Welcome to Botches Off -Road. So we have a cool
little episode for you today. We're going to
talk a little bit about some budget meals and
we got some voicemails set. So we'll talk about
the budget meals for camping and overlanding
here in a little bit. And we're going to start
out with the voicemails. Alex, you want to take
it away? Yeah. So first up we have Mitchell.
Uh, so I'll play Mitchell's voicemail. There's
a lot of words here for the minute and a half
he talks. Oh, oh, we gotta turn the volume up.
Hey guys, this is Mitchell. Uh, Gavin shows me
better than Mark and Alex, but I'm Mitchell Donald
Leatherwood and I'd like to get out with you
guys. Uh, just a few comments on these leaders
from that I put in the Harbor Freight box with
the roto packs. Fuel tank on the back. I'm just
curious on your guys' input on what you like
to do. Thanks for doing the show. I like listening
to it. Keeps my days at work a little bit more
interesting. You guys have a good one. Nice.
Thanks, Mitch. All right. That's... We'll try
to do this in order here. Yeah. Well, and I just
want to say... So first... Oh, sorry. I just
wanted to say, Mitch is... Go ahead. Mitch, if
some of you guys are listening, we did a... Podcast
with our winter camp updates from the most recent
winter camp and Mitch was the guy that I went
Camping with up there in northern, Michigan So
that everything that he was kind of talking about
that's a that's the same guy. So really good
guy His if you haven't seen the pictures yet
guys He installed on the bottom right of his
alucab the diesel heater and has a fully plumbed
in now So he doesn't have to take it out or anything.
Yeah, he just has to turn it out is So I was
telling I'll sell mark because we're kind of
scheming something for his truck right now Yeah,
and when we do it, that's what we're doing diesel
heater will be permanent. No removable. Yeah
Same thing. I don't know probably the black truck
to you will end up doing that There's a lot of
good spots to tuck a diesel heater on a third
gen so it'd be really easy on the black truck
Yeah, I mean is Alex gonna i'm sorry alex alan
gonna camp in the third gen Yeah, I think so.
Yeah, I mean that would make the worse. We haven't
confirmed like fully Talked it out yet, but yeah,
it's very likely. He's gonna be his camping rig
for a good bit We uh, we did test him laying
down in it and he can lay If he lays down in
the back he can lay down flat with his feet against
the back tailgate and his head against the seat.
Well, that's what the seat pushed back to. So
if we push the seat forward, there'd be even
more room. Wow. Yeah, that's good. So that'd
be perfect. So yeah. So I got some ideas for
doing that, but installing it permanent fucking
solid. Oh, yeah. That makes life so much easier.
I've installed one in a van that my friend used
to live in. So I've had some experience doing
that kind of stuff. Yeah, it's pretty fun Yeah,
see what was his next part is his next part was
talking about how what we look for when we go
out of state traveling So personally, I'm kind
of like Mitch in the fact that I'm not looking
for Terrain and stuff like hard terrain to go
to I'm looking for beautiful scenery BLM National
Park land Like I don't mind if it's there. I
just that's not the basis of my trip So that's
what I look for. So I kind of look around for
places like that that are closer in proximity
right now, like the Ozarks. Right. Those are
kind of close for us. Where's that? Yeah. Well,
in 10 hours, southwest ish versus if we were
to try to go to like Colorado, we'd have to go.
are either down and around up and around or through
the fairy. That's just you're looking at probably
20 hours ish. Give or take, right? Yeah. Yeah.
So it's it's not much farther to go to like Benji
shop than it is to go to Q &A. Right. It's like
an extra hour. Yeah. So like so there's a couple
of places that are like in Tennessee, Kentucky
that I've been looking at. And honestly, I go
to like I do a lot of like social media. So I
look through social media posts and people will
like put on like hey This is this is so -and
-so national park and this is so -and -so national
park. I look at a little bit scouted out online
Google photos actually is really cool because
a lot of users can go into and upload photos
so you can get a whole different bunch of You
know pictures views out of that and then if I
tried to mean out of state when that's kind of
what I look for Me and mark are kind of the opposite
we look for We try to find obstacles and then
we go somewhere based on what they have so like
we went to leatherwood That's because they had
a lot of decent off -roading. Yeah when I mean
Kind of be the same thing when we go out to the
Ozarks, but we haven't act we just go down to
Benji's We don't go to the Ozarks yet. We'll
get there. We just need more time off work. Yeah
and then When we get out to Moab, it's the same
thing. We're looking for obstacles, not so much
just I mean, we want to see pretty shit. Don't
get me wrong, but I want to see pretty shit that
it's hard for someone to get to. Right. Yeah.
And like, I don't want it to be like straight
dirt roads the whole time. But like, I don't
want the main focus to be like rock crawling.
That's me. Exactly. So like that's not my main
focus is I don't want to sit there and do like
five hours of rock crawling the day. I want to
cover a lot of land, drive far distances off,
you know, a main road somewhere that isn't highly
traveled, you know, two tracks. And if it's rough,
it's rough. Like I don't care. I just want the
main part of it to be the travel to put the miles
in to get somewhere that other people Usually
don't go I think Alex and Mark just like to have
the bigger obstacles to get to some of those
spots so like in my form of travel I couldn't
do some of the stuff that they would be doing
but I think I feel like I could cover a lot more
ground It doesn't necessarily mean one's better
than the other though. I mean, I mean that we're
both gonna see things that The other might not
see in that same time span, you know what I mean?
