Food for DofE Bronze

[Junegirl15]

Just wondering if people can share ideas of what their teens had for food on the Duke of Edinburgh - especially dinner ideas? Thinking boil in the bag rice but what did they have with it

My daughter got a couple of these that just need hot water adding to the packet. She also took some snacks that provided energy that she kept in her pocket.

www.gooutdoors.co.uk/15892974/trekmates-chicken-curry-15892974

Depends if they are sharing cooking pots or have personal ones. Sharing needs to be food that can be boiled in the bag/just needs hot water adding to it to save washing up between each person.

Cup a soup or mug shot
Hot chocolate

Couscous and matthesons smoked sausage. Couscous just needs water adding to it and wait for a bit then add some chopped up sausage.

Pasta n sauce

Dolmio do microwave pasta and sauces that can be boiled in the bag.

Kabanos - light!

Tuna mayo and sweetcorn tin - (sold as jacket potato topper) on wraps.

Squeezy cheese/jam on wraps.

Tuna pasta salad - john west do tins with various flavours.

Flapjack

Porridge - empty out of pot so it doesn't get crushed. Make it in mug. Can add raisins to it.

Porridge oat bars-same amount of oats as in a porridge but means you don't have to cook it. Just have a hot drink with it.

Wayfayrer brand on Amazon (even has a DofE approved logo on!)

For tea we used to do anything heavily carb filled!

So pasta and sauce, rice and sauce - those pre made sauces in plastic pouches in the supermarket are a good start (nothing in glass!) and pre cooked meats that are safe in a backpack for a while like salami or pepperoni chopped up into it. Canned tuna (or even chicken!) is also a good idea depending what they like.

Hot chocolate sachets will be nice if it's a colder evening and I always packed pudding too, you need lots of energy on DofE and it's motivating too! For bronze I assume they're doing two days one night?

For breakfast if they like porridge you can pre mix porridge oats with a little milk powder and some tasty things like dried berries / chocolate chips and then they just need hot water in the morning to make it (the milk powder makes it seem super creamy!).

Flapjacks are fab! Anything like little snack bars that won't be too heavy are useful for quick energy.

D of E is all about teenagers taking responsibility and doing the organising for themselves. They should have received training on food selection. As an assessor it always clear to me who has done it themselves and who has had their parents do the organising. The former group gets so much more out of the award and it's why I volunteer for it.

NOT like my DH had - one lad turned up with a tin of spaghetti hoops and no tin opener! When DH turned up to check the teenagers had pitched and eaten; they'd all taken it in turns to try to weaken the tin's seal and spag hoops lad was eating them cold from the tin, with a fork, from the tiniest hole my DH had seen! Apparently this lad ate spag hoops with everything!

DS bought food from a camping shop, I think it was all boil in the bag type stuff, protein bars etc. Small cartons of long life milk and chocolate powder so he could have hot drinks.

If they want tea & coffee those mini pots of long life milk you get in hotels would be best. I think some big supermarkets sell them or somewhere Costco should have them.
but I agree with the PP who said the whole point of DofE is for them to learn these skills themselves. I’m sick of parents emailing our organisation to arrange their moppet’s DofE volunteering!!

My DD requested I get her the following after planning everything with her group and had a successful practice with them.

Strawberry microwave porridge sachets - just add water and boil it up

Bagels with individual pots of jam, honey, Nutella (if no nut allergies)

Dried spaghetti

Dolmio stir in sauce. They do individual servings in small plastic pots

Oat cereal bars

Raisins

Dried apricots

A little bottle of concentrated squash. They do one that fits in the palm of your hand. It was a big hit with all of the group for flavouring cold water and making hot squash (she hates tea, hot chocolate etc)

Her friends who bought boil in the bag meals all thought they were gross and are going down the pasta option for the real thing.

Mine went with pasta and sauce.

Porridge for breakfast

Homemade flapjacks

Day 1 lunch was a wrap

Day 2 Tortillas for lunch with olives and cheddar cheese and pepperami

Cereal bars, yoghurt coated raisins, sweet chilli rice cakes went down well. Fudge fingers for snacking.

I think she decided more savoury was needed. Have to rethink for silver!

@HavfrueDenizKisi whenever I long run I always need more savoury to balance out the sweetness of quick hit sugar. My “ultra” snacks would be sandwich thins with jam and peanut butter cut into quarters, cocktail sausages (probably ok for day 1 but not day 2), hula hoop crisps, nak’d bars (or supermarket own brand equivalent), and babybels. I eat little and often as you can’t run on a full stomach but do the same if I’m hiking, that way it balances out your energy levels and hopefully leads to less potential for stomach issues! So I’d eat maybe a quarter of a sandwich thin, a 1/4-1/3 of the crisps and a couple of sausages every hour or so and whack something sugary in between for energy.

Agreed.

Also, when I was an assessor, I was told in my training that they had to COOK. Not just add boiling water or do boil in the bag ration packs. So fine, do a add boiling water to packet pasta but also chop up a pepparami to mix in it or something.

I got a box of these on Amazon

Thanks for all the helpful suggestions. They are cooking as a group and used the wayfarer meals for the practice session dinner - but were not keen so wondering if we have missed an idea. Also doing a cooked breakfast from scratch so will get a good amount of protein that way. Am thinking maybe just adding a cooked meat to the rice is the way forward…….

My son took several packets of cheese pasta you just poured into a mug and added boiled water and stirred. He took dried pasta in a plastic bag and passata in a carton. He boiled pasta in saucepan, strained when cooked then added passata from a carton and heated up in the same saucepan. He took plenty and shared with another boy who had somehow forgotten some of his food. Don't take anything in a glass jar. Take bananas, apples, satsumas, pepperoni sticks for protein, cereal bars, and DS took 4 ham rolls for the first day and 2 hard boiled eggs still in their shells.