This was on a weekend canoe trip in New Hampshire and Massachusetts in the summer of 2025. I used a new and compact kitchen kit I bought during Covid. Prior to that for 15 years, I used a somewhat similar JetBoil kit.
I don't need much to cook freeze-dried meals and make tea.
Let's start: A GSI stainless steel 0.6 liter pot/mug with a foam insulation outer sleeve and a sipping lid. I don't actually drink out of the pot/mug, but just use it as a small water boiling pot.
Inside the pot is: an isobutane canister, a folded MSR PocketRocket Deluxe stove head, and a folded security base for the fuel canister.
Attached magnetically underneath the hollowed bottom of the metal fuel canister is an orange GSI Microgripper Pot Holder for two fingers and a thumb, with which to pick up the hot GSI pot after it's boiled water on the stove.
Of course, I have to take the foam insulation off the cup before I boil the water.
After the water is boiled in the hot pot, I pick the pot up with the finger pot holder and put it back into the foam insulation sleeve, so I can then hold the pot to pour the hot water either into a bag of freeze dried meal or into my separate tea mug.
Along with my red stainless steel tea mug and my long titanium spoon, that completes my kitchen hardware.
That's all, folks! Nothing to wash and just a a teabag to dispose of.
I do have a back-up alcohol stove and Firebox twig stove, but I've never used them.
The fireplace—for me, if I use it at all—is just for heat, bug banishment, and blank staring into while I sip herbal tea.
I don't need much to cook freeze-dried meals and make tea.
Let's start: A GSI stainless steel 0.6 liter pot/mug with a foam insulation outer sleeve and a sipping lid. I don't actually drink out of the pot/mug, but just use it as a small water boiling pot.
Inside the pot is: an isobutane canister, a folded MSR PocketRocket Deluxe stove head, and a folded security base for the fuel canister.
Attached magnetically underneath the hollowed bottom of the metal fuel canister is an orange GSI Microgripper Pot Holder for two fingers and a thumb, with which to pick up the hot GSI pot after it's boiled water on the stove.
Of course, I have to take the foam insulation off the cup before I boil the water.
After the water is boiled in the hot pot, I pick the pot up with the finger pot holder and put it back into the foam insulation sleeve, so I can then hold the pot to pour the hot water either into a bag of freeze dried meal or into my separate tea mug.
Along with my red stainless steel tea mug and my long titanium spoon, that completes my kitchen hardware.
That's all, folks! Nothing to wash and just a a teabag to dispose of.
I do have a back-up alcohol stove and Firebox twig stove, but I've never used them.
The fireplace—for me, if I use it at all—is just for heat, bug banishment, and blank staring into while I sip herbal tea.
