The wife and I are planning some day hikes in a couple weeks, and we wanted to try out cooking on a trail. This past weekend we hit REI and grabbed some camp food to try before we commit to which flavor to bring with us on the trip. We sampled two of them tonight and I’m pleased to report that we had some pretty good success.

First up is Mountain House Italian Pepper Steak. We boiled the appropriate amount of water, poured it in, stirred and waited 8 minutes. Since we were in the comfort of our home we decided to pour it out into bowls so we could see what we were getting. I’m happy to report that this particular one was a big success. It needed a little salt and pepper, but the meat wasn’t overly chewy, and the peppers tasted really good. Overall, very happy with this one and this might go with us on the trip.

Second, we tried some dessert in the form of Backpacker’s Pantry Dark Chocolate Cheesecake. The cool thing about this one is that you put in cool water, so there’s no cooking involved. You whip it for two minutes and then let it set for 10. Even with waiting for it to set, it still came out more like pudding. We added in the chocolate cookie crumbles, which added some texture, but it still was basically like eating a cake mix. It was tasty for a while, but the sweetness got old fast. I really don’t see buying this one again, as it wasn’t really all that satisfying in taste or texture.

We’ve got one more to try sometime this week, but so far this experiment has been successful, and mostly tasty.