Check Out New Products
Ever try dried fruit? Banana chips are pretty good. A store I go to sells them covered in chocolate, good on cooler days.
I’d look around stores, to see products you may not have focussed on before. There are those fruit roll up things. I’m thinking they may have a lot of sugar though. Costco is always sampling out all kinds of dried fruit type products in various forms. Trail mix is always good for roughage and tends to be higher calories, but you have the weight, but then the higher calories may make up for that. My store sells a gazillion types of trail mix (gorp) or you could make your own.
I see veggie chips in the market. I would think they are highly salted and will of course be compacted until they are opened since the bags usually have air in them, but then that takes up a lot of space.
-Capri
For boiling water ttry the Kelly Kettle.
I have used this item for a few years now. It is basically a chimney with a water jacket that sits overtop a small basin. You build a fire with kindling, which heats the water in the kettle very efficiently. It also comes with a small grill to place over the top of the kettle for heating stuff up - that part isn’t too efficient. I take along lots of dehydrated food/coffe when I camp and this has been a must take item. It is lightweight and stores easily in the hatches. Steve F
Kelly Kettle is getting a lot of good
press lately. I’m looking forward to trying one. I’ve also carried off and on a couple years a Little Bug woodstove. It packs down pretty small and can run on wood or alcohol. I have a firepan with it so I can actually hang it if there’s no place to sit it. I heard Cliff Jacobsen say that he uses his for a camp fire, too, just place a couple inverted sticks in there and let it rip. Says it will turn Cherry red and not hurt it. http://www.littlbug.com/index.htm
A topic near my heart
Hubby loves to camp cook, but I’m trying to get him to go lighter. So, keep all the good ideas coming.
When I worked in a restaurant years ago, we’d precook the spaghetti (5-6 minutes) and then drain and refrigerate it in weighed portions for dinners. Then it only took 1 minute in boiling water to reheat it. I’m wondering if this would work for camping? Can it be precooked, and then dehydrated? Would it reconstitute well? Anyone know?
I may just have to experiment with this.
Check out the
Thermette I think it is superior in materials and construction. I love mine. Our club have given it a name, "Bengazi* because the ANZAC’s called it a Ben Gazi boiler in WWII.
I’m wondering …
the same thing about rice, or beans and rice.
Precook, dehydrate, etc?
T
dehydrate precooked oatmeal?
Sorry to seem hung up on oatmeal, can’t help myself, last year I went 21 days with oatmeal for breakfast everyday. Took me several months before I could bring myself to eat it again, just got my fill of it I guess.
While you’re figuring out a way to dehydrate precooked pasta, I wonder if you can dehydrate precooked rolled oats? I use 1 cup rolled oats and through in whatever fresh or dried fruit, raisins, nuts, different kinds of syrup and sugar to alter the taste from day to day.
I’ve had good luck dehydrating spaghetti sauce which I use on fry bed for pizza. I’m looking forward to adding dry sausage to that deal. I love pepperoni and salami. I like the idea of precooking and freezing pasta. On the bottom of the pack it would take a day or so to thaw out and wouldn’t go bad really quickly like fresh meat will.
spegettie
Ok, I can’t spell!!
A friend of mine makes her own sauce w/out meat and dehydrates. Then she cooks the hamburger, chops it into little bitty pieces, washes the cooked meat in hot water to get all the fat off, then dehydrates that. The meat and sauce go into individual freezer bags and into the freezer. (I don’t know how long you can keep it frozen??) When we’re headed out for a trip, she pulls out these bags and rebags in individual smaller ziplock baggies how ever many meals she wants. So for one meal she has one bag of sauce and one bag of meat. In another baggie she puts broken up angle hair pasta (not precooked or anything) To eat this she will add some water to the meat baggie at least an hour before she’s gonna cook so it starts rehydrating. This can also be added at lunch time to be ready by supper time. Then at supper time she puts the sauce, pasta, meat and water, and more water if needed into her pot and brings that to a boil. You only need to boil about 1 minute and then just cozy for 10 to 15 minutes. Use this time to tidy up your camp (camp chores) Then sit down and enjoy your home made spegettie. As with all receipes, please experiment at home first before using this out in the wild.