So yeah All right. So now we've got one from
an unknown caller it's nine seconds long and
I don't even see a name in the like Transcript
so maybe but I do see what it's about in the
transcript and it kind of goes with today's episode
Ready get it I'm not Dammit Joe, I know who this
is because he laughed at it and he was messaging
me about it He goes, it was funny that you guys
are trying to figure out who this was. And I
was like, damn it. So I think that's Joe Karen.
So that one didn't sound like Joe Karen. The
last one did. I think that's him because he did
mention something about that to me later. Very
recently, either today or yesterday, because
I was asking him about meal ideas, which kind
of. brings us into our next topic. So one of
the things that might hold some families back
is the cost of, like, overland camping, you know,
just getting to the destinations, the budget
that you have to have to get there and, you know,
just to camp and stuff, just all encompassing.
But how do you do it on a budget? Still have
diverse and delicious meals, but make it cheap?
Um, that's one of the things that I kind of proposed
earlier this morning that we were talking about.
It's a way to cut back on spending, put more
towards gas or to be able to get out there. And
you're not kind of spending a shit ton of money
on food, but how do we keep it somewhat diverse?
And I have a family that doesn't like to eat
like a bunch of the same thing. So I put a question
out to a couple of people and you know, ask them
like, Hey, for a weekend of camping, Can you
make a menu for $50 or less? Um, you know, with
a larger and bigger families, it gets a little
harder. So, you know, that's kind of what I was
looking for. And we got a few responses and I
guess I'll start with Alex because I think his
is, he's got, I think a couple different ones,
one that's pretty simple. Um, so we'll start
with you. Give, give some of your ideas. So number
one, Uh, chili is very cheap and it can feed
you for all three meals the entire weekend. You
just got to keep it warm. Um, so that's number
one, uh, make a chili, bring it with you. It's
pretty good. So you're saying breakfast, lunch
and dinner for all weekend, right? Yeah. That's
crazy. Take a modium. That's not to make. Okay,
you don't have to make chili that makes you have
to shit. I think that's just a trait of chili,
though. Usually what makes you have to shit in
chili is the grease, so if you use a less fatty
meat, something like venison, it's gonna cut
back on it. The spice does, so try and keep it
not a spicy chili, but more of a mild chili.
And use less, um... I can't think of the name
of the brown powder I put in mine, but use less
of that. It'll make you have to poop less. Yes,
thank you. Use less cumin, it'll make you have
to poop less. So, you can make a chili that does
not make you have to poop. And I just wanted
like, I'm sorry, like your whole family is cool
with eating that all weekend? That's it? Well,
the kid would need PB &J, but that's easy to
fit in that budget. Right, yeah. I just wanted
to like, because he told me this earlier and
I'm like, that must be really nice. Cause like
I'm simple too. I could eat leftovers multiple
days, but like my son doesn't eat typical dinners
that we eat. My wife doesn't like eating something
more than one day or meal. So it's like kind
of have to appease the crowd. If it makes it
so we can afford a trip, my wife does not care
as long as she gets food. Yeah. I think part
of it for my wife is that is part of the experience
of the trip. So like she likes camping she likes
the travel and stuff But she really likes the
food too, and if we can't afford to eat out a
fancy, you know Food trucks or something while
we're out there a restaurant. She wants to at
least have some decent food at camp. So like
you know if it was like a really long trip and
For like three days. We just had to eat dehydrated
meals She like she'll eat dehydrated meals the
whole trip if that if they're different as long
as they're different so so that kind of goes
into my next one now my next one this one's really
smart you get 12 different meals for 50 dollars
so if you go on marketplace look up military
mre case b has to be case b because case a and
case c are both more expensive but case b comes
with cheese tortellini mexican rice and bean
bowl mexican style chicken stew chicken burrito
bowl pork sausage patty beef ravioli, jalapeno
pepper jack beef patty, Italian sausage with
peppers and onions, lemon pepper tuna, beef goulash,
pepperoni pizza slice, and southwest style beef
and black beans. They're okay. You're going to
be able to eat a different meal every day. There's
more than enough calories in every meal at that
point. You could honestly eat one of them a day
and be fine calorie wise. Right. Because there's
like 1 ,500 calories per one dude. It's a lot.
Yeah Yeah, I mean that's a good idea for so like
I've used dehydrated meals not MREs but dehydrated
meals as replacements or Lazy Day meals and stuff
like that. So I mean and honestly, they're not
bad like as I'd like to say, you know, they make
a turd Alex's screen is do you see my camera?
Yes, we do Come on. Stay with us, man So, yeah,
I mean, the MRE thing is an interesting idea
to do. We'll move into mine here. And let me
scroll. Oh, well, let me go into Derek. Derek.
Vespro from Facebook, he commented on it. And
this is probably more of a joke because he's
got a big family. I know he's not serious about
this, but he said $20 in hot dogs, $20 in bush
lattes, and 10 leftover for condiments and buns.
