1. If you haven't discovered freeze-dried foods, I'd suggest doing some research on the subject because you can make up individual portions and package them in lightweight mylar bags for just-add-water and heat meals.

Stephanie Peterson (aka Chef Tess Bakeresse) has a lot of recipes in her "The Meals in A Jar" handbook (including skillet meals, soups/stews, meals in a jar for ONE, breakfast and breakfast for ONE, breads, desserts, etc.) but you'll find a lot of information and recipes at her blog: http://www.cheftessbakeresse.blogspot.com/

2. Another good resource from Utah State University Extension is "Freezer Bag Cooking: Outdoor Food Made Simple. http://www.bstroop61.com/docs/Freezer_Bag_Recipes.pdf

3. "Dinner Is In The Jar" by Kathy Clark
http://www.amazon.com/Dinner-Is-In-The-Jar/dp/1450550924

I've made many of the recipes in this book and instead of making a whole recipe in a quart jar, I would make a half-recipe and use a pint jar which was a better amount for 2 people. You could also use mylar bags instead of canning jars vacuum-sealed shut.

4. Just a general search for "In a Jar" type recipes, as well as Boy Scout camping recipes, could also yield you any number of user-friendly travel recipes.

-Grainlady

Kraut and Sausage

1/2 lb hard sausage (Kielbasa, Smoked Sausage, Etc.)
1 (16 ounce) jar sauerkraut, drained
1/2 medium onion, Medium dice
3/4 teaspoon minced garlic
1/2 tablespoon olive oil
Slice Sausage lengthwise and then cut the pieces into half moons as thick or as thin as you would like.
In a large skillet or a medium pot heat oil and sauté onion and garlic until onion is translucent.
Add sausage and brown it slightly.
Add drained kraut, stir and heat throughout.

Simple Minestrone Soup

Enough for 2
1-2 cloves garlic, peeled & finely sliced
1 medium zucchini, finely sliced into coins
1 can tomatoes (400g / 14oz)
1 can cannellini beans (400g /14oz), or other white beans
4 tablespoons pesto, to serve

1. Heat a few tablespoons olive oil in a large saucepan.
2. Cook zucchini and garlic over a medium high heat for a few minutes, or until the zucchini is starting to soften.
3. Add tomatoes, beans and the juice from the cans. Simmer for another 5 minutes or until the zucchini is cooked through.
4. Taste and season.
5. Serve hot with pesto on top.
Source: From "5 Ingredients, 10 minutes"

And a link to another bit of helpful info for one pot cooking:

Teresa

Here is a link that might be useful: One Pot Meals from eartheasy.com

Here's one for camping that is really simple like your franks and beans meal:

Take one package of Zatarian's Red (or black) Beans and Rice. Make according to instructions, it just needs water. In the last few minutes of cooking add one can of chunk chicken breast. Voila! Dinner is served. I find it a little salty and will probably take out some of the spice mix when I eat it again.

sound

Looking good. Please keep 'em coming. Teresa's kraut and sausage recipe looks especially tempting. I might try it soon.

In a jar foods are great! There's a bunch of them that I use. I also dehydrate a ton of stuff- and that's wonderful for shelf stable, space saving, and tasty dishes.
For example, 5 pounds of frozen corn can pack down into a 1 quart jar once dehydrated. 6 pounds of chopped onion can pack down into a 1 quart jar.

Don't be afraid to stock up on various gravy powder packets. Those can be great bases for instant foods.
Like 1 packet of white sausage gravy+instant potatoes+ dried corn= potato corn soup. 1 packet chicken gravy+ instant rice+can of chicken=chicken rice soup.

Condiment packets can be really handy too, like mayo, mustard, soy sauce, ketchup... That way you can stock it up anywhere, and not have to use limited fridge space to store the stuff.

Tomato paste can be a space saver- instead of stocking up on tomato sauce, use paste instead and just add water to the consistency you want.

CAmping meant easy and simple recipes, to me. I could easily grill a fish filet, add some onion and pepper to the pan and put the whole thing on a piece of baguette for a fish sandwich or just eat it like that, with refrigerated potato salad or pasta on the side. Hamburgers were always easy, as are grilled sandwiches.

