Mountain House Cheesy Pepperoni Pizza Bowl

Mountain House captures a lot of pizza flavor in this cheesy bag of goo. The biscuit "crust" bits may be out of the pizza zone for some, but make an interesting flavor combo.

Another in a series of quick field reviews. This one was eaten in October at Davis Pond, deep in Baxter State Park.

Ingredients:

Text from the MH site in case you can't read the pic:

Buttermilk Biscuits (enriched unbleached flour [wheat flour, malted barley flour, niacin {B3}, iron, thiamine mononitrate {B1}, riboflavin {B2}, folic acid {B9}], palm oil [with mono and diglycerides], buttermilk powder, baking powder [sodium acid pyrophosphate, sodium bicarbonate, cornstarch, monocalcium phosphate], sugar, salt), Pepperoni (pork, beef, salt, dextrose, flavoring, lactic acid starter culture, oleoresin of paprika, sodium nitrate, butylated hydroxyanisole, butylated hydroxytoluene, citric acid), Mozzarella Cheese (pasteurized milk, cheese cultures, salt, enzymes), Tomato Paste, Tomatoes (tomato, tomato juice, calcium chloride, citric acid), Extra Virgin Olive Oil, Garlic Powder, Onion Powder, Cane Sugar, Herbs (oregano, rosemary, savory, basil, thyme, marjoram, sage), Seasoning (yeast extract, yeast)

Nutrition:

• 2 servings per container
• Serving size 1 cup (72g) dry mix (makes 1 cup prepared)
• Calories/Per Pouch 740
• Total Fat 40g / 51% Saturated Fat18g / 90%Trans Fat 0g / 0%
• Cholesterol 80mg / 27%
• Sodium 1940mg / 84%
• Carbohydrate 64g / 23%
• Dietary Fiber 6g / 21%
• Total Sugars 16gIncl. Added Sugars4g / 8%
• Protein 28g / 34%
• Vitamin D 0mcg / 0%
• Calcium 440mg / 35%
• Iron 4mg / 20%
• Potassium 1160mg / 25%

Dining Experience & Satiety:

Mountain House captured a lot of the essence of pizza, but especially the aroma. Even before adding water it smelled like pizza. After adding water and stirring it was very hard to wait for it to rehydrate. 

When it was time to dig in it disappeared pretty fast. I may have been hungry from the day's efforts or perhaps they could make the portion a bit larger. It definitely was a delicious bag of goo and I had no problem shoveling it in.

Live in the field testing:

Testing Conditions:

The MH Cheesy Pepperoni Pizza Bowl testing was completed at Davis Pond on day 3 of a "Trip of a Lifetime" loop. Water from the pond was filtered, boiled and added to the pouch for soaking as the sun sank behind the steep ridge hanging above the camp there. 

Conclusions:

I found this to be a pretty good bag of goo. To my senses it was pizza only in name and aroma. The biscuit pieces have a very distinctive biscuit taste to them, even when smothered in pizza goo. At first I found it a bit distracting. Then I accepted the fact that while it didn't seem pizza as I know it, the taste wasn't bad at all.

I have to admit that I was prepared to hate this meal, but took a chance because I'd love to add more variety to my long distance hikes. As a lover of real pizza who would rather go hungry than eat bad pizza I found this edible enough. There was a hint of pepperoni flavor, but lots of sauce and cheese flavor to the experience. Sausage and peppers would be better I imagine in this application, but there was some actual joy in scarfing this stuff down.

I recently discovered that Mountain House is selling this stuff in #10 cans which made me happy. While I picked up a few pouches this fall, I rely on cans both to avoid the packaging and to keep costs down on longer trips. There are a few cans of this in my rather large stash now since I took advantage of a recent sale.

Based on my experience I can definitely recommend this happy bag of goo. Lovers of real pizza may have to suspend their beliefs a bit, but hungry hikers will be happy to eat this until they can get the real thing again.

Background

I have eaten one bag of this. I eat 75-100 bags of dinner a year lately.

Decent flavor. Crust is more of a biscuit. Have antacid ready if prone to reflux.

Shrinkflation seems to be hitting backpacking meals and it's harder to find 2-serving meals with decent calories. The pizza bowl had a higher calorie count than others (740 for the package) so we gave it a try.

If you have had the biscuits and gravy from Mountain House,  then you are familiar with the "crust". Not sure it's the exact same, but the taste and texture were similar. The bits tasted less yeast-like than real crust and I don't see yeast in the biscuit recipe. They also didn't seem to dehydrate well leaving some bigger bits quite crunchy. 

The pepperoni was cubed vs sliced, so we also had a few crunchy pepperoni bits. We let it sit a bit longer, but that didn't seem to help. 

My Ti cup has measurements, so I did make according to the recipe and it was a little soupy, but not bad.

The tomato sauce was flavorful and the cheese melted well.

That melted cheese was super hard to get off my spoon. I ended up sucking on it like a lollipop to clean. And there was lots stuck to the bag, that I rinsed with hot water to clean up a bit.

Probably the most disappointing part was this gave me a bit of acid reflux. This can happen to me with strong tomato sauce. I usually put a little baking soda in my sauce to reduce this. Mountain House may want to do the same.

We'd probably get this again, but I'd be sure to pack a tums along and increase "cooking" time.

Background

We try to make our own meals for our trips and with costs going up and calories going down, we will be making our own more frequently.