So everybody knows Derek likes his wieners. So,
yeah, I mean, everybody knows that. And hot dogs
are honestly a great camp meal, so you can't
really count them out. Yeah, I I Mean he's not
serious, but to be fair. He only just got a grill
like this last season So I don't know how he
was cooking before. I think he was just using
other people's fires and grills and stuff He
would just eat everyone else's food. Yeah, man.
It's easy. It wasn't even Yeah, I'm still here
my camera just died so I don't know if my camera
just broke or what but that's okay It gives me
something to not look at. Oh, fine. So mine,
and I usually do the planning for our food. And
this is a meal set that is a typical meal set
for us, because we try to keep things kind of
budgeted unless we have extra money to spend.
If we do, then we'll kind of go closer to the
$75 to $100 range. For a weekend, we try to keep
it at 50. So Friday night, pesto ravioli. You
get the refrigerated raviolis and a jar of pesto,
and it's super fast, super easy to make. Boil
the ravioli for a couple minutes, throw the pesto
in there, throw a little shredded cheese if you
want, you're good. Saturday morning, egg, ham
breakfast burritos. So, I mean, that's pretty
easy. Let's see. Saturday lunch ham sandwiches.
So the ham for the breakfast burritos, the sandwich
meat ham or sliced thicker sliced ham that you
can use for sandwiches too. That's pretty smart.
Yeah. So a lot of the times what I try to do
is keep a lot of ingredients that kind of like
cross reference over into another meal. which
is for another one. I'll have ham sandwiches
with the lettuce and tomatoes. Saturday dinner,
we'll do red beans and rice with andouille sausage.
And then breakfast, we'll do like eggs and spam.
But with the breakfast burritos, Saturday morning,
the egg ham breakfast burritos, I can use lettuce
and tomatoes on that too, along with shredded
cheese. which also goes into the rice and beans,
which also goes into the pesto ravioli. So like
everything cross references a little bit keeps
your, you know, you can use pretty much everything
with everything. So, yeah, so that is mine. My
wife even came up with one, which is surprising.
And she said two steaks, mashed potatoes with
mac and cheese, hot dogs, buns for the toddler.
Dr. Pepper juice tortillas for Steak breakfast
tacos and some shredded cheese and hot sauce
for topping and Sunday we wouldn't really have
a breakfast Which we typically don't that morning.
We're packing up and leaving so she had a point
there, but Yeah, so most the time too. We might
do coffee Yeah, like I'll have a pop tart or
something if that's in the budget or something
like that, but yeah two steaks We usually get
little bigger steaks, so we only eat half of
those. The mashed potatoes, mac and cheese, we
usually have with that. So you don't have to
have a lot of the steak, as much as I would love
it. We would save it. Hot dogs and buns for lunch.
Then we do steak breakfast tacos, some shredded
cheese. That's another one of those I kind of
cross -references a little bit. We had... one
entry and he kind of took the Alex's side on
this too, which he's single, which that makes
a little bit more sense. But he said sweet potatoes
and chicken for the whole weekend, which is a
healthy meal. And honestly, sweet potatoes and
chicken is a great pair. Dude, and if you do
it right you just wrap the sweet potato in tin
foil and set it in the coals of a fire Yeah,
let it cook for a few hours Maybe put a lip cut
a wedge in it put a little bit of butter a little
bit of honey and just let it cook there and then
coals Oh my god, dude. That is sweet potatoes.
That is prime Prime campsite. Yeah right there.
I used to hate sweet potatoes actually because
I just didn't like that sweet potato taste Um,
but I've come around to them quite a bit. I started
buying them a lot lately. They're healthier for
you than some. Yeah. And they're, and they're
good. So I like throw them in the oven, throw
some butter into them and we'll just eat them
like that. But yeah, they make good, they're,
they're a good flavor enhancer to like a chicken.
They cook in. You could actually do that whole
thing cut the chicken up cut the sweet potato
up Maybe add I like half a stick of butter which
sounds high depends on how big of a bill you're
making Yeah, but add a bunch of butter sprinkle
in a little bit of seasoning. Just put that in
the coals We call that a hobo packet Yeah, and
out comes an amazing perfectly cooked meal if
you let it cook long enough, which I never do
Yeah chicken you want to make sure but for me
too I mean if I know I'm gonna have something
that's gonna take a lot of prep time let's say
potatoes or I'm gonna have a lot of chicken that
weekend like one weekend we did a like a full
pack of chicken from Meyer and I took Saturday
morning and just cooked the whole pack of chicken
I made some just straight chicken breast I did
some cut up for chicken tacos And then I did
some for chicken alfredo. So, so we had like,
you know, the whole weekend with just one protein
and that was fine. So. Yeah. I, especially going
into this season, I plan on prepping most of
the food at home before we even leave. Yeah.
So that I don't, all I have to do is throw it
on the stove and cook it. We don't have to do
anything else. Yeah. Things like sweet potatoes
and stuff. You could have that cut and cubed
thrown in a Ziploc bag. already washed, already
done, or you could have your vegetables already
pre -chopped and cut. There's a lot of stuff
that you could do to make it a little smoother
on you. I like kind of the whole process of doing
it all outside, so I don't do it a whole lot.
When I was a kid, my dad would make all of our
meals in hobo packets before we left for camping,
and then when he put them all in a cooler, and
then when we were camping, he'd just throw hobo
packets on the fire. let them cook and that was
it. There was no prep. It was just grab and go.
