Hi guys,
got a dehydrator for my birthday, and have been using to mainly to make jerky,
dried fruit...

I was wondering if anyone has some simple recipes for rehydrating meals to take
on long camping trips/road trips?

I was thinking, if I could work out some entrees, and mix them at home, then
preparing the food would really be just a matter of simmering it on a camp
stove.

also, maybe some recipes for pasta sauces and things?

I got the dehydrator part of it worked out pretty well (steam blanching....)
but the actual preparation of the resulting foods still eludes me.

thanks
john

On 31 Oct 2003 11:37:54 GMT, (Bpyboy) wrote:

>Hi guys,
> got a dehydrator for my birthday, and have been using to mainly to make jerky,
>dried fruit...
>
>I was wondering if anyone has some simple recipes for rehydrating meals to take
>on long camping trips/road trips?
>
>I was thinking, if I could work out some entrees, and mix them at home, then
>preparing the food would really be just a matter of simmering it on a camp
>stove.
>
>also, maybe some recipes for pasta sauces and things?
>
>I got the dehydrator part of it worked out pretty well (steam blanching....)
>but the actual preparation of the resulting foods still eludes me.
>
>thanks
>john
I have had a dehydrator for a few years - and yes, one of the things
it is great for is getting organised for camping trips. Particularly
if back country hiking or canoeing, where, at some point everything ,
including food has to be carried.

We have successfully adapted 'home' recipes for camping. Meals such as
noodles and sauce, with a bit of vegetable oil as a substitute for
margarine, powdered milk powder, water, and a bit of dehydrated tuna
makes a great quick energy meal when you want something warm. Yes,
the noodles and sauce are runny, but when at home do you make them
that they don't firm up until the next day when you take them from the
fridge as left overs?

Usually we find the trick to preparing a camping meal that includes
de-hydrated ingrediants is to let the dried bits soak in a zip lock
bag for a few hours if it is meats, veg, maybe overnight if it is dry
beans. That way you don't turn other ingredients into a soggy mess
while trying to boil enough water back into the dehydrated parts so
that they are not too crunchy. Pre trip trials at home is the best
way - make your regular meals using dehydrated bits from time to
time.- it is good practice. Recipies can be adapted while the full
range of the spice rack is at hand too. Spices go a long way to
brightening up camping meals for the weight that carring the right
amounts entail.

For tuna, we buy a cheap brand packed in water, cut the lid out, and
use it to squeeze as much water as we can out while it is still in the
can. Then fork the compressed cake out of the can onto the dryer
tray. Break it up on the tray again before it is totally dry, or you
will have to cut it apart with scissors. If texture isn't important,
just the energy, then we have resorted to cutting with scissors, and
then taking the resulting big bits and throuwing them into the
blender's 'spices' small bottle. This turns the whole thing to a dust.
It rehydrates as a paste when this is done, and can re-hydrate faster
the smaller the bits - i.e more surface area for the water to work
on..

For chicken, forget it - too high a fat content to make even lean
chicken breast chopped to bits, dehydrated them rehydrated worth the
taste - it comes back like a leather, and then never seems to get
softer before it would otherwise start to grow bacteria.

For ground beef, if you are a real carnivore, then jerky is feasible,
as is drying it out after the ground beef has been fried, but we find
it is a lot of work.

If the texture and energy of ground beef are the aim, go for a
commercially produced dry product called TVP (texturised vegatable
protien). It is made from soya beans (yes, tofu is too, and I am no
tofu lover) but this stuff makes a quite credible substitute for
ground beef in stews, spagetti sauce, etc. We like it enough we
actually use it half and half at home for chili and spagetti sauces.
It is available where we live at a bulk food store - bulk barn.

For spagetti sauce for camping we use TVP, dried green peppers, dried
onoins, dreid tomatoes (that are not totally dry) spices, and a can of
tomatoe paste. You can dry the tomaotoe paste to do without the can,
but it takes a very long time to dry, and even longer to come back.
Again -bulk barn sells tomoatoe powder that is usually our choice when
we are off into a no cans allowed back country camping area.

Green peepers actually get bought in bulk by us in the summer when
they are cheap (ours this year were $8 for a bushel worth), then
sliced, de-seeded, dried, stuuck into zip lock bags, ticked in turn
into a cookie tin, and thrown into the freezer. The freezer is
ususally low humidity, and it also means that the last drip of water
doesnt have to be squeezed out of the food being dried to keep it afe
for a few weeks of beingout of the freezer on a camping trip before it
is otherwise consumed.

