Planning for meals an elk trip???

[Missouri CK]

Not sure where this topic belongs but I'll start it here.

I'm going on my first do it yourself elk hunt.  We will have a base camp that we can drive to so we don't have to worry about weight, packing things in, or freeze dried foods.  We'll do the breakfast bars and fruit in the mornings.  Jerky and PBJ sandwiches for lunch but we need a good dinner when we get back to camp.  I for one don't feel like cooking at that point.

My goal is to prepare a good part of our evening meals before we go on the trip.  Freeze them and then we can just warm stuff up on a cook stove when we get in for the evening. I'm struggling to come up with things besides chili and spaghetti meat sauce that will freeze well.

I'm sure some of you have done this before so I'll pose the question of what are some good meals that can be prepared before hand and then frozen.  

Thanks for the help.

Chris

[Kolton]

We do as you say, we've done lasagna, beef stew, spaghetti, chicken noodle casserole, any many others. We then freeze in foodsaver bags. When we get ready to leave camp we remove and place out to thaw or in hot water to thaw, boil in bags and ready to eat.

[Jerry Ragle]

i took some mres with me last year you can get a couple meals out of one

[Al Dente]

Any soup, stew, or casserole will serve you well.  For a soup you can add noodles or rice when reheating, add potatoes to the stews.

[trad_bowhunter1965]

Go freeze dried like Mountain House your butt will be dragging you will not feel like cooking a big meal. My brother and I used a Jetboil stove and Mountain House meals on a two week Muledeer hunt in NV last year, we would leave before light and come back to camp after dark.Blake

[Wallcrawler]

You can always brown and cook pork chops, chicken breast, meat of choice and freeze than reheat in boiling water while bagged.  You want to get those fruits and vegetables in too.  What about precooked bacon with your breakfast, oatmeal while you make coffee?  I tend to try and just have each meal prepped and packaged than the cooking is just a few minutes time and you still have a fresh cooked meal.  

Whatever your choices I think that part of enjoying your elk camp is the camp itself.  Good food, good friends and surroundings are just as good as a successful harvest.

[DWT]

another real easy meal is  ramin noodles. All you have to do is boil water and drop them in, leave a little water in them for crackers, alot of carbs in these but you will need them. Elk hunting is the only time of year I will eat ramin noodles or granola bars, after thirteen seasons chasing elk Im kinda worn out on them. I also do what you are going to as far as freezing meals. I haul a freezer with meals in in my enclosed trailer and small generator that just has to run once a day to maintain or leave it at a lodge in the area we hunt. meals pre frozen are great any kind of casaroule is good, stews,soups, we also bring elk or venison burger and do hamburgers, hot dogs are aslo easy.

[Ray Hammond]

One of the things you will find is you need to plan on lots more calories than you are used to- you are going to be starving if you don't.

The combination of cooler weather, high altitude, and extra exertion out in the elements will tend to make you burn a lot more so you'll want as much as you can carry.

If you can do real food, at least a couple meals spread out over the week, you will really feel more invigorated to press hard near the end...so carry as much fresh food as you can manage..

An army or an elk hunter, lives on it's stomach.

[Wallcrawler]

Ray reminds me of my favourite lunch last year high altitude elk hunting.  A bacon (4 pieces), 2 egg (fried in bacon grease), cheese, toasted (yep, bacon grease) sandwich every day and I still lost 7 pounds up there in one week.  I am 6' and 185lbs average for the last 15 years, walked out of those mountains 178lbs and came down with a fever from overexertion.  I live and work at 3500 feet and hunted 7500-9000 feet that week.  Eat and rest and have fun.

[Dave Bulla]

Lucky you Chris!!!

I've only been on one elk hunt but the guys I went with had been several times before and had some good ideas.

One thing we did was we each made a big pot of some sort of stew, gumbo, chili or whatever.  Something we really liked but that was filling and nutritious.  I made some hamburger vegetable soup with barley that is REALLY good.  We were also camping at a spot accessible by 4WD truck so we could take bulky food.  Anyway, we all made our favorite meal and then canned it in mason jars being sure to have a little more than we thought we'd need.  At suppertime, we'd fire up the big gas stove with a big pot of water (like a canning pot or maybe a turkey fry pot would work) and set the jars in the water until it boiled.  Lift out the jars and pop the lid.  Hot and ready to serve!  Bonus was that when you were done eating, you'd already have hot water for doing the dishes.  Also, by only opening a jar at a time to serve from you cut waste because if you have a jar that doesn't get opened, you just pull it out and allow to cool and it reseals just like the first time you canned it.  Just be sure to take the lid rings along too.

Another tradition we had for our trips was that for the first evenings meal, we'd all bring steaks.  It's hard to keep steaks for several days in a wet cooler but if you plan on eating them the first night it just kinda gets ya off to a good start for trip.  You could probably vacuum seal some and they'd be ok in the wet cooler but I don't have a sealer anymore.

Also, you can pack your clothes inside your extra ice chests for the trip out and pack along either some trash bags or canvas duffel bags to pack them in for the trip home when your coolers are full of elk meat.  Think positive... think positive....think positive