Touring food

During my recent tour de Kelly Country I took 10 days worth of food in a air-tight plastic container I would put in a canvas bag and secure to the rear rack when riding (air tight plastic is good for keeping critters out of your food).

For dinners, I took along the following: 1 cup mung beans, 1 cup dried red lentils, 1 cup rice, 1 1/2 cups cous cous, 1 1/2 cups penne pasta, 2 tins of mussels, 2 tins oysters, 4 pizza sauce sachets (bought as a box of four sachets), a taco spice mix sachet (Safeway sells these for 75c in the mexican food section), a packet of 2 minute noodles, 1 cup dehydrated peas, some dried onions, 1 cube of beef flavoured stock, a couple of teaspoonds of ground coriander, 4 tsp of italian herbs, some salt and some olive oil.

For lunch I took two boxes of crackers and two jars of peanut butter.

For snacks I took a packet of muesli bars, a packet of smarties, dried apricots and mixed nuts with sultanas.

The dinners I cooked on the trangia stove included:

• pasta with oysters or mussels - penne pasta, peas, tin of oysters or mussels, pizza sauce mixed with water to make a pasta sauce, italian herbs and onion
• spicy mung beans with cous cous - soaked mung beans cooked in water with a tablespoon of taco spice mix, onion and peas, served on cous cous. Cous cous is one of the easiest carbs to cook - just cover with hot water, cover and let it soak in for at least 5 minutes.
• noodles with oysters or mussels - a packet of two minute noodles with peas and oysters or mussels
• lentil dhal with rice - lentils cooked in stock with onion until water has evaporated, flavoured with ground coriander at the end, served with rice
• one night I cooked salt and pepper squid (store bought) in the trangia stove with some olive oil to celebrate having riding 100 km that day. Delicious.

In future I hope to do more vegetarian meals with more variety in dried beans and figuring out which fresh vegies keep well for meals like vegetable pilafs.

My trangia stove setup is slightly different from the image above. I have the bronze burner with simmer ring, but I instead of the pot and frypan I use a compact pot set I picked up from a Kathmandu outlet for $20 that has a 650 ml pot and a 350 ml 'cup' that can be used as a small fry pan. The pot set has a universal lid and came with a mesh carry bag. The cup fits on the bottom of the pot and the burner fits inside the pot. A trangia wind-shield / pot holder fits on top of the pot and all goes into the mesh carry bag. It is a very compact set of kit. Aside from that you need to carry a bottle of metho which you can slightly collapse as you use the metho to save some room. So far I haven't found the need for a special fuel cannister.