The best part about overland travel is being able to prepare some real meals while out on the trail. Here’s what you can find in “Alex’s Kitchen Kit”.
Cooking an awesome meal by the fire is pretty high on our list of priorities for a successful weekend trip. Eating MRE’s and freeze dried backpacking food on the other hand is not.
You can’t cook without tools, and adding to your kitchen kit is just another great way to spend more money on gear!
Alex’s Kitchen Kit:
- Rubbermaid Action Packer (8 Gallon)
- Sea to Summit Kitchen Sink (10 Liter)
- Sea to Summit Wilderness Wash
- SnowPeak Titanium Plates
- SnowPeak Titanium Mugs
- SnowPeak Utensil Sets
- SnowPeak Tongs
- REI Backpacking Cooking Kit
- Lighter
- Kitcken brush/scraper
- SnowPeak Mini Hozuki
- Headlamp
- Black Diamond Lantern
- Toilet Paper
I love the Sea To Summit Kitchen Sink, it’s great for washing dishes and makes for a great hat in a pinch. Combine it with some Wilderness Wash and a MSR scraper for doing dishes and you’ll be golden. Now when it comes to cooking if I could only have one tool it would be a set of tongs. From the stove to the grill you can always find a use for them, and the fact that you can get a pair that say SnowPeak on them makes it that much better. There is also a lighter, why? Because I didn’t get into overlanding so I could do that Bear Grylls fire with my bare hands bull shit.
The SnowPeak Titanium 600 mugs are the perfect size for a beverage, or to heat some water for your morning coffee. They also look pretty awesome when combined with SnowPeak’s titanium plate and utensil sets. The best part about SnowPeak gear is that you’ll be able to cut down on the weight of your rig, saving 10 ounces makes a huge difference for your 6,000 lb truck!
I’ve had this backpacking cooking set from REI for over 5 years now, it’s a relic from when I was a backpacker. You can also see that I haven’t been using my Kitchen Sink as much as I should be. The whole kit is pretty small and compact, but it’s the perfect size for 2 people.
Lights, you can never have enough lights. Cooking in the dark is no fun and a head lamp makes life substantially easier when you’re working over a hot pan. The Black Diamond lantern is a great compact unit that puts out plenty of light for your campsite, and doubles as a flashlight. The SnowPeak Hozuki is my go to tool though, it has a magnetic loop on the top so you can attach it pretty much anywhere and it puts off a nice candle like glow.
Toilet Paper, if you have to ask you’re doing it wrong.
Why the Action Packer and not a Pelican Case? Coco our dog is telling you that if you need to store your kitchen kit in a pelican case, you better be throwing it out of a hovering helicopter or traveling with fine china.
So stop buying more lights for your truck and step up your Kitchen Kit game. Let us know what you carry in the comments below, I’m always on the lookout to add more gear to the collection.
Guilty of having a pelican case to store my kitchen, but I bought it with some other useful govt surplus, so I don’t feel too bad about that. I used to work in a kitchen so I have long stainless steel fork, spoon, and spatula, as well as a variety of tongs, and knives. I found it difficult to keep everything organized and clean. My solution was to put these items into a 4″ PVC tube with caps on each end and an arrow that denotes where the sharp ends are stored. I added a few air holes to allow moisture to escape. Works great and keeps the items that usually tangle up with other cooking items in a manageable space.
Love that sink idea. I’ve been using a sink from an old Coleman kitchen.
That’s a pretty spartan kitchen, despite the nice pieces of kit. I’ve been using a home brew chuck box for the last few years and it’s worked very well. It’s loaded with the stove, pots, pans, coffee pot, dishes, eating, serving, and food prep utensils, seasoning and oils. And it was also designed to fit snugly into my storage box or be used independently. Just to 30 seconds for the spiel on the chuck box.
Jeep Cherokee XJ storage system – The 4×4 Podcast: http://youtu.be/pmDKuJygvpo
Thanks for the input Dan, I still haven’t shaken my backpacking background. When it comes to cooking I keep it pretty simple and most of what I like to take along gets cooked over a fire.
Now that I have the AT Partner Stove setup in the JK though I know I’m going to have to up my culinary game.
Not being focused on light weight, the biggest plus I’ve found for ease of storage during transport is SQUARE plates, cups etc. I ended up buying a plastic set at my local box store (Meijer, Walmart, Target, etc) for about $7. it included 2 plates, 4 prep bowls (work great as coffee/tea cups). The square dish tub holds everything very nicely with additions like the cutting board etc. Because you use all corner space, there is minimal waste of space, making for efficient use of space in the back of my 4Runner.
When we pull the tub out of the back, we have the entire place-setting and cooking utensils ready to prepare a meal and a “sink” to handle trash during cooking and to wash up afterwards.
Will be adding the Snowpeak cutting board/knife that Ben reviewed for Christmas to the kit.
Okki
Thanks for the input Okki, I agree that having square plates and cups would increase packing efficiency in a chuck box. I’ve looked at some of the kitchen items that the local REI stocks and I’ll most likely eventually upgrade. Right now though I’m happy to keep using a lot of my backpacking gear because it’s always served me well and I’m only cooking for myself and my fiance 99% of the time.
I like the idea of the square dish tub, but I have a tendency to get off camber and sometimes I’ve dropped the box so having a lid is pretty crucial for me.
The SnowPeak cutting board is an awesome piece of kit and having the knife stored safely inside of the cutting board is one of my favorite features. It’s large enough that you can prepare your meals on it, but it’s not so large that you’ll want to leave it behind.
Thanks for the info and have fun out on the trails!