Yeah. No, that's pretty cool too. Um we have
a oh we have one from Zach. He kinda did a full
thing too. He says he just got a flat uh flat
top section on my grill. Now, I have the ability
to make our family all sorts of different uh
meals for our camping this year. He said, Friday
night, we try to do smash burgers. Super easy.
One pound of meat and an iron and a press. Buns
and condiments, cheese, chips, keep it simple.
We just got to camp, s'mores would be the end
of the night. Saturday morning, pancakes are
super easy. Battered water makes pour or flip.
Butter and syrup are easy to keep. Fresh fruit
to serve with it. Saturday lunch, my family loves
just a cold sandwich. PB &J for the kids on white
bread. Chips, yogurt, banana maybe for us. Uh,
turkey and cheese, a little mustard and mayo
and some chips and I'm good to go. Uh, Saturday
dinner, ground some more burger. I don't think
he meant like hand ground it, but I think he
means just use some more ground beef. Mix it
in taco seasoning. Hard shells tend to keep wells.
Um, soft shells could be warmed up on the flat
top. Cheese toppings, chips and salsa. And did
somebody say s'mores again? Which s'mores are
a great dessert. It doesn't really matter. Sunday
morning, eggs on the flat top, what are left
over for the fruit? Usually this is when we just
eat whatever with it that's left over snack wise,
and 90 % of the time we're packing up after breakfast.
Pretty much when shopping smart, I can get everything
well under $50 for the most of, and the most
expensive thing is burger. Yeah, I mean everything
that he said is kind of, I think other than smash
burgers, I don't really do that much. Like pancakes
are super easy, and a lot of the times, like
you have pancake mix at home and you don't go
through all of your pancake mix like I have a
big ass box I'll throw half a box in a ziplock
bag throw it in a drawer and then I'll take that
pancake mix and mix it up with some water so
some there's a lot of ways you could do this
that you don't really spend any money at the
time of camping like you can use at home things
cook some rice at home store it take it out with
you rice rice I wouldn't store Rice? Rice grows
all sorts of bacteria when you store it in the
fridge. Well, I cook rice and people make fried
rice all the time for the next day. So I think
it's just one of those things like, yeah, I'm
not keeping it for three days. But for my first
dinner, I'll have the most perishable foods first,
which is typically what I do. It's a very good
way to do things. Yeah. So and then I had one
more from Jake. I think his last name is Klawski.
I don't remember, but. We also have one from
Shane. Oh good. Yeah, you're right So he said
if I had 50 for my family of five which that's
where it kind of gets more tricky, but he goes
I would do tacos and breakfast burritos hobo
pizzas hobo pies and lunch meat cheese and crackers
for lunches That's two dinners two breakfasts
and two lunches. I would use eggs and bread for
toast on day two. So that is super cheap. And
this is where it kind of goes back to what we
were saying earlier about like cross -referencing
different ingredients for different meals. You
know, you have your, you have, you could do all
of your ground beef, two pounds or so of it,
do tacos in the morning, use the leftovers for
breakfast burritos in the morning. You could
put them, and then you have hobo pizzas and hobo
pies. You already have the bread and for the
toast and stuff, meat and cheese already, so
that stuff crosses over pretty easily. Does anyone
bring a hobo pie maker with them on these trips?
I haven't either. I have them on the top of my
fridge and we used them when I first started
out and they were pretty good, but I just kept
losing them. and they were kind of big to like
store so I think now all I have is like hot dog
sticks and I don't even take those out I'll still
find a stick around camp and use it before I
go back and find it so yeah I mean other than
that yeah that's a really good one too hobo pies
are great anyway and this is not like hobo lunch
is like what Alex was saying like wrap it in
tin foil and throw it in the fire there's it's
like a cast iron square that you put bread in
some tomato sauce, cheese and pepperonis, put
another piece of bread with butter on it, throw
it in the fire and it makes like a pizza pocket
basically. Yeah. So if you haven't seen a hobo
pizza pie maker, then you're missing out. Those
have been staples for like camp food when I was
a kid. We ate those all the time, dude. Dude,
and I was I was looking to see if there's like
collapsible ones out there and they're just aren't.
No. I would love to have one that we bring with
us. They just take up so much space. Mm hmm.
Yeah, you kind of have to pick and choose and
really like if I wanted to make something kind
of like a hobo pizza, I could like throw it on
a pan, like make a grilled cheese style. But
like, you don't get the whole experience. But
yeah. So we got Shane, too. He's our last one,
officially. He said. Dinner. Two boxes of Velveeta
Philly cheese steak. One pound of ground turkey
slash beef. Jack Daniel's steak seasoning. Fresh
green peppers. That's 15 to 20 dollars. He said
breakfast the next day. Eggs. Pre -baked biscuits.
Sausage and gravy. Fuck yes. And then lunch.
Sandwiches with leftover bacon. Second day dinner.
Burgers. Fried eggs. And any remaining eggs.
Oh, from any remaining eggs. So yeah. Yeah, that's
a good one, too. I mean, you already have the
burger for the cheesesteak. So burgers, fried
eggs, that only makes sense. Another really good
one. Honestly, I might try his two boxes of Velveeta
Philly cheesesteak. That sounds really good.
