Dehydrating recipes

[Tipi Walter]

keep the ideas flowing. THX to all. I especially liked the dried squash soup leather, "green superfoods", and Logan bread suggestions. I hope Vegan Hiker and Tipi chime in.

I dry all my backpacking foods at home and have done the butternut squash soup leather thing for years. Here's my current procedure---

**Cook up a big pot of organic brown rice.
** Once cooked put into blender.
** Add butternut squash soup into blender with rice such as---



** Blend thoroughly using added water to allow blender to work well.
** Pour mix onto silicone dryer sheets and home dry and later ziplock.

By blending up the cooked rice you can rehydrate in the field quickly with no cooking and only bringing water to a boil to add to the mix and putting in pot cozy for 30 minutes.

You can do this blended brown rice trick with soups, tomato soups, vegetarian chilis like Amy's canned stuff, broccoli soups, etc.


Here is some dried sweet potato soup ready for the ziplock. Break it up and place it in your cook pot with water and bring to a boil and place in pot cozy for 30 minutes. Voila, you got soup.

[rocketsocks]

I dry all my backpacking foods at home and have done the butternut squash soup leather thing for years. Here's my current procedure---

**Cook up a big pot of organic brown rice.
** Once cooked put into blender.
** Add butternut squash soup into blender with rice such as---



** Blend thoroughly using added water to allow blender to work well.
** Pour mix onto silicone dryer sheets and home dry and later ziplock.

By blending up the cooked rice you can rehydrate in the field quickly with no cooking and only bringing water to a boil to add to the mix and putting in pot cozy for 30 minutes.

You can do this blended brown rice trick with soups, tomato soups, vegetarian chilis like Amy's canned stuff, broccoli soups, etc.


Here is some dried sweet potato soup ready for the ziplock. Break it up and place it in your cook pot with water and bring to a boil and place in pot cozy for 30 minutes. Voila, you got soup.

Walter am I understanding this right right that the rice/soup leather then rehydrates back into a soup...Brilliant!

[Tipi Walter]

Walter am I understanding this right right that the rice/soup leather then rehydrates back into a soup...Brilliant!

Exactly. Liquid soups are a no-brainer and rehydrate perfectly. The only purpose of running some things thru a blender is to liquefy the ingredients allowing for much better rehydrating in the field. My current fave is to take Amy's veggie chili in a can and mix with brown rice in the blender and pour onto drying sheets.


Or you can just dry the chili up by itself. Cooked brown rice dries up to hard kernels but blending allows for much easier rehydrating on a trip. I put a can of chili in the blender with brown rice and as mentioned blend the whole wad and then dry.



You can also bake butternut squash with olive oil in the oven and mash onto drying trays and put in ziplocks to later add to soups. Works great.

[Venchka]

Follow up questions:
Dehydrating time and temperature?
Proportions of rice to packaged soup?
Would there be any advantage to running the dried leather through the blender to enhance rehydration?
Thanks for all of your help!
Wayne

I dry all my backpacking foods at home and have done the butternut squash soup leather thing for years. Here's my current procedure---

**Cook up a big pot of organic brown rice.
** Once cooked put into blender.
** Add butternut squash soup into blender with rice such as---



** Blend thoroughly using added water to allow blender to work well.
** Pour mix onto silicone dryer sheets and home dry and later ziplock.

By blending up the cooked rice you can rehydrate in the field quickly with no cooking and only bringing water to a boil to add to the mix and putting in pot cozy for 30 minutes.

You can do this blended brown rice trick with soups, tomato soups, vegetarian chilis like Amy's canned stuff, broccoli soups, etc.


Here is some dried sweet potato soup ready for the ziplock. Break it up and place it in your cook pot with water and bring to a boil and place in pot cozy for 30 minutes. Voila, you got soup.

