Book Review: “Freezer Bag Cooking: Trail Food Made Simple”

Freezer Bag Cooking: Trail Food Made Simple, by Sarah Svien Kirkconnell
Softcover: 90 pages
Bay Street Publishing; copyright 2007

When a couple of canoeing friends loaned me a copy of Sarah Svien Kirkonnell’s Freezer Bag Cooking: Trail Food Made Simple, I was so impressed by it that I ordered my own copy. A few months later, when I set out on a weeklong solo backpacking trip, all my dinners were Kirkonell’s Freezer Bag Cooking recipes!

Part of what impressed me about Freezer Bag Cooking: Trail Food Made Simple was that most if not all the ingredients could be bought in a grocery store. I live in a small town and had to travel out of town to larger grocery stores to find all the ingredients. Fortunately, there are larger grocery stores within twenty miles of where I live.

I was also impressed that all the ingredients could be packed into a one quart zip lock freezer bag. When it came time to prepare my dinner, all I had to do was add boiling water to the bag, allow it to sit in an insulated cozy for between five to ten minutes, and perhaps open a pouch of tuna, chicken or salmon at some point during the process, and add it the bag as well. At the end of each meal, all of which were tasty and filling, the empty zip lock bag served as a trash bag for any empty foil pouches and other trash I had accumulated throughout the day.

Admittedly, each freezer bag dinner weighed more than a freeze dried dinner would have weighed, but each freezer bag dinner also took up less space than a freeze dried dinner would have taken up and cost less. I would not want to rely solely of freezer bag dinners for a long backpacking trip such as thru hiking the AT, but I think freezer bag dinners are a quick, easy, and inexpensive alternative to freeze-dried meals for any backpacking trip or trek lasting up to a week.

Kirkonnell has written a few other books similar to Freezer Bag Cooking, including Freezer Bag Cooking: Adventure Ready Recipes. She also publishes recipes and writes about trail cooking at freezerbagcooking.com.