A look into our kitchen

Cycling all day every day, means being hungry most of the time. Luckily for us we always have our entire kitchen with us. In some countries the cuisine isn’t that interesting, eating out is expensive or simply not available. That’s when we pull out our stove. And for our oats which we eat every morning of course. Here’s a look into our kitchen, the things we love and the stuff we’ve sent home.

The Stove

To cook our food we use the MSR Whisperlite stove. We love it and sometimes we hate it. Robin is the ‘stove-master’ and halfway in the Pamir he started cursing at the WhisperLite more and more. The otherwise blue torch became a weak little flame. We cleaned the stove following the guidelines of the manual, but with no result. Luckily someone saved us with a spare fuel line, which turned out to be the problem.

A plus for the MSR Whisperlite is that we never have to worry about gas canisters. We simply use gasoline. The stove works best with Euro92 or higher. Which you can find pretty much everywhere.

Stove tips

• Download the manual digitally here, it’s very handy for maintenance
• The fuel bottle (591 ml/20 fl) oz lasts us for about seven days cooking 2-3 meals per day for 2 persons
• Carry an extra fuel line, this part is likeliest to break down on you
• Use Euro92 or higher for the best results 

Pots and pans

We have a huge pot compared to a lot of people we’ve cycled with. But then again, we are cooking for two and most of the other ones are just for one. We bought the Sea to Summit Alpha 2 Pot Cook set and only brought the biggest pot, which is 2,7 liter. This is more than big enough to cook up some rice with veggies or prepare a pasta meal.

In addition to the pot we also bought the Alpha Pan. Perfect for frying eggs and we even made pancakes in them!

Talking about those eggs. One of the best luxuries we brought on this trip was our egg box. It can carry six eggs, and usually all of them survive. We double bag it just in case, because trust us when we say that cleaning raw egg from your panniers isn’t fun.

Cups and plates

With the Alpha 2 Pot Cook set also came two plates and two cups. We didn’t bring the lids and sleeves for the cups, since it felt a bit unnecessary to us. Plus, every gram is extra work on those climbs! We use the SeatoSummit X-plate as a chopping board and it doubles as an extra serving bowl. 

The cutlery bag

We don’t have to worry about the weight of our spork and knife, since these weigh nearly anything. The Sea to Summit Alpha light, made from aluminum, weighs only 16 grams per set. 

We have an Opinel knife no. 10, and a Victorinox Swiss Army knife (which Sabina broke, because she tried to clean it with boiling hot water. That didn’t go well). In our cutlery bag you will also find a lighter, matches, a washing sponge and the MSR dish brush/scraper.

Water system

Drinking water straight from the tap is a luxury. But you only realize that after having filtered hundreds of liters of water. We use the Sawyer Mini Water filter, which requires some effort. You can attach the filter directly to a water bottle, in which you have collected the tap or natural water and squeeze it into your drinking bottle trough the filter.

The squeeze bags make this a lot easier. The filter comes with a small 16 oz/0,5 liter squeeze bag, but we bought additional bags of 32 oz/1 liter.

Food and spices

We used to store our food and spices in plastic bags with a zip loc, but they kept breaking. We are now going to try the simpler grip lock plastic bags. Let’s hope they last a bit longer. Your tips on storing food like rice and oatmeal are very welcome.

Everything in our kitchen

• • • MSR Whisperlite international
    • MSR Fuel bottle 591 ml/20 fl
    • Sea to Summit Alpha 2 pot cook set, containing: Alpha pot 2,7 liters + lid, two mugs, two bowls
    • Sea to Summit Alpha pan
    • Sea to Summit X-Plate
    • Egg box 
    • Sea to Summit Alpha light spork and knife (one pair each)
    • Opinel knife no. 10
    • Victorinox Swiss Army knife
    • Small wooden spatula
    • Lighter
    • Matches 
    • Washing sponge
    • MSR dish brush/scraper
    • Grip lock plastic bags
    • Sawyer Mini Water filter
    • Sawyer Squeeze bag 32 oz (two bags)
  • Sent home or discarded: 
    • Opinel knife no. 8
    • Stanley thermo bottle Classic Vaccuum 750 ml
    • Sea to Summit X-Plate (one was enough)
    • Sea to Summit towel (lost it somewhere on the road)
    • Small wooden spatula
    • Sawyer Squeeze bag 16 oz
    • Sawyer Squeeze bag 32 oz (two was enough)

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