We also have a few jars of hotter chili peppres in the fridge at the
back - a lot of the spice seems to be in the oils of the little ones
that just wont dry to the last mile because of them.

To use the green peppers though te year at home, take out what you
need in the morning - dried food usually requires at least 8 hours of
forethought to make the meal preparation easy. Put them in a spare
jar, bowl, etc, fill with water, and pop into the fridge, in case that
meal plans get put off by a day. A few hours later the green peppers
look like when you cut them up in August.

Onions get dried for camping, but otherwise keep well enough in the
basement that we dont generally dry them.

Dried green peepers, dried onions, dried diced pricessed ham loaf, and
powdered potatoe flakes make a good camping meal. Soak all but the
potatoes starting at lunch. Mix the potatoes as a bit thick, throw in
the drained other bits. Make into balls, and fry in a little oil in a
fry pan or pot lid for potatoe cakes.

Mushrooms, dried, green peppers dried, and TVP, with noodles, and a
mushroom soup powder - again - bulk barn , though I guess you could
dry this one yourself- make a good stroganoff.

Pre-soaked barley, red lentils, dried onions, oil, basil, salt, and
water make a gret camping stew that is made even tastier by tossing in
dreid mixed veg (take out the big beans before drying) created by
dehydrating the frozen mixed veg bag when it goes on sale at the
supermarket. Lentisl are the best legume for camping - no pre-soaking
required.

Take out Chineses food packets of soy sauce, combined with packets
vinegar, dreid pinapple bits, dried apple bits, and dried pear bits,
for instance and a bit of brown sugar make a tasty combination over
rice as a sweet and sour dish.

Dried apple pieces, cut small after drying the slices, combined with
raisins, and cinnamon, nutmeg, brown sugar, and instant powdered milk
powder make a qucjk cook oatmeal breakfast that can be served a few
days in a row without complaints.

A dutch spice, called nasi goreng, I believe, also makes a good with
rice meal. Some dried mixed veg create a nice texture variation to
what is otherwise a tasty meal. For camping I break down and buy
instant rice. I know it is a shabby substitue to what is steamed at
home, but it is too long to cook at camp, and half way though
something like pumping up the stove comes up that causes you to forget
the rice, and it ends up a less then satisfying meal and clean up
task. For meals like this, take a rubber spatula along, get the food
out of the pot, put a drop of detergent into the pot, with a bit of
water, and put the lid on, Then the pot can simmer for a few minutes.
The water is warm to do other dishes at the end of the meal, and the
lid on has steamed most of the pot clean with minimal scrubbing needed
at the end.

Pancakes, with dried blue berries, or rasberries toosed in the mix is
a big hit too, although cooking them over a gas stove in an aluminum
fry pan is a skill to be mastered at home before counting on them as a
meal that resemble home cooked pancakes. Take a small bottle of
syrup; otherwise the brown sugar gets used up too fast.

As you see, the bulk of these things are what you might cook at home
(other than barbequed foods) that combine some thing dry, with
something that has been dehrydrated, with something generally light
and tasty.

All the best with your experimenting.

wow, thanks for the info!

I'm playing around with the thing. It seems that it takes a lot of baby
sitting to make all the things dry evenly, but it's ok, as you are always in
there noodling around anyway!

thanks again.
John

Do you have any good book recomendations on the subject?

thanks! I'm trying not to destroy too much in the process of learning how to
use this thing.

As a side note, I recently learned how to boil water, and actually bought a
veggie steamer to blanch the food.
There maybe hope for me yet.

Bpyboy wrote:

> also, maybe some recipes for pasta sauces and things?

It's not exactly a traditional pasta sauce, but if you take dehydrated
portobello mushrooms, soak them a couple hours in water (you can do it
in a
Nalgene as you approach camp), you have a good start. Drain the
mushrooms into a cup, squeezing gently. Sautee onions (if using
fresh), and fresh garlic in a little olive oil. Add mushrooms, sautee
for a while. Pour in mushroom broth and add dehydrated (or sun-dried)
tomatoes and onion (if using dried). Add a bit of salt, some thyme
if you have it, maybe some rosemary or something and cook to reduce
the broth. If you wanna be really fancy, mix a bit of flour (a
teaspoon, max) with cold water and pour into the sauce to thicken it.

David