All the Glory of a Home-Cooked Meal Phrases like “roughing it” might lead you to think you’re stuck with trail mix and dry granola bars on backpacking and camping trips. Nothing could be further from the truth! In fact, with a little preparation and some creativity, you can have delicious food on your next backcountry trip. Here are some tips to get you on the right track. Try pizza in the backcountry.
Yes, you can even cook pizza in the backcountry! All you need are a few simple ingredients and either a campfire stove or grate. You can buy the dough or make your own at camp by mixing flour, salt, water, and yeast. Knead the dough, then let it rest for 20 minutes. Add oil to your skillet and place it on your camp stove or campfire grate to heat up. Press the dough firmly toward the edges of the skillet, then place the skillet on the fire or stove and bake until one side of the dough is golden brown, then flip. Once the other side is cooked, add toppings and place back on the heat source until it’s ready. Enjoy!
Use premixed spice andmeal packets.
One surefire way to spice up any meal is with, well, spice! There’s no need to bring the whole container of cinnamon or cumin. For a tasty breakfast, mix oats, nuts, seeds, dried fruit, and cinnamon ahead of time and pack them in a container. Lentils, quinoa, and a cumin and pepper spice mix can make a great chili-inspired dinner.
Keep your food to yourself.
Turn to one-pot meals.
To protect yourself and wildlife while you’re enjoying your delicious meals, practice Leave No Trace principles and pack out what you bring in. When critters begin to associate humans with food, it creates problems for every species. Always keep food away from where you sleep, eat at least 100 yards away from your tent, and use secure containers to store food for the night.
One-pot meals mean less clean up and more fuel efficiency, which is especially helpful for backpackers. With your premixed packets of food and spices, just add water and you’ll be on your way to a tasty meal.
DON’T LET A FEAR OF CRAWL SPACES
Lead to Your Next Plumbing Disaster
One of the first jobs I helped on as a young apprentice plumber was moving some pipes around in a crawl space. I did not want to go into that crawl space. The door was small and it looked very dark and creepy in there. The other helper on the job volunteered to go in with the plumber to assist. I stayed just outside the door and passed in tools and materials as needed. I ended up with a spider bite that swelled up my hand. The old plumber who crawled in said, “Oh yeah. Most of the spiders hang out around the door.” It took a while, but I overcame my fear of crawl spaces. I’ve seen cats, rats, snakes, opossums, and raccoons, dead and alive, in crawl spaces. Lots of bad things happen in crawl spaces when plumbing breaks, and no one knows about it until the leaky pipes smell of sewage or create mold issues you can’t ignore. Drainage or water line leaks in a crawl space cause serious damage if not caught right away. I’ve also seen many of the same scary things and disastrous plumbing issues in basements because they were only used for storage and no one ever went down there.
and drain pipes. If the crawl space is too creepy for you, hire someone to go have a look.
One of the services we provide for homeowners with crawl
spaces is to move the water shut off valves to an accessible location where you don’t have to go down there to get to them. In basements, if we have to shut off your water to make a repair,
and you have a gate valve, we’ll opt to shut it off at the meter, because chances are your valve inside doesn’t work. You may want us to replace it with a high-quality ball valve that you can trust will work.
Plumb Smart also carries and installs several high-tech leak detector auto shut off valves for single fixtures or your whole house. Contact us or visit our website for more information.
The moral of the story is to make at least a monthly visit to your crawl space or basement and check for leaks on water
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404.427.0302
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