The girls liked "Coke Chicken", although it worked equally well with pork chops. We put small red potatoes in the bottom of the pot, layered the meat on top, mixed equal amounts of CocaCola and catsup, poured it over the top and simmered until done.

My chili when camping was beef, onions, tomatoes, beans and chili powder. If I wanted goulash I added pasta and used some mixed herbs in place of the chili powder. Spanish rice was just the original chili mixture with some brown rice cooked in.

Scrambled eggs and omelets are always easy and toast can be made right on the hot skillet. Skillet pizza is quick and easy too, a flour tortilla warmed in the skillet then topped with whatever you have, a sprinkle of cheese and cook until the tortilla is browned and crisp. Kind of like pizza. Quesadillas work too, as does oatmeal with all kinds of things added, pancakes, hoecakes, hashbrowns with eggs, about a zillion things.

Have fun, and travel safely.

Annie

There are tons of traditional foods from all over the world which are one pot, but I'm thinking you meant simple, rather than just that you only have one vessel and most of those rely on a lot of prep. If you're interested, look through ethnic cookbooks, especially from Central America and the Middle East.

One of my standbys is sloppy joe's. Very accommodating to what you have on hand. Saute a small chopped onion, chopped piece of bell pepper, and/or carrots, scallions, pea pods, broccoli florets or whatever leftover vegetables you want to use, lightly. Push to the sides. Brown a pound of very lean ground beef or bison (or brown and drain fatter meat). Alternately, start with the meat and add dehydrated veg when it starts shedding liquid. Add a handful of dried parsley or chives and 1/2-3/4 cup total (depending on your taste) of ketchup, barbecue sauce, and mustard (you can eyeball this and squirt). After this is all cooked in, check for seasoning. Add some hot peppers or hot sauce or hot pepper flakes if you like. If you like it loose, add a little wine or water. Serve in a bun, openfaced on good whole grain bread, or on its own. You can also make it Mexican flavored with salsa, cumin and Mexican oregano, instead of the ketchup/mustard, or with teriyaki sauce, wasabi and pickled ginger (left from take-out sushi!), or any other variation you have the ingredients for.

Another easy camping meal is to buy a whole or half ready-roasted chicken, then cook some oniony/tomatoey rice to go with it.

I don't know if you're into Martha Stewart Living over in Iceland, but she's come out with a "one pot" cookbook that is on my Christmas wish list. I linked to it below. I am really into one pot cooking because I have a tiny apartment kitchen now, AND I bought myself an 8 qt dutch oven which I have to keep on the stove due to no storage space. I have a few recipes which I will post when I have time but I was ordering something from Amazon today and I saw that book on my wish list. I heard about it from a link I saw on yahoo to a Web page with some of the recipes. Here's the link: 30 One Pot Meals.

Here is a link that might be useful: One Pot Easy Meals

Here is another easy one-pot recipe even if it has more ingredients:

Basque Chicken and Rice

2 TB olive oil
8 pieces of chicken (I used thighs, no skin, bone in)
3 cloves garlic, minced or grated
1 medium onion, chopped
1/2 green bell pepper, chopped
opt. small jar of strips of pimento
opt. 1/2 cup halved olives
2 cups rice (I used the yellow rice package)
4 cups chicken broth
1 bay leaf
salt and pepper
opt. pinch of saffron, heated in a little of the chicken broth
opt. pinch of smoked paprika

1.Heat a large saucepan or Le Creuset French oven on the stove top, add oil, saute chicken pieces until browned, remove to a platter.
2.Add garlic, onion, bell pepper and saute until onion is transparent.
3.Deglaze pan with about 1/4 cup water.
4.Return chicken to the pot and add rest. Bring to a boil, cover, reduce to a simmer. Cook 25 minutes or until rice is tender.
Source: The Frugal Gourmet

Fry up some bacon or sausage in a pan. Remove and set aside. Toss a diced potato in said pan. Add chopped onions and/or bell peppers. When taters are done to your liking, reintroduce protein to pan. Mix a few eggs, a little milk, a touch of dry mustard powder and a few shakes of hot sauce. Pour over your protein/tater mixture. Either let set, like a frittata or scramble it all together.
Hubby loves this.

This Italian wonderpot is great. I think Martha Stewart has something similar, but more elaborate.

