RE: [pct-l] Today's tip

[Ronald Moak <ronm@fallingwater.com>]

How would you cook standard spaghetti? How about standard, not pre-cooked
rice? How about elbow noodles? Would your approach work for them or do you
need precooked or dehydrated stuff? 

Tom

That's a good question. As far as spaghetti (angel hair as its smaller and
cooks easier) and general noodles go I just boil them into the water.
Granted they will leave some starch on the pot. However, that doesn't bother
me. It'll come off next time I cook something. So I don't bother cleaning it
off. I simply try not to cook stuff in the pot that leaves a heavy residue
like Mac & Cheese, Sauces or Lipton's dinners. In general there are ways to
handle them nicely.

The trick is knowing how much water to leave in the noodles to finish
cooking them along with re-hydrating the sauce when you mix them. First few
times it maybe a bit runny or thick until you get used to it.

With rice I use the minute rice. Unlike pasta, long cook rice needs to sit
over the flame for a longer period of time. Just to make sure, I tried it
out today at lunch. I made a standard rice dish box dish like Rice -a-Roni. 

I boiled the water and dumped it on the rice / seasoning mix when it was
boiling. After 15 minutes only half the water had been absorbed. So I
finished it off on the stove. Tomorrow I may try putting in the rice only to
start then dumping the rice/water into the seasoning mix after the fuel runs
out. Today the stove continued to burn for another 4 minutes or more after I
dumped the boiling water into the bag. It burned long enough to have easily
heated up another cup of water for a hot drink.

Still if I used minute rice with my own seasons (a cheaper option), it would
have worked just fine. 

Worse case would be to simply carry a small candle. Then when the main fuel
is exhausted, use the candle to continue simmering the food. It's certainly
cheap and a single small tea candle would last for several meals. My stove
is designed to use one nicely. Although I prefer the simplicity of not using
one. 

My goal to be able develop a strategy to cook most off the self items found
along the trail in addition to the ones I make at home. I do like variety
and hate getting locked into a single menu.

Ron "Fallingwater" Moak
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