Please see my Initial Report for a detailed description of the cookset.

So far, the HAE Cookset has been on one 2-night trip to Nordhouse Dunes in Michigan's Lower Peninsula, and has been used in my backyard on several occasions. Since I've all but sworn off freeze-dried backpacker meals, everything I've cooked so far has been purchased from the grocery store.

At Nordhouse Dunes, my brother and I hiked about 4 miles (6 km) each day. The elevation changes were up to 140' (43 m), as we hiked up and down the dunes, with quite a bit of completely level hiking when we decided to take a side trail down to the beach, where we walked alongside the lake. The highs were around 60 F (16 C) and the lows around 35 F (2 C), and on the windy side, as we were right off Lake Michigan.

The first night was my fanciest concoction: chicken with stuffing and gravy, with chocolate pudding for dessert. I first heated up some water in the large pot for hot chocolate, the gravy mix, and the stuffing mix. Since it was fairly windy, it took everything a while to heat up properly. After the water had boiled, I carefully measured out the amount needed for the stuffing, and mixed that in the small pot. I've gotten used to pouring hot water from backpacking pots, so the lack of a spout-type feature didn't bother me too much. The small pot was set aside to hydrate the stuffing, I poured water into our cups for hot chocolate, and the gravy powder was added to the remaining water to be heated for the required time. After the gravy was finished, I emptied a foil packet of chicken into the large frypan to heat up. After sufficiently warming the chicken, I tossed the chicken, stuffing, and gravy into our bowls for dinner. After dinner I wiped off the small pan with a facial tissue and used it to make some instant pudding.

Breakfast the next two mornings consisted of hot chocolate, pancakes and re-heated pre-cooked bacon. The large frypan lid worked well for cooking the pancakes and heating up the bacon.The second night was less labor-intense than the first night, using the large pot to heat up water and to cook a Lipton side dish, the large lid to heat up some pre-cooked bacon, and the small pot again to mix up pudding. Our lunches on this trip were non-cook meals.

Throughout the field test and my meals at home the pots and frypans have performed well, and have been easy to wipe clean with a paper towel or facial tissue. In addition to my backpacking trip, I've cooked several Lipton side dishes, regular (non-'minute' style) rice, pancakes, and taco meat (from fresh burger, but it makes as bad of a mess as using my home-dehydrated hamburger).

So far, everything has cooked up as expected when I use my canister stove. After leaving the rice on what I estimated was 'simmer' for 15 minutes, it didn't boil over, the rice cooked up nicely, and there was only a hint of browning on the portion that had occupied the space directly above the flame. I find it a bit amusing that the best batch of sushi rice I've made to date (though I'll admit I've only been making it for about four months) has been with this cookset on my canister stove, in my backyard. It's also the first time I didn't have to let my cooking pot soak to get rid of the rice sticking to the bottom, since the Extreme™ finish let the few remaining grains slide right off when wiped.

At home I decided to test the non-stick coating by purposefully burning various foods to see if they would stick. The selected foods were ketchup, barbecue sauce, shredded cheese, honey, and Lipton's Creamy Garlic Shells. The burnt barbecue sauce was the only thing that wouldn't come off with a quick wipe-down from a paper towel. The barbecue sauce somehow created a burnt brick of a substance, adhering to the pot. I had to use a plastic spatula to scrape off the sauce.

Since I don't typically backpack with barbecue sauce and I rarely burn anything when cooking, I think it's safe enough for me to say that the Extreme™ non-stick coating performs well under normal use conditions.

The small pot has picked up some scratches in the inside bottom, but I think it may have been from storing my metal bowls inside the pot without a paper towel to protect it. The small scratches don't appear to affect the ability of the non-stick surface.

Although I cook almost exclusively over my canister stove when backpacking, I do carry a coffee-can twig burning stove in case I run out of fuel, or a compatible cartridge is not available at wherever I'm flying to. To see how well the cookset fared over a wood fire, I hauled the large pot and my coffee-can twig stove to the back patio, where I started up a fire inside the stove. I filled the large pot about halfway full of cool tap water, and set it on the stove to heat. I placed the pot on top of the stove, while the flames were still going strong. After a little while and a little tending of the fire with additional twigs, the water in the pot did indeed boil, and the bottom of the pot was covered with soot and what I think might be burnt sap from one of the branches I used.

The soot/tree sap junk remained after a wipe-down from a damp paper towel, though the wipe-down removed enough stuff to prevent anything from getting dirty from casual contact with the pot. I had to use water and a plastic scrubbing sponge to remove the worst of the gunk, and though it's hard to tell for sure, the coating appears a *wee* bit lighter where I had to scrub it down. Overall, the pot had performed as I had expected it to over a wood fire.

Overall, the GSI Hard Anodized Extreme Cookset has performed well and fits my cooking needs nicely

Reviews > Cook Gear > Cook Sets > GSI Outdoors 5 Piece Cookset > Becki Stacy > Field Report