Hikerdad said:
What ideas do you folks have for dehydrating food for backpacking? I've done the obligatory apple and banana chips (worked great) and of course jerky is a favorite...last time we ran out at home even before the trip...later found out son #2 had taken most of it to school and was selling it...
I experimented with spaghetti sauce and loose hamburger meat but it looked a bit gross when I rehydrated it at home.
What have you guys had success with? I have one of those inexpensve dehydraters with the round trays.....
Thanks,
You can, and I do, dehydrate just about anything that does not have excessive fat in it. The biggest mistake to be made when rehydrating is trying to rush the process. Fruits and some other things don't have to be rehydrated, but may be made into a nice sauce if you do. Anything else I want moist and hot requires a full 20 minutes to rehydrate as a rule of thumb. Pour boiling water on the dry food either in a pot or heat proof bag, usually to an inch above the food level. Stir, then insulate it with a fleece jacket or anything you have (I made a fleece cozy bag to put the pot in). For most hard-dry items you must wait a full 20 minutes. In 10 minutes you will be disappointed. Check at 15 for enough water, otherwise don't peek. Wait 20, it will stay plenty hot in the insulating cozy. If you haven't insulated well enough you can reheat gently at the end. A very few items will benefit from gently heating on a low flame at the beginning of rehydrating.
Dry any kind of sliced fresh fruit, or make fruit roll up leathers with any fruit, fresh or canned - just puree with applesauce or crushed pineapple to give the leathery texture. Melons are great. Watermelon slices become sweet candy. Slice apples in a bowl and coat with brown sugar, cinnamon, and a splash of lemon juice for a few minutes before drying. Bananas can be splashed with lemon juice also, or soaked in pineapple juice - dry the pineapple at the same time.
Hamburger (or sausage) gravel you have already seen posted here - I cook the lean meat well along with onions and herbs, making sure it is broken up small, drain, and press between 2 cookie sheets with paper towels to squeeze out excess fat. I've recently been drying a lot of corned beef. Boil it (try it boiled in Guinness), slice it, cut off fat, dry it. You can either keep it as corned beef jerky, or pulverize it in a food processor or blender. It comes out kind of like bacon bits and can be added to anything. You can also dry until crispy those pouches of already "dry" sliced beef, but rinse the slices under water first to get rid of the extreme amount of salt. Try corned beef hash out of a can. Dry it, and it rehydrates back to original condition. Try to find the low fat version, but the regular kind works ok.
Vegetables - Shave raw carrots using a vegetable peeler or a coarse cheese grater and dry. Mix with other things or eat as a dry snack. Dry carrots have kind of the mouth feel of coconut and tastes sweet. I love to cook onions, tomatoes, and zuchinni in a sauce, then dry into a leather. Mushrooms dry to zero weight and recover nicely or can be powdered. Dehydrated cabbage rehydrates perfectly - be creative with it. Saurkraut recovers nicely or becomes a fun dry snack, as do sliced pickles. As we speak I have several cans of creamed corn drying in my dehydrator. I'll either break up the resulting dry corn into small pieces or I'll pulverize it in a processor before bagging. Refried beans and salsa - dry separately, mix together to rehydrate, meat optional, fresh grated cheese a luxury, serve on a flour tortilla in the wilderness.
Casseroles and the like - anything you make at home, dry it. Look up some regular home made potato and vegetable casserole recipes and try them. If you like them at home you will like them dried and rehydrated on the trail. Try mashed potatoes mixed with creamed soup and bits of cooked vegetables. Spinach casseroles, including those with eggs and cheese, work great also. Spaghetti can be dried either with sauce and pasta mixed together or dried separately. Cook the pasta normally at home and it will rehydrate in a few minutes under boiling water, either by itself or smothered in your favorite sauce. Don't forget the 20 minute rule. Spaghetti sauce can be dried separately if you prefer, either into a leather and folded or rolled, or dried further and powdered in a food processor or blender. The most wonderful dried sauce is regular spaghetti sauce mixed with cooked pureed together pinto beans, onions, mushrooms, and black olives. Mix optionally with hamburger or sausage "gravel" to rehydrate. Home made Chili with beans works well also, as does any rice dish. Try jambalaya made with shrimp and meat pieces cut up very small.
You know those bricks of hash brown potatoes you get at McDonalds? Buy them frozen at the supermarket. Break apart and dry them, crush into small pieces. Rehydrate in a cup for 5 minutes (not 20). Mix with some rehydrated corned beef and fix up a package of McCormick's Country Gravy. I buy dehydrated eggs (don't home dry uncooked eggs) from kingarthurflour.com to scramble. Yum.
The bible of regular food dehydrating is "Mary Bell's Complete Food Dehydrator Cookbook". If you cook at home you don't really need another cookbook to do this, but for new ideas especially for camping I most highly recommend "Backpack Gourmet: Good Hot Grub You Can Make at Home, Dehydrate, and Pack for Quick, Easy, and Healthy Eating on the Trail" by Linda Frederick Yaffe.
To get other ideas of what you can dry, look at
http://trailfoods.com. From what I have seen of their products, you get much the same as you would dry at home (dehydrator dried, not freeze-dried), and vacuum packaged.
I store everything dry in the freezer until I'm ready to camp with it, just to be sure it stays fresh, especially if it has much oil or fat. But most everything will stay fresh for many weeks at room temp if well sealed. Again, don't forget to insulate most items hot for at least 20 minutes as the most important rule for success.
