precooked meals?

[etherialc.]

...in a cooler, of course. Does this work? I haven't seen anyone post about precooking, so I wanted to make sure it's not something that's going to lead to starvation or something horrible.

[AntiM]

It does work, are you thinking sealed meals or freezing?

I've cooked chicken, bonelss, skinless of course, double-bagged it, put it in my deep freeze, then reheated it on the playa. It was marvelous, but I'm not doing it again for several reasons. Too much work and too much worry about food poisoning, and a dislike of having to play Cooler Nazi with multiple coolers.

[ness]

We pre-cook most all of our meals , vacume pac and freeze then we just heat a pot of water throw in the bags for a great meal with no clean up after....sear steaks on the bbq at home till about 1/2 done bag and freeze throw in a pot of boiling water till done and you will swear they just came off the grill. we also will have sweet and sour pork w/rice , shrimp in a cream sauce, bbq chicken. we precook and bag all of our rice and noodles

[jbelson]

I swear by the pre-cooked meal. It's so easy to do out on the playa. I like making taco meat, putting in a zip lock or vacume sealing, then freeze. I also made arroz con pollo which was excellent. It helps to portion out too. If it's meat, the pre-cooked will stay safer longer, plus you have a delicious meal that takes minutes to prepare. Shrimp scampi just needs to be reheated. As for lunch, I made a bunch of hamburger patties, seasoned then froze. Delicious!!!I dont boil in the bag though, takes too much water. I have a stove and portable BBQ. I also like to marinade any meats for the grill before hand. Then freeze. They will cook up so good, you'll forget that your in the middle of nowhere.
I also did salads for each day. For 4 people, I portioned out enough for the group and put in seperate bags, one for each meal. That way the lettuce stays fresher longer when it's bag is kept sealed.

[Dork]

It does work well, but takes some work. One problem I ran into - freezing things then leaving them in a cooler with regular ice. They will thaw out, and some foods don't handle being frozen then thawed and kept cool for several days. Egg drop soup, for example. Make sure you do a test run at home before bringing it up with you. If you want anything to stay frozen and not just chilled, you need dry ice which means more cost and a seperate cooler.

I suggest not going too overboard the first year you try doing pre-cooked meals so you can figure out what works and what doesn't without generating too much smelly garbage. Maybe one or two servings of several different dishes.

As for starving - you can always bring more ramen. Bring enough non-perishible food to keep you going even if all of the stuff in the cooler goes bad. If you don't eat it, just bring it home and save it for the next year

There have been posts about precooking.. keep looking. Good info out there.

[Dork]

It does work well, but takes some work. One problem I ran into - freezing things then leaving them in a cooler with regular ice. They will thaw out, and some foods don't handle being frozen then thawed and kept cool for several days. Egg drop soup, for example. Make sure you do a test run at home before bringing it up with you. If you want anything to stay frozen and not just chilled, you need dry ice which means more cost and a seperate cooler.

I suggest not going too overboard the first year you try doing pre-cooked meals so you can figure out what works and what doesn't without generating too much smelly garbage. Maybe one or two servings of several different dishes.

As for starving - you can always bring more ramen. Bring enough non-perishible food to keep you going even if all of the stuff in the cooler goes bad. If you don't eat it, just bring it home and save it for the next year

There have been posts about precooking.. keep looking. Good info out there.

[ness]

jbelson said: I dont boil bags takes to much water.....I say bull shit , after dinner we have warm water to wash up with or we put a lid on the pot and use it for the next meal.
Dork.. any pre-cooked vacume packed food will last along time if kept in a cooler.........btw egg drop soup should aways be made fresh

[jbelson]

jbelson said: I dont boil bags takes to much water.....I say bull shit ,

I say bull shit to your bullshit. Bullshit! bulshit! Bullshit!