That is a really good recipe. So he for third
gen weekend. It is after this last one. We did
a potluck day Yeah, and that is now like he is
mandated to make that every freaking time. Yeah,
that's good. I think the pre -baked biscuits
and Baked sausage if I could find pre -baked
biscuits Or I guess I could just pre -bake them.
I didn't really think of that. That's probably
what he means, but uh, yeah biscuits and gravy
Oh, that's so good. I've talked about it before,
but, uh, the dehydrated meals peak biscuits and
gravy. I don't know why, but I absolutely love
it. Like I love that meal. Like an actual meal.
Like I, as far as dehydrated meals go, that's
a nine out of 10 for me. But you know, who's
a biscuits and gravy is hot fucking garbage and
no one should ever eat it. Uh, mountain house,
the armies. Oh my God, dude. So It like it tastes
metallic. It's that bad. Yeah, that that sounds
rough. I still eat it, though. Yeah, I mean,
at the end of the day, food is food. And like
you obviously we all use what we can for budget.
But the old idea of this, I guess, prompt was
to see what everybody could think of. You know,
Alex, it would be kind of interesting if you
told A .I. to give you a camp menu for less than
$50. That would be an interesting thing to see
what AI would come up with. So he's typing it
out. See what our good friend over at ChatGPT
has to say. Yeah, I'm just curious what they
would say. What do you think, Mark? Oh, I was
going to say I didn't really have much for this
topic because one, it was very short term for
me to even think about budget -wise. Yeah. But
a good thing that we've been doing is Became
a staple for us for camping is we do walking
taco for a night Yeah, and usually we buy like
a big bay a big box of random sort of chips So
yeah, you got it for that night and then you
just got chips for the rest of the weekend Yeah,
yeah walking tacos are good too because you could
do a lot with the ground beef, right? So you
get two pounds of ground beef one pound for walking
tacos and then that might be a little too much
for just a couple people but You do the one pound
for walking tacos. Then the next day you could
do You know sandwiches Then for dinner you could
have burgers with the ground beef and then have
chips on the side So there are definitely ways
to get around it. I think with the bigger families,
obviously, it's a little harder but I think it's
just a cool way for everybody to kind of get
other ideas for foods that they're making I think
like we kind of fell into the slump towards the
end of the summer that we were making the same
things over and over and over and You'd only
have so many hot dogs and like Jambalaya like
I make a lot of jambalaya is it's really easy.
I Gotta hand it to chat GPT. This is a banging
menu. All right day one breakfast oatmeal bananas
and coffee, okay lunch PB &J sandwiches and chips
dinner hot dogs and baked beans day two breakfast
egg and tortilla breakfast tacos uh lunch tuna
packet tuna packets and crackers dinner sausage
and potato onion and foil packs hubble packets
yeah day three breakfast pancakes and syrup lunch
ramen with egg mixed in dinner rice and canned
chili plus cheese day four oatmeal and leftover
pancakes lunch grilled cheese dinner, mac and
cheese with sliced hot dogs or tuna. What's really
cool is it actually gave me a grocery list and
then gave me a realistic price breakdown, which
comes out to $48 to $50 based on Walmart or Aldi
budget brands. Then also gave me cheap camping
hacks like rice and bean slash chili stretches
any meal Oh, they also said that snacks would
be trail mixer peanuts and granola bars But rice
beans and chili stretch any meal slice sausage
thin to make it last longer add eggs to ramen
for protein Make extra dinners the next or make
extra dinner so that the next day you can use
it for lunch Bring spices slash hot sauce from
home Yeah, dude, this is that's solid. That's
a solid and that's funny because I don't really
think of oatmeal that much I used to have it
a ton as a kid and But oatmeal is a really really
good cheap way to have a good breakfast with
in a like a balanced breakfast like So like oatmeal
and some sliced bananas or some berries. Yeah,
that's that's a solid choice So yeah Just for
shits and giggles. I'm gonna ask it to stretch
that to six days Yeah, cuz that was that was
more meals really than what we'd even need Yeah,
I think it did like what four or five days Yeah,
we did four days or did for I asked it to do
four days and It goes yes, but we've got to be
realistic about one thing fifty dollars divided
by three people divided by six days equals two
dollars and seventy five Sense per person per
day Yeah, that's yeah, that's that's fair But
I mean it how close does it get me still 48 to
50 with six days Still oatmeal banana PB &J it
cut out coffee Interesting enough. Yeah rice
and beans pasta and canned chili on day two for
dinner Ramen, egg, and veggies for day three.
I'm looking mostly at dinners here because breakfast
is like the same thing. Yeah. Potato and sausage
hash for day four. Again, rice, beans and cheese
burritos for day five. And then mac and cheese
and hot dogs for day six. Like they did a...
That could stretch for six days for three people
under 50 bucks. I mean, it's not easy. No. No,
and those are valid menu items that I can genuinely
see under $50 too, like everything that they
said. So yeah, that's a really good way too.
