Cous Cous a la Spam

This is actually one of my favorite foods while either going on a day trip or doing an overnighter.



Ingredients:
3/4 cup whole wheat cous cous
1 packet Spam Single
1 one quart Ziploc freezer bag
Seasoning, to taste
1 cup water

Instructions
At home, put 3/4 cups of cous cous into the Ziploc bag. Add seasoning to fit your taste (I generally use seasoned salt, but anything would work). That's it.

In camp, cut up the Spam and drop it into the bag. Boil one cup of water (check out my SuperCat Breakfast for my preferred method of boiling water) and add it to the bag as well. Seal the bag and let sit for five minutes. Open, and eat directly from the bag. When you're done, drop the Spam package into the Ziploc, wash off your spoon or fork, and you're done!

Before you say "Eww! Gross!" about the Spam, let me say that it's not as bad as you think. The Hawaiians eat it all the time. It doesn't need refrigeration, and contains 13 grams protein. Add that to the carbs you get in the cous cous, and you've got a pretty healthy meal.

Spam is high in fat, sodium, and calories, but when backpacking, none of these are necessarily bad things. You're expending so much energy and sweating out enough salt that a little bit in return isn't going to hurt you.

This recipe is enough to be plenty for one person, and can be prepared cold if you forget your lighter (trust me on that one). It feels great to hold the steaming bag on a cold morning/evening. Just be sure to take the saltiness of the Spam into consideration when flavoring the cous cous. And be sure to have plenty of water as well.

Enjoy!

Very Insulator

I've discovered a premade insulator for my hammock. It's not the warmest method, but it is probably the lightest and simplest. Go to Wal Mart or some other super center. In their automotive section, you will find the sun shades. Look for the kind that are metallic on one side and foam on the other. Here is an example. They should be less than five bucks.

To use, just stick it in your hammock, foil side up, and lay on top of it. The shiny side reflects the radiant heat back towards you, while the foam seems to be enough to protect against conduction (heat loss though contact). I wouldn't suggest using this method in sub-zero weather, but it could be used in connection with other hammock insulating methods to give you possibly an extra 10 degrees of warmth.

Here are some pictures of the setup.

This is the sunscreen folded up. Not very nicely, but I wanted it to be small.

This is it unrolled on the foam side. In front is a yardstick, so I'm guessing the entire thing is about four feet long or so. They also make larger ones. Normally there isn't a chunk taken out of the upper righthand side, but I was initially using this for a different project.


This is the sunscreen in the hammock, foil side up. Obviously.

As for durability, I wouldn't take a knife to it, but it has a fabric edging to it which mostly keeps it from tearing. Once a tear starts, however, it rips easily. But then again, for the price, you can just go buy another one.

I call it the Very Insulator because it's very cheap, very easy to make (or find in this case), and very easy to use.

Price: Under $5
Build time: None!
Availability of materials: Readily available
Durability: Relatively low
Functionality: Super quick setup
Portability: Weighs next to nothing, folds up pretty small