others, once they hear it someone almost always comes over to see if some idiot has a pressure cooker. Of course they never mind a little taste after we've gotten to know each other. There is a great blog post about people's favorite pieces of gear and the dutch oven vs pressure cooker debate is a theme. It's silly but a good bit of fun when competing for best meal at the overland pot luck. We also make our own bone broth and no longer simmer it for hours and hours, the pressure cooker has cut that down to minutes. Anyway, we're the odd man out here since we were fulltime for so long so we're a bit spoiled and posh with our meals and level of equipment.

So is that an electric or stove top pressure cooker?

 

[John and Mandi]

So is that an electric or stove top pressure cooker?

Stove top. We haven't gotten into the electric ones and being Floridians we still prefer things we can use when there is a hurricane.

 

[John and Mandi]

Should add that a stove top pressure cooker can also can be used as a stand alone pot.

 

[Ubiety]

Some people like to go super gourmet and need/desire more than that. I'm super pleased with a pan seared steak, eaten off the cutting board.
Now when my wife comes along, I have to bring a 2 burner stove and a metric poop load of extra kitchen gear. Takes 2 Costco totes plus a propane oven.

Completely and totally right there with you ;)

 

[Ubiety]

pressure cooker

Quinoa in the pressure cooker is awesome, completely different from any other way I have had it prepared. Of course I have only had that at home and when my wife is cooking ;)

 

[Just_Logans_Dad]

So far the replies have amazing; this what I was hoping to get… I’m enjoying the different solutions & points of view!! all of you so far rock!!!

 

[grubworm]

Completely and totally right there with you ;)

you just liked that he used "metric poop load" in his post

 

[El-Dracho]

Many very good points have already been mentioned here. And exactly, in the end you can get ideas here and have to look what is right for you and your requirements.

I am also a fan of less is more. But a little comfort and luxury must also be - haha. For example, I always have one real glass with me, a whiskey glass. Otherwise for two people: Gas stove, small pot, large pot, cast iron pan, grill grate and tripod, kettle, fire pit, two small and two large plates, two soup plates, cutting board, a few mugs and thermo mugs, not forgetting the shot glasses for when meeting other overlanders, a small box of cutlery, firestarter and bottle opener and a few kitchen gadgets such as grill pliers, soup filler, a big kitchen knive and a meat fork. I think that's it.

 

[OTH Overland]

As both of our Jeeps are fairly small with storage space at a minimum, we try to keep the kitchen load out simple and light weight. We do carry two stoves, the main stove is a Kovea Slim Twin propane two burner, super thin and light weight, has a flexible tube in place of the bent metal one most stoves use making it easier to place on a small shelf, and has great wind performance. We also have a standard JetBoil that we use just for heating water for coffee, soup etc. as it is so fast. (for fuel we bring one 5lb propane bottle, one butane for the jetboil and one green propane can for the stove as a back up. For cookware we use the Stanley Adventure set (With two of the place settings removed along with no utensils) We use a Front Runner utensil set that we have removed what we do not use from and replaced a few items for ones that serve us better. The most recent addition and now most used item in the drawer is the Omnia stove top oven that we got last year, We love it, and its our go to solution for most of our cooking now, the silicone liners wipe out and clean super easy, its very light and just works awesome, gone are the cast iron skillet and dutch oven and do not miss them. Michelle does have a small french press for her coffee. We try to do as much of our food prep at home before the trip as we can so we can reduce packaging and garbage while travelling and save time, cooking fancy meals is just somethign we do not do at home, and have no desire to do that much work in the kitchen on a trip, let alone the extra clean up. We so often make camp in the dark and just want a quick easy to make meal. We also are in the bring water in at least two containers mentality to avoid losing it all due to a puncture etc. (have a backpackers water filter system as a back up). One of the areas we still need to improve on is the amount of food that we bring, seems like we almost allways bring back half of it, and that does not count the three day supply of emergency rations stored away. Need to work more on dedicated meal planning in advance.

 

[John and Mandi]

Quinoa in the pressure cooker is awesome, completely different from any other way I have had it prepared. Of course I have only had that at home and when my wife is cooking ;)

Since marriage, almost 25 years ago, I have only camped without Mandi once. Might explain why we lean towards the meals we do but since she is always with me I will never mind.

 

[John and Mandi]

Many very good points have already been mentioned here. And exactly, in the end you can get ideas here and have to look what is right for you and your requirements.

I am also a fan of less is more. But a little comfort and luxury must also be - haha. For example, I always have one real glass with me, a whiskey glass. Otherwise for two people: Gas stove, small pot, large pot, cast iron pan, grill grate and tripod, kettle, fire pit, two small and two large plates, two soup plates, cutting board, a few mugs and thermo mugs, not forgetting the shot glasses for when meeting other overlanders, a small box of cutlery, firestarter and bottle opener and a few kitchen gadgets such as grill pliers, soup filler, a big kitchen knive and a meat fork. I think that's it.

We use cup sized jars as drinking glasses and when we need to store something like opened coconut milk in the fridge. We bought a cheap pack of women's socks and slip one over each jar for transport/storage (not in the fridge). Our fear was breaking one while going down the trail and having to deal with all the glass in a small space. In all of the places and all of the years the only ones we have broken are the ones we have dropped, fortunately never in the van. Does our sock system work, who knows but we still are doing it today. Now, we have had a dozen eggs smash on the floor twice. We have a decent system for them too but it only takes forgetting one latch or stay, doh!

 

[OTH Overland]

Since marriage, almost 25 years ago, I have only camped without Mandi once. Might explain why we lean towards the meals we do but since she is always with me I will never mind.

That's awesome! Michelle and I have allways camped together since we met, we love to travel together and have hiked, camped from a motorcyle or vehicle in all seasons and weather. To allways have someone you trus and can work with seamlessly and to enjoy both adventures and missfortunes toghether with is priceless.