I'm kind of glad we looked that up. Yeah, grilled
cheese, that's a super cheap one. You already
have the cheese and bread for sandwiches. You
already have the butter for anything else. That's
super versatile. And even the ramen if you have
like let's say if you were to do ramen one night,
you could do an egg You could slice up some Ham
from sandwich meat. Yep, throw that into there
if you have any veggies you could throw some
veggies into that to make it kind of a bougie
cheap ramen So yeah, there's ways to spice up
super cheap meals to make them better. I Keep
ramen in my truck at all times. Yeah, because
even I mean, also keep MREs and dehydrated meals.
But even if I, let's say I broke down on the
side of the road and no one can, I don't have
service for two days or something stupid. Like
ramen's something I could just eat. Like I don't
need to, I don't need to cook it. I can eat it
dry. Um, and it's filling. I'm not saying it's
good, but it's filling enough that I don't hurt.
God, I remember in middle school. There was a
trend going around where everyone was throwing
ramen in Ziploc bags, throwing the seasoning
in there, breaking it up and eating it as ramen
chips dry. I also remember that. Yeah. So I mean,
that's a that's a pretty good bet, too, especially
as like a survival meal. And if and if you have
like a hole put in your car or something like
that and a bunch of superglue, you could throw
the ramen in the hole, superglue it over and
you have like homemade bondo, too. So, hell yeah.
Yeah. I mean, ramen, if there's a Pothole that's
too big in the road. You just fill it with a
bunch of ramen Yes, if you get if you get stuck
on the ice and you're sliding crunch up the ramen
a bunch throw it under your toes You're out.
Everyone just keep like a pack of six ramen.
They're like three dollars. Just keep it in your
truck fire starter ramen Fuck dude. Ramen is
like that is the greatest gift God ever gave
if you run out of seasoning ramen Crunch up the
ramen. Yep. Boom Ramen is the most versatile
food item in the kitchen. Yeah, I mean, you have
seasoning packets there. You need reflective
stuff so that you can try to like get people
to stop. You could just run fish line and ramen
packets across the road. Boom, dude. That's a
little bit of a stretch, but but yeah, I mean,
it's all about. Being able to stretch the food
and stuff like hot dogs hot dogs are another
good one Like obviously you can eat them as hot
dogs. You could slice them up put them in macaroni
Spam spam you can do spam sandwiches. You can
use that as a bacon substitute for breakfast
spam Spam has gotten stupid expensive. It has
but it goes a really long way actually, so a
can of spam which I eat frequently by the way,
is it gives you more meat than you'd think. And
when you slice it to, you know, half inch thick,
three quarter inch thick, you can get like eight,
10 slices out of it. And we always have, if we
made like a can of spam for breakfast, we'd have
like half a can left over, like worth of meat
left over. And that's with us getting plenty
of meat for breakfast. So. I typically will cook
that up and then have kind of half left over,
throw it in a Ziploc baggie, and it's already
pretty crispy like bacon. Then I will cube it
up and I can make breakfast burritos with it.
Throw in some egg, then throw some shredded cheese
and stuff in there. So spam is one of my go -tos.
It's also a meat that's non -perishable. So I
could just throw it in one of my drawers and
I don't really have to worry about it going bad.
So whatever I could do to kind of keep stuff
out of the cooler freezer is that works for me.
What about, yeah, but walking tacos is a really
good idea. Dude, walking that has been our like
camp staple this whole season. Yeah. Just because
they're easy, they're cheap, they're fucking
delicious. Yeah, I mean, one night you could
do walking tacos. The next night, with the same
ground beef, you could do Rotella dip. Yeah,
exactly. Yeah, and we usually mix a can of corn
in with our beef as we cook it. I do this, I
do that with black beans. I strain some black
beans and you could barely taste the black beans,
but it stretches out. If you have like half a
pound of ground beef, it's like adding another
half a pound of protein. Like you can barely
tell the black beans were there when they're
all seasoned. What is that? Yeah, Alex. I clicked
a reel about political stuff that we're not going
to talk about on the podcast. But yeah, with
black beans, you could really stretch it out
too. So throwing in black beans, 98 cents a can.
Corn, 99, 98 cents a can. So super easy. If you
throw both of those in there, you have breakfast
burritos, you have Velveeta Rotel mix, and you
have walking tacos. That's already three meals
with a pound and a half to... What's a pound
of burger? Eight bucks. Two pound of burgers,
about eight bucks. It depends. Are you doing
cheap? Are you doing lean burger or are you doing
cheap cheap? Cheap cheap is five dollars and
sixty two cents. There you go. So that's fifteen
dollars there if you used a pound of burger a
day, which is probably a little much unless you
guys are eating a good amount. But. If you if
you don't make the burger the main part of the
meal if you stretch it with like rice or pasta
or something It's you won't go through that much
But and that's what I recommend. I I recommend
making the meat more of a flavor thing than the
main product Because it's gonna make your food
go a lot farther. Yeah Yeah, and if you're doing
burger like the cheap cheap burger and you're
gonna do multiple deals with burger in it Like
you could do hamburger helper Like a family hamburger
helper is like four bucks. Like for a box. You
could do that one night and have leftover burger
from Friday night that you did walking tacos
with. So there you go. You got walking tacos
one night. Like let's say a beef stroganoff for
Saturday night. Then you have breakfast burritos.
I mean chip dip, whatever. So beef is really
good for that. It's like steaks. I try to do
the same thing with steaks. I'll slice it up
Try to eat only half of it if I can if I get
the tiny ones like yeah as I mess a well and
I just won't eat much the next day because I'm
kind of a fucking pig when it comes to steak
so But no, I mean all good options all good options.
