"Larry L" wrote in message
...
I have built a car camping stuff collection designed to always be in my
truck and allow me to decide to 'stay the night' if I drive a ways to a
fishing hole and don't want to drive home .... the fishing to driving
ratio
greatly improves by fishing another day before the long drive back.

I don't expect to always make the decision in advance and prepare for the
night's camping. It's been years since I tried and freeze dried
backpacking foods, but my memory of them is unpleasant.

So,

anybody got any good ideas for "add water" or "open a can" foods to throw
in
this kit? ..... something that doesn't taste like cardboard, prefered


I do a ton of backpacking, and I've found that the Mountain House brand of
freeze-dried ain't too bad. There are some really horrible ones (beef
patties -- ugh!) and some really good ones (chicken polynesian, beef
stroganoff). The downside to MH is cost -- they're about 5-6 bucks each
depending on which you buy.

Other foods to consider -- foil packed tuna, chcken, and if you can find it,
ground beef. Those lipton noodles and sauce things are pretty good, and have
a shelf life measured in millenia. Noodles thing plus a pouch of chicken
equals a pretty tasty meal. Also, a Ziploc full of pasta (spag or linguini
works best (no breakage or crushing)) and one of those little Knorr pasta
sauce mixes makes for a great meal -- a little more work, but worth it.

For ultimate add-water convenience, hard to beat mountain house.

Get (or make) an alcohol burning stove, and keep a bottle of HEET (the
yellow bottle, not the red) in the car with a cheap, thin aluminum cook pot.
The methanol in HEET has a decent heat output and will boil or heat a fair
amount of water in about five minutes, depending on stove. Added bonus --
the alcohol is not explosive or anything like that, so no worries if a
sealed bottle is in the car.