Category Archives: cooking/recipes!

Ramen/Noodles Riffs

#backtothehills, cooking/recipes!, hiking/backpacking/camping, recipe!

I do like my 3 minute noodles or as the Americans like to call them ramen. A bowl of noodles with a tin of flavoured mackerel and chopped onions is my go to comfort food.

So it’s no wonder I like them as a backpacking food.

Plus they are light, cheap, and quick to cook.

Sadly though not high on the calories side, and possibly even boring if just using the flavour packet that comes with them and nothing else. Something I see too many outdoors YouTubers doing.

That’s why I like to jazz mine up a bit.

For starters I replace the included flavour packet with a recent find of Angus & Oink Miso Ramen Noodle Broth Seasoning. But in the past I have used stock cubes as the flavouring.

I then like to add in some dry ingredients to help bulk out the noodles.

  • freeze dried garden peas
  • freeze dried sweet corn
  • freeze dried carrots
  • dried shitaki mushrooms broken up

But other dried items could be added like dried bell peppers, or sun dried tomatoes.

I then add (and I hate using this word because it sounds so pretentious) a protein of some sort. It could be piccanti fine cut spicy salami or any other salami that doesn’t need to be stored chilled. Maybe a peperami , these have been a backpackers staple to add to noodles. If memory doesn’t fail me there used to be a super noodles with it in already. Although it didn’t have nearly enough peperami, it felt like a token inclusion how little there was. Jerky of some kind is also a great choice. Or even my comfort food favourite of tinned fish. Soy chunks would be a good choice for vegans. Oh and I almost forgot dried shrimp can also be used.

Once ready I add further flavour with a packet of soy sauce and sprinkling a packet of Furikake seasoning over top.

If I want it spicy I can add saracha hot sauce, chilli powder, chilli flakes.

The basic process is bring your water to the boil. Then add the dehydrated ingredients because they need a little longer than the noodles.

I normally add my flavouring, followed by the noodles, and the peperami/salami.

Finally once cooked I add like the soy sauce, and Furikake seasoning.

You can play with the seasoning, use stock cubes or even the flavour packets that come with the noodles. If using the stock cubes I would be tempted to also add other spices such as garlic powder, onion powder, smoked paprika. You get the idea. If I wanted to try and go for a themed flavouring say to give the noodles a Thai inspired flavouring I’d look at the flavour wheel from SALT, FAT, ACID, HEAT by Samin Nosrat, and pick one or two of the spices associated with the region.

Illustration by Wendy MacNaughton

I suppose my point here is you don’t have to be tied to the included flavour packets. It’s possible to basically make your own “flavour” packet that tastes much better.

Whatever route I decide from what I’ve just written about I like to put all of, or as much as possible of the ingredients in a single zip lock bag. Then I just have to grab that one bag and I have everything I need for my meal.

Obviously there are other recipes too. A good source of ideas has been Chef Corso with his Outdoors Eats YouTube channel. I particularly like his pad Thai noodles (link here). However he does have other ramen recipes on his channel too.

My pad Thai adjacent noodles

Then there is the now infamous ramen bomb. Which my understanding is a combo of ramen noodles and instant mash potatoes.

You can tell this was a backpacker /thruhiker invention. It’s light weight, quick, and packed with calories.

Personally I’ve not tried this yet. It’s something that became a thing during my time away from the outdoors. Do a search on YouTube and unsurprisingly you will find every backpacker and their dog has a take on this dish. Chef Corso has his version or spin on it.

I hope this post has helped and shown a packet of noodles, no matter how budget or fancy that they can as Chef Corso likes to say be “elevated”. And possibly inspired you to try your own creations with them.

Too hot to handle

#backtothehills, cooking/recipes!, outdoors

Last Thursday was a day off.

So I took the opportunity to go out and play with my Goshawk OP-100, with an Alcohol Stove Cross Stand, a generic clone Ultralight Titanium Windscreen. And using the SOTO Thermolite cook set to make my noodles.

It was also an excuse to play with my drone too.

Naturally seeing as the plan was to cook lunch, and fly the drone I chose an old wolf pack walking spot that I thought would be suitable.

It was hot last Thursday, so like all mad dogs and Englishmen I was out in the midday sun. Wisely I did not take the two attack chihuahuas Nico and Loki with me. Being out in such heat would not have been fair on them. Guess who forgot suntan lotion?

After I parked the car I walked the half kilometre or so to my lunch spot.

It was an emotional walk because this was the first time I’d been to this spot since Strider joined Bud and Barney. I’ve avoided the old haunts since their passing.