I would say snacks are kind of like the drinks
kind of like the hardest part really Yeah because
they're the most expensive part for me. Like,
I like having monsters with me. Like for everybody.
I like beer. Yeah, I like beer a lot. I don't
I don't think I could do it under $50 because
of beer. And Mark, your comment about us going
over what I said in the group chat pretty regularly.
If you think about it, at least $30 of that was
beer. Yeah, but I remember us splitting a bill
and we each had like over $100 for the whole
group for a week. But we were not being budget
that week. We were being bougie. I think we're
still being budget though, because I remember
putting stuff back because we found it cheaper.
I mean, we were being bougie, but we weren't
being stupid. Yeah, you were being price -conscious.
I mean, yeah, I mean, that works. Mark made some
bomb -ass fish tacos. I like I don't see Mark
like cook a lot. So like not anything against
Mark, but I wasn't expecting much when he said
he was going to make tacos, which is really funny
because Mark went to school for culinary arts
and was a cook. I did for like three years. Yeah,
I didn't know that. I mostly want to do bakery
more than actual cooking. But, dude, you have
to get a Coleman camp oven and bake us some damn
bread. We talk about this. Hey, did you see they
don't make that anymore? I know. I'm going to
buy one off a marketplace. Yeah. Dude, Mark,
you've been holding out on us motherfucker. I
wondered why those fish tacos actually tasted
good. I looked at Sienna and she's like, Chicken
tacos? Or chicken tacos, yeah. And I was like,
damn, these are good. These are really good fuck
that was like very hodgepodge I like looked up
a quick recipe and that's do you marinate them
in like Italian dressing or something? It was
like a onion Dressing I'm trying French onion.
Oh, maybe it was like a Italian onion. It was
like yeah I mean it was delicious. It was really
good I was good. I wish I could have ate more
But the pan was getting low and I told myself
to stop. Oh, that's another banging food item
that goes really cheap. Go to Sam's Club, get
a rotisserie chicken, get a tub of mayonnaise,
get some grapes, get some celery, make some chicken
salad. You can make chicken salad in bulk from
Sam's Club. enough to feed your whole family
for five days every meal for like 40 bucks. Yeah,
it's funny. Rotisserie chicken pound for pound
is cheaper than like buying a chicken and cooking
it pound for pound. Dude, literally, it's $4
.99 for rotisserie chicken from Sam's Club, and
it's like seven or eight dollars for a non -cooked
chicken. Yeah, it's crazy. It kind of makes me
a little like, like, why is this so fucking cheap?
So the reason they do that is they use the rotisserie
chicken to draw you in and they put the rotisserie
chicken like all the way back in the food so
you have to walk past everything else to get
to it because that way people buy other stuff
when they get the rotisserie chicken so they
buy more stuff. They actually take a loss on
rotisserie chicken and pizza at Sam's Club because
it draws people into their store to buy other
shit. Yeah, I think rotisserie chickens are really
good for that. Even shredding it up and making,
like there's times where I honestly just didn't
feel like cooking chicken. I was already coming
home from the store, grabbed a rotisserie chicken,
and I used it as chicken tacos. It's already
like tender and stuff. All you have to do is
throw the taco meat taco seasoning in there.
the crazy thing about rotisserie chicken is that
if you go to like jeans or Whatever plums became
or any or Walmart even or Meyer you're gonna
pay 980 or more for a rotisserie chicken the
only way that I look at rotisserie chicken is
like a budget option is if I can get three or
four of them at a time from Sam's Club. Yeah.
I don't remember if you remember this meme, but
there was a meme going around during covid where
there was like this old Einstein looking dude
with a T -shirt and had a barcode on his T -shirt.
And he goes, he goes, don't touch my ro -ticker
chickens. And he had like four of them on the
belt at the grocery store. And they were like,
well, we have to to scan him. He's like, no,
scan a barcode. They're like, sir, we can't.
He goes, that's a ro -ticker chicken. can't scan
my rotisserie chicken, like and he was getting
all bent out of shape about it, like freaking
out. So that always reminds me of anyone saying
anything about rotisserie chickens, like buying
four of them. And he had a barcode on his shirt.
He was ready to go. It was so funny. Yeah, we.
We we eat a lot of rotisserie chicken just because
it's cheap Like on weekends when mark the guys
and everyone's over I generally just buy rotisserie
chicken a tub of potato salad and call it dinner
for the weekend. Yeah Yeah, potato salads potatoes
in general Like a bag of potatoes for three dollars
can last you a week Like yeah legitimately a
week like a what is it like a what are those
like a five pound bag? I could use that all weekend
for camping. I could make mashed potatoes one
day. I could make cubed up potatoes for breakfast
on the side. I could throw the same cube potatoes
and burritos the next day. Baked potatoes. I
mean, just like a Lord of the Rings band, boil
and mash them, stick them in a stew. They're
good for everything. Every time I hear someone
talk about potatoes and camping. I think about
our first trip where we went down, you know,
around Lake Michigan. We were storing the potatoes
and onions in the little cargo pocket I now keep
my radio in. And when I cleaned it out, apparently
I left a potato in there. And like six months
later, I pulled out a potato plant out of that
pocket. Oh yeah, dude. That's crazy. I was wondering
if you could eat the little nubs off those. I
don't because I don't like the nubs, but the
nubs just rubbed me wrong. I always peel them
off, but I always see them like I'll find like
a road potato in the bottom of my Drawer or something.
