We're going to Desolation canyon for six days. There'll be six kids and five adults and I'm in charge of food. I was hoping someone might be able to cut and paste a menu or two for ideas. Any other random thoughts that might make the deso trip easier would be appreciated too.
Can't help with the menu itself but, something to make your life a bit easier is when you are packing your coolers. Pack them by day, ie. cooler 1 has day 1 lunch, dinner, and breakfast for next morning and so forth.
This way when it comes time to cook you don't spend an hour trying to find the onion for that dish everything is all together.
Can't find a damn thing written down in my files, but here's a couple of ideas
get a dutch oven and Google for recipes. Super easy to make a really good pot of food for a crowd especially if you pre-prepare the fixings.
One is called "Pronto Taco Bake" and is layers of Jiffy corn bread mix, diced hot peppers, precooked hamburger, grated cheese, canned corn, etc.
"Peach Dump Cake" pour 2 cans of fruit slices in the bottom, sprinkel on 1 box of yellow cake mix, top with a few pats of butter. NEVER STIR it! BAke about 40 min or until the smell kills you.
Dutch Oven Lasagne - don't remember the recipe but it was good.
Chicken Sate - if you bring a bbq grill - precut, skewer and marinate chiken in your favorite sate sauce. Double wrap in ziplocks and freeze. Serve with boil-a-bag rice, peanut sauce and fresh veg salad.
Precooked and frozen ravioli in sauce. We're lazy and get ours at Herb's Meat in Boulder. They do chilis and other stuff that's good to freeze and use as cooler ballast.
Breakfast - we used to make a bigger deal, but have evolved to faster cold breakfasts like yogurt/granola/fruit to get on the river faster.
Launch early and plan a long first day to get out of skeeter land. I prefer the shuttle service that drives or flies someone in to drive your car back to Green River. That way you can drive to the put-in, camp, rig, and launch the next morning and not hassle the vehicle. But if you have time and want the job of shuttling, the flight back up the river and landing on the mesa is worthy.
We found the water at McPherson Ranch and Florence? Creek to be alkaline and not very useful. Rock Creek is better - walk up above the swimming holes to fill and filter/boil/purify.
PM me with an email address and I'll send you an excel file with a Middle Fork menu / shopping list.
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just make sure you have excellent spare tires and vehicles that are highly functional. The road to the put-in is a tire-munching truck-killer. You do not want those 6 kids howling by the roadside in the 100 degree heat and chasing rattlesnakes while you all try to figure out how to change a tire.
If your packing a mack daddy kitchen setup and people don't mind doing dishes, theres no reason not to have a good hot breakfast every morning. Eggs and bacon soak up last night alcohol really well. Otherwise the granola and yogurt works pretty well.
For lunch, sandwiches, cold cuts, cheese, chips (pringles hold up well), cookies etc work great. Minimum setup and prep. Bring a coupld varieties for a longer trip.
For dinner I second the easy big pot method. Spaghetti works well. One trip I was on, the guy made the spaghetti and the sauce before hand, and all we had to do was dump 3/4 cooked spaghetti in boiling water, and heat up the sauce. Also, easy appetizers like smoked oysters in a can, cheese, and some crackers are great for arriving in camp to tide you over while you set up camp, set up the kitchen and get dinner going.
Dry Ice layaring in the coolers. Use this for coolers that will not be opened until end of the trip. If done right you can have Ice Cream on day 5.
I also prefer the 1 pot method. dutchies are great. If not familiar, line them with foil for easy clean up. Each coal is about 25 degrees. 1/3 coals on top, 2/3 bellow. Iron is best, but have made a change to Alluminium lately as they do better getting wet. Not as good a taste, but if you are linning w/ foil who cares.
Also good are foil packet dinners. Make a chilie of you preference and get the kids involved in the process. let them decide what goes into there own at home and double wrap in foil. freeze it. cooks on an open fire with little clean up.
Frozen steaks are great treat for one of the last nights with a bottle of jack to wash them down.
Small nallgen bottles are good for eggs (pre-cracked) I like to do food prep at home and be able to enjoy time on the river. If running you own shuttle use that time to make salads, etc and ditch waste in car when it gets back.
The group I go with prepares all meals (as much as possible) in advance. Ideally, all the hot meals will just need to be warmed up with some exceptions like steaks that you will want to start raw. For example, if a cook shows up with raw potatoes they need to be shot and dumped in the river.
My advice would be to leave the dutch oven/anchor at home. If you do use a dutch oven then have appetizers or tequila shots or something to keep everyone happy while you fuck around with a fire and that slow-assed dinner you are about to make. If I ever see the cook break out a dutch oven then I just grab some jerky and start drinking.
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