Dehydrated pasta, rice…
Yes, you can precook both rice and pasta and dehydrate it. It dries rather fast and ends looking just like it did before you cooked it. You can then drop it in hot water or pasta sauce for a hot meal. Also, I often combine some dehydrated pasta or rice in a ziploc bag with some dehydrated veggies, (carrots, peas, celery, peppers), some dried herbs and add a little cold water in the morning before heading out on the water. At lunch time it is softened and may or may not need a little draining. I then add a pouch of tuna or some salami and cheese and a little vinaigrette and it’s awesome pasta or rice salad. I made an Asian rice salad one day - the rice and veggies rehydrated, added some almonds, sesame seeds and ramen noodles I had toasted and bagged separately, and Asian vinaigrette. That was good.
Sharon
Dehydrater
I went out and bought one last year but haven’t really used it for much. First attempt was peas which I put too many on the trays and they dried unevenly. Some had become small enough to fall into the inside of the machine and took much work to remove. I had peas bouncing all over the place. I initially thought it funny to watch my beagle chase them all over the floor and gobble them up. Thankfully, the next day my wife came home before me to find an awfull mess/stench in the beagles kennel that she had to clean. I didn’t know my wife was capable of turning such a ghastly shade of green.
Tom
Sea Kayaker Mag’s latest issue
IIRC it contained a nutrition article with a recipe for cold oatmeal. The gist of it was that the mix was soaked overnight and ready to eat in the morning.
Sounded awful to me!
oats and liquid left overnight
pikeabike,
This mix is called Muesli, as I've posted twice above.
When you make it with a good tasting liquid (I'm presently using cider), add dried fruit and nuts, possibly a sweetener- honey, brown sugar, agave nectar or maple syrup all work- it tastes good. Give it a try.
Lightweight freaks can try making it with dehydrated water.
Dave
poor beagle, not to mention your
poor wife…yuck!
Line the trays with parchment paper to keep little bits from falling through. It makes for instant clean up - of the trays not the kennel:)
Thanks for the post about dehydrating pasta, that’s cool, definitely.
the peas : )
Not to make too much fun of the pea fiasco, but that sounds hilarious…up until the part about cleaning the kennel. Dehydrating hasn’t created that much excitement around here. Basically it’s just watching perfectly good food shrivel up into hard, discolored bits. But you have to have faith that it will once again become something to please the palate.
Sharon
BakePacker
Another friend of mine carries a BakePacker. This is a really niffty set of pots and inner pot racks that basicly steam your food. He was producing things like blueberry muffins for breakfast and calzones/pizzas for supper. Had all of our mouths watering with the smells. Plus all the water left in the pot was then used for things like coffee/tea and if no one needed the water it was used for washing up with. Boiled water is never wasted. The food being cooked is in plastic baggies so all his cleanup was to dry the pots and put the used baggies in the trash bag.
Thanks
Now that’s it winter, and I have some time, I think I’m going to play around with all those ideas!
Pre-cook…
Last trip I made Sausage gravy and froze it into daily size servings in ziplock bags. Kept in the bottom of the cooler, the last batch was still partially frozen on the last day.
I also pre-baked biscuits and froze them too.
I had biscuits and gravy every morning with almost no work at all.
No more peas please!
I had to promise I wouldn’t dehydrate peas anymore.
I guess the dehydrated noodles could be used in something like rice a roni. Just not sure why I wouldn’t just go and buy a box of “the San Francisco Treat” and save all the trouble. Anyone ever dried some cooked wild rice? Maybe I will try it today, using the herb screens of course.
Tom
“Dehydrated water”.
Went over a few heads, I think. Very funny. Does it take much water to rehydrate it? lol
YoS
I’m camping w/ you this Spring, darn it.
Yakjak and I have been talking about a Spring camp along Sugar Creek. We wanted to last year, but then it got hot, then the water level dropped, etc. May might be a good time . . . .
I picked up a Coleman grill/stove for around $30 at Target after Christmas.
http://www.coleman.com/coleman/colemancom/detail.asp?product_id=9922-A50&categoryid=2010
Plan to have some nice lunches at break while we’re paddling this year. ;~)
We should be able to do a lot w/ it camping too. I might just need someone with a nice pack canoe willing to carry it, as I don’t think it will fit in my hatch.
YoS