Actually there are several good one-pot recipes on the budgetbytes site.

Here is a link that might be useful: budgetbytes wonderpot

I was going to suggest the pasta in a pot recipe. We make it regularly and I always throw fresh green beans in as well, if I have some.

I don't use plain water though, I use vegetable broth. We love it, it's so easy, easy enough for camping!

It's the first recipe of Lpink's link.

I love toad-in-the-hole for a quick meal.

Butter a slice of bread. Use knife or biscuit cutter to cut hole in the center.
Add both slices of bread to skillet, butter side down. Toast about 2 minutes.
Break an egg in center of slice. Wait a minute, then turn bread over for egg to cook.

There is another dish by the same name, but this is very easy & good.

Following this thread for ideas!

I'm a huge proponent of hobo dinners (I know - so insensitive! I don't know what else to call them) - kind of one of those catch-all cook it in a heavy duty aluminum foil packet deals.

You can use frozen hamburger patties or slice up a sirloin out of your freezer. Potatoes, onions, celery, carrots, other interesting root veg as available. Add some spices (I love Penzey's Northwoods Fire) and butter or oil, seal it up and cook the hell out of it over your coals. This is a great one to do with the kids because everyone can tailor their own to suit their tastes.

When I was a Scout many years ago - Hamburger Helper!

Unless we hiked in, then it was freeze dried meals to save weight.

Thanks for your responses. The recipes look tempting and the resources/cookbooks are good to know about.

Another quick, simple recipe that never fails me (although I have never made it while camping) is Pasta Carbonara. It should be easy enough to make on a camping stove.

Liz, toad in the hole for us is basically yorkshire pudding with sausages.
Break 2 eggs into a glass. Take 2 other identical glasses. Into one, put the same volume as the eggs of flour and in the other put same volume of milk. Whisk this all together with salt and pepper.

Put sausages into a baking tin. Add a little oil and bake them in a hot oven 10 minutes. Add the batter, and cook until the Yorkshire is all puffy and brown.
Nice served with an onion gravy or just ketchup.

Always Hobo in foil. Use them coals! Will also individually wrap and bake extra potatoes and whole onion. Good addition to breakfast.

When we are backpacking, we just have a camp stove that will boil water (not fry), so we make (1) a box of mac-n-cheese with a can of salmon (use powdered milk); and (2) couscous with salami a lot as hearty fast, back packable meals. Great for two. Can be easily doubled/tripled.

Sounds fun!

I'm constrained because my kids are picky eaters. So it's a lot of things like cook pasta (not spaghetti because it's too messy hehe), drain, add a jar of marinara sauce and maybe precooked sausage and olives. Then one kid picks out the meat and the other the olives. Joy.

Or lentil soup (simple vegan Lebanese-ish) which surprisingly everyone eats and the ingredients are all shelf stable (especially since I can't use a fresh onion due to picky child and have to use dried toasted ones he can't spot). (Cook 2C red lentils, 7C water, 1 chopped onion until squishy, add in ~1/4C olive oil, salt, pepper, cumin, lemon juice and a little flour to thicken if needed, cook a little more. Too many ingredients, but surely staples don't count!)

Will you be cooking inside and have to worry about steam?

When my buddy and I bicycle tour we cook most of our own meals. We usually walk through a grocery store before heading to a camp ground, and eat depending on what we find, and what we had the day before.

But, we each carry a small alcohol cookstove, and thus, do two or three pot meals.

You can boil water, add pasta and set it aside while you cook the main course. The pasta gets done without boiling the whole time.

One of our fav is: meat, peppers and garlic, or meat, squash and garlic, both usually served over pasta.

The meat can be anything fresh (depending on how close we are to the campground) or frozen. if frozen we often get breakfast sausages.

Mel is on restrictive salt, so our meals depend on what we find with little or no salt added.

