I'm going to use this thread to introduce to others what Susan and i do to prepare food/s for backpacking, but also give some recipes we use and have developed. I will also give "Meal Planning" ideas we either use or look at.
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Susan and I grow 70-85% of our yearly vegetables here at home, and 90%-95% of our backpacking vegetables and ingredients we use.
We have a rather inexpensive food dryer. I think we spent maybe $50 for it 3-4 years ago. From October through May, it is running almost 24/7, drying foods either for our winter consumption or for the following spring/summer meals.
Many veggies we dry and run through a blender to make powder: tomato, carrot, yam, garlic, onion, potato, etc. We use powdered veggies for sauces and soups, which cook up really quickly in a powder form.
NOTHING tastes better than home grown onion, green onion, or garlic powder. Oh, it is delicious, and to have something that good to flavor food on the trail is really a treat.
I take whole garlic and soak it in an olive brine from a commercial jar of green olives we love. We then slice the marinated garlic in thin slices, and dry it. Store it in a small freezer zip lok bag.
I have a vegetable peeler which actually shreds rood veggies into really thin, narrow, and long strips. I individually dry these strips of carrot, yam, sweet potato, and regular potato. When dry, I put the individual root crop between a cotton towel and smash them into small bits, storing the results in "labeled" small freezer zip lok bags.
On the trail, when making a Top Romen kind of soup base, I add some of these shredded veggies to the base, along w/ some tomato and/or garlic and onion powder, and I now have a different tasting soup.
I dry narrow onion and garlic slices. When dry, like the root crops, I smash some of the onion and some of the garlic - making powder out of the rest, and storing these in small freezer zip lok bags.
We dry all sorts of squash, including zucchini squash. The zucchini squash is the only one we don't powder.
Over the winter:
1. When we cook rice, we make more than what we need, then dry the leftover rice on the dryer, breaking it up when dry and storing it in zip lok bags. When cooked and dried like this, it heats up just as fast as "minute rice" and has not lose any of the nutrients associated with "processed" packaged instant rice.
2. When we have a tomato sauce, we will make way too much, then dry what is left over. When it is dried, we break it into pieces and store and use it for backpacking.
3. When we make a thick/hearty soup we will make a lot of it, and dry it like the tomato sauce above.
4. When we "entertain" or are going to a pot luck, we will make extra humus, and dry it for backpacking.
5. Slice cabbage thin, dry it, smash it into little pieces, store in zip lok bag.
We buy sun dried apricot and peach halves, and dried blueberries (NOT dehydrated).
I may think of other stuff later, but basically, for meal preparation we have:
Tomatoes: pieces and powder
Onion: pieces and powder
Garlic: slices, pieces and powder
Marinated garlic: slices
yams: slices, pieces and powder
Sweet Potato: slices, pieces and powder
Squashes: powdered
Carrot: pieces and powder
Soups: powdered
Green onion: thin sliced
Apricots:
Peaches;
Blueberries:
Humus: powder
I'm sure I am missing something. As I think of an ingredient, I will add it.
We buy commercial dried:
beans (several varieties)
honey
peanut butter
maple syrup
I will now let you try to figure out what you might do with these ingredients. I can tell you, I eat royally.Last edited by Eaglebait Ranch; 05-15-2010, 05:45 PM.Chuck
So. Oregon
TRAIL NAME:Billy's Buddy
TRAIL POUNDER:Backcountry/higher elevations of Trinity, Marble, Siskiyou, and Cascade Mountains
SHARE TRAIL WITH:Billy Bob (llama), Squeaky (Dog), and sometimes with Susan (Partner/wife/friend)
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Thanks Eaglebait, great crop action here! Thanks for your efforts! It's a great thread, perhaps when planting time comes round again you add more worthwhile words! Jazzed at reading your thoughts! Thank you for your time!
Which PB(peanut butter) do you buy? How do you pack that? Zip-loc baggies, right?Last edited by renodesertfox; 10-19-2010, 02:47 AM.Get campin', Renodesertfox A canvas campateer
Campin' Here Between Campouts! Cleverly disguised as a responsible adult
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Originally posted by renodesertfox View PostWhich PB(peanut butter) do you buy? How do you pack that? Zip-loc baggies, right?
1. P-butter is something that doesn't have to be refrig'd. It is stored in a plastic tube kind of thing, like a tooth paste tube, w/ an open end to "load" p/butter in it.
2. Meals and dry good are packed in freezer quality zip lok bags.
I think the only things I take in a hard container is fuel for my stove and tooth powder.
Tooth powder - About a teaspoon full will last me a week on the trail. Figure the volume of paste needed and you can figure out I am packing less volume and weight by taking powder instead of paste.
Yes, I/we shorten the handle of a tooth brush, too.:oChuck
So. Oregon
TRAIL NAME:Billy's Buddy
TRAIL POUNDER:Backcountry/higher elevations of Trinity, Marble, Siskiyou, and Cascade Mountains
SHARE TRAIL WITH:Billy Bob (llama), Squeaky (Dog), and sometimes with Susan (Partner/wife/friend)
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