I loved those dogs so much. I still miss them, and it does still get emotional when I talk about them passing away. But I have nothing but great memories of them and the places we shared together.

It’s time to remember them as I return to old haunts, and not avoid the pain and loss (yes even after all this time it still feels fresh). I hope Nathan will join me on some of these future walks, and share our memories of them.

After spreading out ready to do some cooking, I had to move everything to one side as a couple of horse riders wanted to pass. Yeah the drawbacks of being on a bridle way. I had hoped being a work day that I’d avoid something like this. But considering these were the only people and animals I saw whilst there. The plan was nearly perfect.

I’d only just started cooking my lunch when they returned. Which meant once again clearing a path for them and apologising for not having enough to share.

Before getting some more flying practice in I cooked lunch (as you might have gathered from above.

Home made pot noodle?

Lunch was a pack of three minute noodles. I was using the cheapest ones Tesco sold. There’s really no difference between the cheap ones and the expensive ones. So I see no point in spending extra on them.

So as the water started to heat up I added the following ingredients to the water:

  • Freeze dried garden peas
  • Dried shiitake mushrooms
  • Chopped up Sun dried tomatoes

These ingredients needed a little extra time to rehydrate.

I then added the noodles along with its chicken flavour packet.

Next some rehydrated soy sauce powder was added, along with a chopped up polish pork stick (can’t remember the brand but it was one that didn’t needed storing in a fridge). I finally seasoned with salt and pepper.

Even if I say so myself this was very tasty. And washing it down with a can of Coke Zero finished off the experience.

After lunch it was time for flight school!

I’ve included short highlights below. Sadly I forgot to record the tracking/follow me stuff I did. Next time.

The bright sun of mid day did make it difficult seeing the RC controllers screen.

I kept my flight short when it became obvious that I had upset/disturbed a pair of swifts (I think they were). I want to be a responsible drone pilot. So grounding my drone was the right thing to do.

It felt weird doing this Thursday. This sort of thing is something I did all the time with the wolf pack. Finding that quiet spot. Getting the stove out. Brewing up (or cooking the odd time). And just chillin.

I had a great couple of hours, even if my arch enemy the sun was doing its best to cook me. It was very relaxing. I did catch the sun on my arms but luckily not badly.

Now to find a spot with trees to play with the hammock.

And the flames went higher

cooking/recipes!, D&D

This is a bit of a weird post.

I’ve developed a little addiction to making my own hot sauce in the last couple of weeks.

Cue the obvious music reference…

I do love hot sauce. And have been partial to splashing Frank’s hot sauce on mash potatoes or even bread crumb covered fish.

Plus I’d made my own chilli oil that I use to spice up a korma or add a warmth to scramble eggs.

So when I found out how easy it is to make my own hot sauce I had to try.

On one of my rare forays into the outside world I found that my local Asda had a better selection of chillies than Morrison’s. So four packs of scotch bonnets ended up in my shopping basket.

After making my first hot sauce with them (link to recipe used below) I was sold.

I currently have four different hot sauces made up.

The recipe I’ve been using as my base recipe to play with is this one.

It’s a slight variant from what I can tell is a Louisiana style hot sauce. Take away the garlic and it is one!

But each hot sauce I’ve made so far has seen me playing with the recipe. Either using a different vinegar, adding garlic and onion, just using garlic and different chillies.

I decided (and this is the loose link to tie this post in with this blog) to be inspired by D&D to name my hot sauces.

So I came up with a naming convention.

If I use a chilli that falls in the top third of the scoville chart then the hot sauce will be named after a dragon in D&D.

If the chilli used falls in the middle third of the scoville chart then the hot sauce will be named after a spell in D&D.

That leaves the bottom third of the scoville chart and the influences for those names will be monsters that have a challenge rating of one or less.

The annotated chart above shows the chilli used, where it is on the scoville chart and the name I gave the hot sauce.

My Magic Missile hot sauce (not shown) only used four scotch bonnet chillies (I had a spare pack left to use up). Made with a cider vinegar, and an apple,maple and spiced fruit juice along with garlic and onion, and salt. I liked the end result.

My next hot sauce will be using Carolina Reapers. Which at one point was the hottest chilli in the world. It still clocks in at around the 2 million scovilles mark. So it’s going to be pretty spicy! I have a name already for this new hot sauce Tiamat.

That will keep me going for a while in hot sauce. But I have plans!

I’ve got seeds for the reaper, scotch bonnet, Trinidad scorpion and one called the Armageddon chilli. So during January I’ll be planting the seeds, and hoping to have a good crop of each to use next year.

Here’s another handy site to look at as well.