[Tipi Walter]

Follow up questions:
Dehydrating time and temperature?
Proportions of rice to packaged soup?
Would there be any advantage to running the dried leather through the blender to enhance rehydration?
Thanks for all of your help!
Wayne

For healthier food I believe the secret in dehydrating is to keep the temps between 105 and 115F. Of course, this lengthens drying time but protects the food enzymes . . . possibly. (Esp true for fresh stuff like tomatoes and mushrooms and veggies). Time is based on when it's dry. (The eyeball and finger check).

Proportions of rice is based on the container size of your blender. I like to get a lot of rice into the blender, maybe half full, and then add the soup and then the water. When everything is right the mix should come all the way up to the top lid of the blender as you keep adding water to allow the blades to work. If it's too thick you can pour off some and keep adding water until it blends easily and thoroughly. It dries faster if the mix is wetter and not too thick.

No advantage to chopping up the dried leather---just fold and ziploc as is and break up into pot and boil on your trip.

[Venchka]

Thanks Walter! Experimentation begins.
Wayne

[Dogwood]

Thx Tipi. I'm on the same page with everything you said. Great ideas . I really like the grated squash dried and broken into chips and the rice mixed in the blender with the other soup ingredients for the reasons you said.

[Secondmouse]

I've done kale, just salt. My dog likes em, and they're a low caloric snack.

lol, my dog like em. LOL...

[rocketsocks]

lol, my dog like em. LOL...

kinda funny watching em crunch.

[saltysack]

That's weird... I just realized no matter what color I put in my body it always makes brown.

Except yellow......corn


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[theinfamousj]

What does the brown rice do to make the soup rehydrate? And would a potato or white rice do the same?

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[Tipi Walter]

What does the brown rice do to make the soup rehydrate? And would a potato or white rice do the same?

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Brown rice itself does nothing to "make soup rehydrate"---it's just a tasty ingredient which is generally difficult to prepare on a backpacking trip. Most store-bought dehydrated brown rice is trash and inedible in my opinion. And of course cooking up raw brown rice in the field takes too long. Dehydrating brown rice turns it into hard kernels which don't reconstitute well in the field. SO I blend it up with other foods to produce a sort of rice gruel which mixes well with soups and beans and chilis etc.

Plus, brown rice mixed with beans offers interesting protein potentials. I prepare my home-cooked brown rice with plenty of olive oil and salt---and once cooked blend it in with other foods ETC.

Regarding potatoes, here's a batch of oven baked sweet potatoes on a drying tray. Once dried it mixes well with soups etc and doesn't really need to be blended up.



For those whole eat dairy you can make a great cream of wheat type meal blending up cooked brown rice with whole milk (and some honey if needed) and place on trays to dry---


Some brown rice/milk mix ready to dry.


Here is the result in the field (this batch was brown rice with milk and honey and peanut butter all blended together to form a hot morning cereal.

[Greenmountainguy]

The best place I have found for dehydrating recipes is:
http://www.backpackingchef.com/dehydrating-food.html

[Venchka]

The best place I have found for dehydrating recipes is:
http://www.backpackingchef.com/dehydrating-food.html

That might be true but a person could starve to death wading though all of those links.
Wayne


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[jjozgrunt]

Here's some info that I put together for some people I walk with who were just getting into doing their own meals.

