New Video: Solo bushcraft hammock overnight

In this video, I set up a tarp shelter over my Yukon Outfitters hammock, catch a couple of fish for dinner, and spend the night under the stars for my Bushclass Basic Overnight outing.

Cheap, easy camp meal

Due to some new food intolerances, I need to be very careful about what's in the food that I eat. Instead of buying expensive, gluten-free freeze dried meals, I have opted to make my own. In this post, I will demonstrate how to make one of these easy meals. This also makes a pretty good side dish with dinner at home, or add some grilled chicken and make it an entree!

Items you'll need:

• Rice - Any variety is fine. For this post I used standard white rice, but brown or wild rice is great as well.
• Lentils - Make sure to wash them, and DRY THOROUGHLY before packaging for a hiking trip. It may be best to wash the lentils and allow to dry overnight before continuing.
• Miscellaneous spices - For this particular demo I used chili powder, garlic powder, California style onion powder, chicken bullion, and black pepper. I have also made this dish using only salt and pepper and some Tony's.
• Billy can, mess kit, soup can, or similar - Whatever you are using to boil water in your cook kit. I used my DIY Billy Pot .
• Heat source - The weather is too rainy today to do a campfire, so I'm planning on cooking this over my backpacking stove.

 Start off by measuring out 1/8 cup each of rice and washed lentils and set it aside.

Here's where you get creative, and where you should probably experiment a bit at home before taking with you on the trail. Get out your spices and add a bit of this and that. I used 1/4 of a Knorr "extra large" chicken flavor bullion cube. Bullion contains a lot of sodium, I know, but remember that you'll likely lose a lot of sodium in your sweat on the trail.

Don't use the whole cube. Trust me.

In addition to the bullion, I used about 1/8 teaspoon each of chili powder, garlic powder, and onion powder. 1/4 teaspoon of black pepper.

Once you're happy with your spice mix, you can mix the spices with the rice and lentils and put it in a ziplock bag or even a vacuum seal pouch. I use ziplocks because I generally make these the night before I leave for the trip.

COOKING THE MEAL:

Add about 3/4 cup of water to your billy can and boil. I ran out of fuel for my backpacking stove, so I had to cheat and cook on my hot plate instead.

Is it still bushcraft if you use a hot plate?

Once your water boils, dump the baggie into the water and stir thoroughly. Cover, and cook until all the water has been absorbed. Be sure to stir frequently, so it doesn't burn.

Voila, the finished product! ...It tastes better than it looks, I promise. It ain't pretty, but it'll keep your ribs apart. It's pretty light in the pack, about 2 oz per meal, plus water.

DIY Billy Pot

I needed a new billy pot, as my ol' trusty coffee can finally burned itself out. I couldn't afford $40 for a Mors pot, so I went around to the local drugstores to find a tin of Piroulines or Pirouettes. I can't eat the cookies, as I have some kind of wheat intolerance, but the container would be perfect for my billy pot.

At my local CVS I found both Piroulines and Pirouettes, at $6 each. But, for only $4, I found this:

So for $2 cheaper, I got exactly what I needed, and I didn't have to waste any perfectly good (and delicious!) cookies! It's painted, and has a plastic handle, but that's easily fixed.

I started off by removing the handle and paint from the container and lid (which I forgot to take a picture of). You can do this by sanding, using some kind of chemical paint stripper, or you could toss it into your campfire and burn it off. That's what I opted for. After the paint was burned off, I washed the pot and lid and scrubbed it hard with a scrub pad. Satisfied with the cleanliness of the pot, I made a bail out of a piece of fence wire.

The little step on the bottom of the bail is to space the side of the bail away from the lid, so it can easily be removed while the pot is hanging. I punched a couple of holes in the pot with a nail, inserted the ends of the bail wire, and bent the ends in order to pin the bail in place.

After this, I made a wire handle for the lid.

The long end was inserted through the hole in the lid and bent over.

The finished pot:

And finally, in use: