Deb and Sausage Pot
Instant potato, dried peas and corn, and a hard sausage cut into coins. One pot, six minutes.
- calories
- 780
- weight
- 6 oz
- cal / oz
- 130
- protein
- 26 g
- serves
- 1, scales
- prep
- 2 min
- cook
- 6 min
- total time
- 8 min
- water
- 450 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
- Backpacking
- Thru-hike
- Winter / snow
- Basecamp
- Nut free
- One pot
- Pre-mix at home
- Shelf stable
- Dump and stir
Ingredients
| Instant mashed potato flakes | 3/4 cup | |
|---|---|---|
| Dried peas and corn | 1/3 cup | freeze-dried rehydrates faster than air-dried |
| Dry gravy mix | 1 packet | pepper or onion gravy both work |
| Hard summer sausage | 3 oz | shelf-stable, no cooler needed |
| Olive oil | 1 tbsp | |
| Dried minced onion | 1 tbsp | |
| Black pepper | to taste |
Method
- Slice the sausage into coins before the water goes on. Doing it later means holding a hot pot with one hand.
- Bring 450 ml of water to a boil. Drop in the peas, corn, and dried onion and hold the boil for three minutes.
- Kill the heat. Stir in the gravy mix until it thickens and no lumps are left.
- Add the potato flakes a third at a time, stirring between. Stop when it holds a spoon upright.
- Fold in the sausage coins and the oil. Lid on for two minutes so the sausage warms through.
- Pepper it and eat straight from the pot.
This started as a car-camping menu built around fresh steak and sausages kept frozen in the middle of a pack. That works for two nights in Tasmania in July. It does not work for a week in summer, so the meat here is hard summer sausage, which needs no cooler and keeps its fat where you want it.
The rest is unchanged in spirit: instant potato, dried vegetables, and a gravy packet doing the seasoning. Gravy mix is the part people skip and shouldn’t. Plain potato flakes and water taste like nothing, and the mix is a few grams that turns the whole pot into a meal. Add the flakes slowly or you end up with dry pockets you cannot stir out.
Packing
Potato flakes, dried vegetables, onion, and the gravy packet go into one freezer bag at home. Sausage stays whole in its casing until camp; a cut face goes greasy and slick in a pack.
Variations
- Swap the potato flakes for couscous or instant rice if you want the same dinner with a different texture.
- A foil packet of chicken replaces the sausage and drops about two ounces of pack weight.
- Double the oil in cold weather. It is the cheapest calorie you can carry.
http://frankinoz.blogspot.com/2007/09/food-preparation-for-overland-track.html