Dehydrating
1. Mince must be lean and preferably cooked first and the oil drained off. Oil can make the meal go rancid. Take oil in sachets or small bottle and add when meal is re-hydrating. 1 gram olive oil = 9 calories. I usually add 10 – 15 grams per meal.
2. Vegetables cut small or shredded with a grater. The smaller the pieces the better the rehydration.
3. One tray should have your control meal to get the weight/qty of the meal right. Serve up 1 normal size meal, I add 30% to account for extra hunger, and place on a tray by itself. If you are doing meals for 2 double it. When dried, weight this meal and then make all the rest the same weight.
4. Use Freeze dried rice. Add the rice to the dried meal, don’t cook it.
5. I use risoni pasta, seed sized pasta, for those meals requiring pasta. It dries and rehydrates very quickly. I cook them and add them to the meal to get the weight right, before drying.
6. Use dried spices and spice mixes as bottle mixes, especially curries, contain a lot of oil.
7. If you want to use cream, use powdered coconut cream.
8. Don’t have overly spicy meals.
9. Add salt and pepper to taste in the meal.
Pasta
1. Cook the mince, drain the oil and set aside.
2. Grate onions, zucchini and carrot and add to a non-stick pan. Cook until onion translucent.
3. Add mince with tomato paste, can/s tomatoes, spices, salt, pepper and cup of beef stock. Cook and simmer to reduce liquid.
4. Add can/s of brown lentils a couple of minutes before serving.
5. Cook risoni pasta.
6. Add pasta and sauce together, mix, and divide into portions for drying.
7. To rehydrate, just cover the contents of the bag with boiled water and set aside for 6-10 minutes. You can also add it to boiling water in a pot and simmer.
All in the pot (AIP)
1.Use the same veggies as with pasta and you can also add diced capsicum, beans etc.
2.Cook the mince, drain the oil and set aside.
3.Grate onions, zucchini, carrot and any other veggies and add to a non-stick pan. Cook until onion translucent. Don’t add beans here, add them with lentils or at the end.
4.Add mince, can/s tomatoes, spices, salt, pepper and cup of beef/chicken stock. Cook and simmer to reduce liquid.
5.Add lentils, beans at the last and simmer.

I add a packet of commercial dried spice mix, such as a hot pot.
I add, in a separate packet, deb potato or similar to have with it.


Curry
1. Made with mince, chicken, lamb, or beef. You can also make with just veggies but you need beans and/or lentils for protein.
2. Cook the mince, drain the oil and set aside.
3. Grate or finely dice veggies such as onions, zucchini, carrot, capsicum etc add to a non-stick pan. Cook until onion translucent.
4. Add mince, can/s tomatoes, Curry spices, salt, pepper, cup/s of beef/chicken stock and powdered coconut cream. Cook and simmer to reduce liquid.
5. You can add lentils, beans at the last and simmer.
Dehydrate this first and then add freeze dried rice.
Don’t use bottled/wet packet spice mixes as they have too much oil and the meal can go rancid.

Noodle magic

This good for adding to noodles to give it some flavour and taste.

1. Cook up some veggies, your choice, in a non stick pan. little to no oil.
2. Add spices ect
3. Dehydrate and then if you wish add some freeze dried meat, and package. You don't need a lot, I usually do about 50 grams packages.
4. Add to noodles, boiling water and a you have a better tasting meal.

You can get freeze dried meat from the USA, I get mine from Packit Gourmet and add it to your dehydrated meal before packaging (they have chicken, beef cubes, sausage). If you're using commercial packets of rice or pasta then just add the meat when rehydrating for protein.

[D.D.Bear]

Here is the result in the field (this batch was brown rice with milk and honey and peanut butter all blended together to form a hot morning cereal.

I have GOT to try this. Thanks, Tipi!

[rocketsocks]

Brown rice itself does nothing to "make soup rehydrate"---it's just a tasty ingredient which is generally difficult to prepare on a backpacking trip. Most store-bought dehydrated brown rice is trash and inedible in my opinion. And of course cooking up raw brown rice in the field takes too long. Dehydrating brown rice turns it into hard kernels which don't reconstitute well in the field. SO I blend it up with other foods to produce a sort of rice gruel which mixes well with soups and beans and chilis etc.

Plus, brown rice mixed with beans offers interesting protein potentials. I prepare my home-cooked brown rice with plenty of olive oil and salt---and once cooked blend it in with other foods ETC.

Regarding potatoes, here's a batch of oven baked sweet potatoes on a drying tray. Once dried it mixes well with soups etc and doesn't really need to be blended up.



For those whole eat dairy you can make a great cream of wheat type meal blending up cooked brown rice with whole milk (and some honey if needed) and place on trays to dry---


Some brown rice/milk mix ready to dry.


Here is the result in the field (this batch was brown rice with milk and honey and peanut butter all blended together to form a hot morning cereal.

thats some outta box dehydrating there, nice!