polenta

Given that I have to follow a gluten free diet you would have thought that I’d be cooking up polenta dishes on backpacking trips. I’ve side stepped using the stuff because my experience of cooking polenta indoors. I thought the need to pour a stream of the grain whilst stirring frantically to prevent lumps, then the volcanic activity of the polenta, and more frantic stirring would be too much of a faff on a campsite. Especially after a tiring day.

At the weekend I found some instant, one minute cook to be precise, polenta that just needs stirring into boiling water and paddled about for 60 seconds. In fact on my first try this lunchtime once I’d stirred the grain in the pot went straight into a pot cosy avoiding any volcanic eruptions. Lump prevention happened as I mixed the recipe in a poly bag, and cutting the corner off the bag I was able to trickle it without much fuss.

Recipe

75g instant polenta
3 sun dried tomatoes, cut into slithers
11/2 tsp of Italian herb mix
pepper
20g grated parmesan cheese

The first four ingredients were blended in a bag, and the cheese was added after the polenta was cooked. The packet suggested I use 100ml of water per 25g polenta and that gave the right kind of consistency. And 75g is enough for lunch with about the same amount of carbohydrate as four slices of bread. For an evening meal I’d up the quantity to 100g or even 125g.

As polenta is fairly bland it’s worth experimenting; cubed smoked cheese, chicken, bacon or salami could all be added to bump up the flavour, calories and protein.

time flies like knives; fruit flies like bananas

I remember this from an eighties paper back by a bloke called Nigel about graffiti. I don’t see much graffiti these days; I guess the virtual bog wall of twitter, facebook, and blogging has replaced it. However in the words of Ronnie Corbett, I digress.

Ben, my son, will be six years old tomorrow, that’s over the hump of his first decade. It doesn’t seem that long ago when I cupped him in my hands as a little bundle in the garden of the Tide Tables cafe next to Richmond Bridge, barely days old. These days he’s barely short enough to fit over my head if he wants to ride on my shoulders, which is most of the time.

Happy birthday Ben, I know you’re not old enough to take the day off to do what you want but that day will come :)

multimat adventure long

Not willing to give up the comfort of the NeoAir I took a chunk of Karrimat along on my last trip, originally it was to go under my feet but the bothy floor was that cold that I ended up with the mat under the mattress, and used my rucksack as a foot rest.

Clearly the NeoAir wasn’t up to the task, and the piece of Karrimat I owned wasn’t long enough to provide cover for the feet as well as the mattress. So I dredged the internet for a solution and what I found was the Multimat Adventure Long, a CCF mat. The stated weight was 215g so along with the weight of the NeoAir at 244g I had a combined weight of 459g. Only 73g heavier than the Multimat Super Compact Light 25 for a full length, more comfortable sleeping solution.

Incidentally the SC25 has an R rating of 3.8 against the 2.5 of the NeoAir, so I’d forgo the comfort of the NeoAir if the conditions dictate. After all there’s no point in having an uber comfortable mattress if I’m kept awake all night by the heat leeching out of my body; I’ve already earned that badge. That said I expect the NeoAir/Adventure Long combo to cope with most situations, now will I need this for Scotland in May I wonder?

pack food weight

Generally on short trips I don’t bother with dehydrated meals for supper. I prefer to take one of those ‘instant’ pouch rice meals that can be reheated in a couple of minutes. As was the case for the aborted Buxton trip. One thing I’d never done was weigh the food. A few years ago, I loosely calculated that I carry 750g of food per day. A figure not dissimilar to the one, then quoted in imperial weight, in Derrick Booth’s The Backpackers Handbook which I was happy with.

Having diabetes and coeliac I err on the side of caution when it comes to packing food, the extra weight of which I never begrudgingly carried. It was something of a surprise that when I put the food bag on the scales two days supply shipped in at 866g per day, a little over 100g more that my estimated weight. Taking into account that one of the suppers comprised a rice pouch with a single serve tuna pouch, in the original packaging. And that I also had a tube of mushroom pate in the bag which will last about four days, the figure that I calculated was not far off if I used home dried meals.

I’d like to reduce the weight but am resigned that I need the extra provisions as picking food up along a trail that I can use is a bonus and not something that I can rely on.