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One of my favorite things about springtime besides the sun, flowers, and flowing rivers is prepping food for the summer river trips. I know this may seem crazy but a little work in the spring can go a long way for having super delicious food ready to heat up on short notice. When the summer gets busy and there is a ton of fun to be had, having something quick, delicious, inexpensive, and most of all EASY in the freezer for breakfast, lunch on the river or dinner when you get back is the absolute best thing in the world (at least I think so).

I have tried and tested so many recipes and methods to try and get the best food possible. Here at the Hells Canyon Blog, we’re going to start a new section called Food Tips where I drop my knowledge of the best summer food prep.

To start out, I’m going to go easy. Let’s talk cookies. It’s well known that cookies are the best when warm, fresh baked, and made from scratch. Does it already sounds overwhelming? It is not. Let’s break it down.

Close up of Peanut Butter Cookies for lunch during a Hells Canyon Whitewater Rafting Trip

There’s really just 2 part of making cookies: mixing them up and baking. Try to do both before a river trip and you’ve got a huge mess and a time suck on your hands. My trick is to do a little prep work when the weather ain’t so great, so when those river days come around you can huck some frozen cookie balls in the oven and in less than 15 minuets you have yourself a way better lunch.

To get to this point all you need to do is set a lazy winter/spring afternoon aside to make some cookie dough. Mix it up, ball up individual cookies, flatten them out a little, and freeze them on a sheet pan. Once frozen, toss them into a ziplock and they’ll keep in the freezer for at least 6 months or more if you’re not so picky with best by dates.

Pro Tip: The shape you freeze the cookies in is the shape they’ll come out of the oven. If you like thick cookies, freeze the dough into golf ball sized balls. Like a flatter more spread out cookie? Take that same golfball shape and press down on it until it’s more like a hockey puck. It’ll spread as it cooks. A cookie scoop also does wonders to make this job easier!

Pro Tip: The shape you freeze the cookies in is the shape they’ll come out of the oven. If you like thick cookies, freeze the dough into golf ball sized balls. Like a flatter more spread out cookie? Take that same golfball shape and press down on it until it’s more like a hockey puck. It’ll spread as it cooks. A cookie scoop also does wonders to make this job easier!

When adventure time comes, heat the oven to whatever temperature the recipe says, toss the cookies on a baking sheet, and bake for the recipe’s time plus a few minutes because the dough is frozen. That’s it.

You now have cookies on demand whenever the mood strikes. As a bonus there’s always the option for eating raw cookie dough straight out of the freezer (not recommended: y’know raw eggs and flour).

This trick works for many different kinds of cookies: chocolate chip, peanut butter, oatmeal raisin, snickerdoodle, etc. If the cookie needs to be rolled in sugar, just freeze them naked and then roll them in whatever right before you bake them.


Does this still sound like too much work? No worries! Let us here at America’s Rafting Co take care of all the baking for you!

Looking for an awesome outdoor vacation with food to match? Check out our Hells Canyon Rafting Trips.

Got boats but need grub? We pack coolers too! Check out our Food Packing page for details about delicious food for private Hells Canyon Rafting and Salmon River Rafting Trips.