Ingredients

• 1 Brown onion chopped or 2 french shallots
• 1/2 Packet Dried Mushrooms (Asian section of most supermarkets) soaked in water 30 mins
• 2 Beef Stock Cubes
• Rice – 1/2 cup per person uncooked
• Dried herbs – oregano, parsley & tyhme plus dried red chilli
• Butter/Oil
• 1/2 cup dried veg
• Parmesan to serve

Method

Boil the smaller of two cooking pans with water.

Heating Large Cooking pan and add 1 tbsp butter or oil.

Add onion, cook til transparent, add herbs and chilli, cook til fragrant.

Add rice and cook to coat rice (will pop and sizzle a little).

Add 1/2 cup off wine if using, water if not, add stock cubes crumbled and stir.

Continue to add water and stir frequently until rice is cooked.

Add mushrooms with their water and vege during final stage.

Serve in eating pannier, add parmesan and stir through before eating.

You can swap mushrooms for dried biltong or salami or omit the meat entirely and just use the cheese and vege for a vegetarian option. Make sure you swap the beef cube for a vege stock cube though.

This post is for Jane DeS – she will know why. 🙂

I made this dish for Rob and I on our first night at Windermere hut while hiking the Overland Track in Tasmania in December 2016. Before the trip I spent quite some time researching, resourcing and testing recipes for carrying in 5 – 6 days of food and carrying out also. I had to consider safe food handling – what would keep for five plus days without refrigeration, what would pack well in terms of space and weight and what would provide the required nutrition and fuel levels for the long hiking days.

The tip for carrying in the eggs came from a fellow walker whose name I don’t know, during a chance conversation on the Powerful Owl Track on Mt Coot-tha some months before our trip.

Ingredients

1 Cup Short Pasta

2 French (or brown) shallots

(Onion will suffice but flavour is better)

300g bacon or speck.

1 Egg

(Wrap in paper towel and slide into the centre of a toilet roll for transport).

Parmesan, slice1 cup of milk made from powder

Dried parsley

Chicken Stock Cube

Salt & Pepper

Method

Fill smaller pot with water and bring to boil while preparing other ingredients.

Chop shallots and bacon, slice Parmesan.

Make 1 cup of milk.

Crack egg into a cup and whisk with salt and pepper.

Add bacon to the larger of two cooking pots and then bring to heat over your burner.

I always cook bacon from a cold pan as it renders the fat faster and results in a crispier finish.

When the bacon starts popping and has started to brown add the shallots and cook until transparent.

Add 1 – 1.5 cups of boiling water with stock cube, stir and return to boil, stirring to separate pasta for about 8-10 minutes.

Add milk, stirring continuously.

Once the pasta is cooked, serve into two ramekins and stir through Parmesan until melted.

Add parsley and enjoy!