Cold Weather Broth Mash
Potato flakes built on hot broth, loaded with peanut butter and fat. A winter calorie patch.
- calories
- 700
- weight
- 5.1 oz
- cal / oz
- 137
- protein
- 20 g
- serves
- 1, scales
- prep
- 2 min
- cook
- 7 min
- total time
- 9 min
- water
- 500 ml boiled
- cost
- $
Calorie and protein figures are my own estimates, good enough for planning a food bag and not meant as precise nutrition data.
- Dinner
- Canister stove
- Alcohol / Esbit
- Liquid fuel
- Winter / snow
- Backpacking
- Basecamp
- Car camping
- Vegetarian
- One pot
- Pre-mix at home
- Shelf stable
- Dump and stir
Ingredients
| Instant mashed potato flakes | 1 cup | |
|---|---|---|
| Vegetable bouillon | 2 tsp | powder or a crushed cube |
| Whole milk powder | 1/4 cup | skips the cold-chain problem entirely |
| Peanut butter powder | 3 tbsp | or 2 tbsp of real peanut butter if you don't mind the jar |
| Ghee or olive oil | 1 tbsp | ghee stays solid in the cold and won't leak |
| Salt and black pepper | to taste |
Method
- Boil 500 ml of water. Stir in the bouillon and let it go for a minute so it actually dissolves.
- Pull the pot off the heat. Rain in the potato flakes a handful at a time, stirring, until it thickens.
- Add the milk powder and peanut butter powder. Stir hard — powders clump in anything this thick.
- Spoon in the ghee last and stir until it disappears. Salt and pepper, then eat hot.
- Splitting it in two — half now, half warmed at breakfast — gets you through a long cold night better than one large sitting.
Cold weather is a fuel problem before it’s a comfort problem. You burn more just staying warm, appetite drops, and drinking plain water in freezing air costs you heat you’d rather keep. Building the meal on hot broth solves both ends: the liquid goes in warm, and the salt makes you actually want it.
The fat is the point. Potato flakes and broth alone are a thin, salty dinner — peanut butter powder and a spoon of ghee are what push it past 700 calories without adding much weight. Powdered milk stands in for anything fresh and thickens the mash at the same time. Eating half at night and half in the morning is easier on a shrunken cold-weather appetite than forcing the whole pot down at once.
Packing
Everything dry goes in one quart freezer bag at home. Ghee rides in a small screw-top jar; keep it inside the pack, not a mesh pocket, or it turns into a rock.
Variations
- A foil packet of chicken or a scoop of meat bar crumbles turns it into a heavier dinner.
- Skip the potato flakes and drink it as a thick broth if you're too cold to chew.
- Swap ghee for coconut oil if you want it dairy-free — the milk powder goes too.
https://www.huntingpa.com/threads/cold-weather-feeding.4359