Jambalaya - Backpacking

This is an easy one pot recipe for jambalaya that you can use on the trail.  I bought all the ingredients at Aldi.  This serves 3 people.


Ingredients

1 8 oz package jambalaya mix

1 16 oz package summer sausage (sliced and quartered)


Directions 

Saute the summer sausage in the pot.  Add 2.5 cups of water (or whatever amount your mix directions say) and bring to a boil.  Add jambalaya mix, stir and bring back to a boil.  Reduce heat, put the lid on the pot, and simmer for 5 min.  Stir again and put in the pot cozy.  (See previous post for how to make one.)  Let sit for 25 min.  Serve.

The original directions for this say to simmer for 25 min.  That would burn a lot of backpacking stove fuel.  This recipe takes full advantage of the insulating properties of the Reflectix material in the pot cozy.  I was a little worried about taking a hot pot of of the stove and putting it into the cozy.  I cut 4 circles of aluminum foil a little oversize for the bottom of the cozy, folded over the edges to fit, and put it in the bottom of the cozy to keep the hot pot from damaging the insulation.  I'm not sure if this was necessary, but it didn't hurt.  

The total calories in this recipe is 2440.  That's 3 people at 813 cal each.

If you wanted to make this in a base camp / car camping scenario, you could just simmer it instead of using the cozy.  You could probably serve 4 people instead of 3, because you don't need as many calories if you are not backpacking.  You could use 2 packages of jambalaya mix with 16 oz of summer sausage and 2 12.5 oz cans of precooked chicken and feed a whole patrol.  You could also add shrimp.  I would make sure nobody has a seafood allergy and use precooked shrimp if you don't have experience cooking shrimp.

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