Chili Cup Dinner - Leave the Pots at Home!

My wife found these great boxed chili dinners at the grocery store. I was going on a really long backpacking trip by myself (about 12 miles in one day) and I knew that I needed to shave every ounce off of my pack weight that I could if I was going to make it. I decided to leave almost all of my cooking gear at home. All I brought was my 4 ounce stove, a half-empty canister of propane/butane gas, my stainless steel camping cup, and a spoon. The chili and dinner rolls were delicious! And I managed to shave about 2 lbs off of my pack weight.

Here’s how it worked. I emptied the contents of the box of chili into my stainless steel cup and placed the cup on my stove with the heat on low. Stirring if often so the bottom wouldn’t burn, I heated the chili until it was steaming (the chili is pre-cooked so all I had to do was warm it.) Then I ate the chili right out of the cup.

Clean up is easy, too! wipe out the cup with a piece of your dinner roll and then boil a little water in the cup to clean up what’s left. Boil a little more water and make some hot chocolate. Burn the chili box in your campfire.
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