Pasta with meat sauce is another fave.

a picture of our food is posted here:

Here is a link that might be useful: scroll down to see plate of food

Great tip about the pasta OklaMoni! I too make a lot of stewish braised things depending on what looks good at the local grocery store, then serve over rice, pasta or polenta. I'll bet I could do polenta the same way as the pasta. For the rice (I do brown) if you soak it, starting in the am, it will cook much faster by dinnertime. Soaking leaches vitamins but I just read an article about all the arsenic in brown rice, and rinsing is one way to get rid of some of that, so its a tradeoff. You can cut down significantly on the cooking time from brown rice that way. So then you can cook that up in one pot, set aside and make your topping and then serve, the rice will still be hot or if not you can heat it up on the stove at the end when you combine the topping and rice.

I have the ingredients for stovetop lasagne sitting on my counter but haven't felt like doing it yet, but I'll report back. One of my other favorites is combine a can (or two, depending on how much you want to make) of stewed tomatoes and garbanzo beans, then make a sauce by adding cream cheese (I use neufchatel) to taste. Serve over rice, pasta or polenta, top with parmesean. I usually add some other sauteed vegetables, and some italian seasoning mix. My favorite add-in to this is zuchinni. You can also add italian sausage or vegetarian sausage and use cannellini (I give up trying to spell those beans!) too.

Made my first batch of stovetop lasagne and it is going to become one of my "go to" recipes. Great for using up spare pasta, which I almost always seem to have around, particularly lasagne sheets. Also great for when you feel like eating lasagne but don't feel like fussing with assembly.

This is a combo recipe from Tyler Florence and Pillsbury.

Skillet Lasagne

Before starting the meat you can make a mirpoix of oil, onions, carrots and celery if you want, or some green pepper and mushrooms, whatever you would like in your pasta sauce, but if you use a jarred or canned sauce you don't have to do this, particularly if your sauce already contains onions, etc. So however much you want to flavor it up or not depends on your taste and time. Add garlic towards the end of this step if you want some. 1-2 tsp. is probably enough. I use the lower end of the garlic spectrum.

Brown a pound of some type of protein. Most recipes call for ground beef but I used ground turkey and next time I make it I may use a mix of meat and beans, or perhaps some veggie crumbles, and I'll bet you could use part italian sausage for flavor it you're a big meat eater. Salt the meat to your taste as it is browning. If the meat is fatty, drain before proceeding with the dish.

Add 1 large jar canned spaghetti sauce or Italian flavored tomato sauce. You need 26-28 fl. ounces of the sauce, so use whatever you have on hand that will equal that amount. I used a 24 oz. jar of Ragu spaghetti sauce and 2 oz. of my own home canned tomato basil sauce. You could also use canned tomatoes and canned tomato sauce, tomato paste, etc. to get the desired amount. Season to your taste with italian seasoning if you like. I tend to do this because I find store bought sauce bland, and if I am making the sauce from just plain tomato sauce, then I want a lot of seasoning.

Add 1 1/2 cups water.

When mixture is boiling lightly, add 3 cups pasta (you don't want a hard boil because too much of the water might evaporate if you do that, and then the pasta will stick--ask me how I know!). The pasta I used was broken up lasagne noodles and then some campanelii to supplement to 3 cups. You could also use mafalda ribbons.

Cook the pasta for about 15 min. Test for pasta being done. Your water should be absorbed and the sauce thickened. Watch out, since this dish actually might get too thick if you're not careful. You can always add more water to it if it starts to get too thick.

While the pasta is cooking, make the ricotta topping. The recipe says to use 16 oz. of ricotta, which is a typical container (although mine was 15). For my taste, this is too much, but your mileage may vary. Mix this with about an equal amount of chopped frozen spinach. I had a 16 oz. bag, which I used about half. If I had a 10 oz. package I would use it all. Mix the ricotta and spinach with 1/3 cup grated parmesean, a healthy pinch of basil or oregano or italian seasoning, and 1 TBSLP dried parsley if you have it. If you hate spinach you don't have to add it, just plain ricotta is fine, and if you have some other type of vegetable you would like ti mix in, like kale or shredded zuchinni or something else, by all means do it.

When the pasta is done, mix up the casserole to make sure the meat, sauce and pasta are evenly distributed. Spoon the ricotta mixture on top of the casserole and cook 5-7 min. more until the topping is heated through. Then, top the dish with 1 cup of shredded mozzarella or italian style shredded cheese and broil for about 3-4 min. until cheese melts.

Here's two pictures of my dish. I was out of shredded mozzarella so I had to use mostly cheddar in my dish.