I'm like, god dang it. Like should I try to know
mine? No mine had a stock and roots and Leaves
everything the whole ball, dude. It was and it
had no light. I don't know how this thing was.
Yeah growing, you know one thing I also say they
grow underground so Yeah. But the plant doesn't.
The plant is above ground and that needs sun.
Yeah, I don't know. One thing I would like to
add too is like before your camping season, buy
all your seasonings that you're going to use
for the camping season. So like I use like garlic
salt or garlic powder, onion powder, salt, pepper,
cayenne. I'll just buy all of those and then
throw them in the truck. So I have all of that
seasoning. already. For most of the meals that
I cook, I can use that as part of the seasoning.
If I want to add spice, I can use cayenne from
my kitchen or maybe a seasoning from my kitchen
and bring it back in. Or I usually have hot sauce.
So like, like you guys know, we have a favorite
hot sauce that we always take on these camp trips
now. So, so we always use that hot sauce for
just about everything. breakfast burritos, tacos,
just about any meal. So hot sauce is a good flavor
enhancer for cheap meals. So we use that a lot,
too. Coffee, that's really cheap for the most
part, because you could just bring that from
home. Making it's kind of like sometimes that
can be kind of a pain. But I think as a camp
group, we've kind of We all have like a press,
French press and stuff, and it's all pretty easy
now. So, yeah, I have the Brewtrek overlander
and I think that's what Alex had too. And I love
mine. I don't think I'd change anything else
about it. I was working with a company that had
coffee tea bags. Those are super cool for like
cold coffee in the morning. But I mean, for I
can get more out of. I don't know, I guess I
can't really. For the amount of coffee I use
for the tea bags, it's cheaper to do bulk coffee
than those tea bags are, but the coffee tea bags
from Barebox Brews are really good to just kind
of throw in the morning before, which is what
they're used for. I mean, other than that, water.
That does remind me, I do need to get a water
filtration system this year. Like a LifeStraw?
No, LifeStraws are... Like more for personal
use to like drink out of a river, but I want
to get like a platypus or something It's a the
hanging bags you could throw in the river and
they gravity filter your water so one of the
biggest things that I Would have to go into town
for is more drinking water But wait, I'm really
confused. Why do you need to filter it if you
have a life straw? Because the whole family is
not gonna be drinking out of a life straw plus
We're going to be making food with it, coffee
with it. Well, if you're cooking it, you don't
got to filter it. You boil it first and it's
you need to filter your water. You could just
you could just get three life straws. Yeah, we're
not doing that. I don't know if you've ever tried
to drink through a life straw, but it's not the
easiest. No, I know. But but no, I mean. This
is actually Mike and Melissa. They have a Jeep
Rubicon and they have the trailer. They didn't
even have to go into town for the whole time
because they could just strain water out of their
filter. Their filters, you could clean it out.
It lasts years as long as you maintain it. And
we had to go back to get extra water and they
didn't have to move at all. So. it's just one
of those things like also if you run into a survival
situation where let's say you're broke down on
the side of the road for two or three days and
you're out of water uh it's nice to be able to
filter your own water like it's just one of those
things that we should all have anyway a way to
filter water or have clean water so i used to
have tablets i don't know where those went i
have a life straw that we could all share i guess
but That's not the most efficient for a large
amount of water, like five gallons, so. You don't
need five gallons. You just need to drink what
you need and boil the rest. Oh, God. I don't
know, man. You're overthinking. No, I'm not.
You guys call in and tell me if I'm overthinking
this. I have a feeling this one people will agree
with me on because for my seven day trip, I was
getting water. And this is the middle of the
summer where we were drinking pretty much all
water all day. We went through almost two gallons
a day between washing dishes, drinking, etc.
Did you know there's water in beer? Yes. Did
you know? There's water in pop too? Like in Monsters?
Yeah, what are you talking about? There's water
in grapes? Watermelon? Wash your dishes in some
Bud Light. There's water anyway. There's basically
water, you're right. When you're thirsty, drink
a Corona. It's basically pee. Why is Jasper falling
over? ate out the Bud Light Wash Bowl. Yeah.
Yeah, why does my cup taste funny, Dad? He's
fucking stumbling around. I'm driving around.
I feel a little woozy. Get pulled over and get
a DWI from my left over. I'm just drinking water.
My friend told me it was OK. It doesn't smell
like water. No, well, it's just Bud Light I poured
into my water bottle. He said it was water, though,
so. No, he said it was basically water. His name
is Alex. This is his address. Oh, yeah. You don't
even know my address. Yeah, I can figure it out
pretty quick. Quick drive -by. Ah, no, I don't
have any address sign out front. Don't you look
at your Google. Come here, Google. Come here,
mailbox mail. All right, well, that was a good
episode, man. It's interesting to see. All the
different. Oh, that was loud. All the different
ideas for cooking for cheap. So, yeah. Well,
we'll catch you guys later. Yeah. Catch you on
the flip side, guys. Later.