When I do my "sauce" I don't use sauce at all. I start with canned tomato paste. Mix in my spices - spread on parchment paper and dry until it is brittle. Once dry break it into chunks and grind it into a fine powder in my Magic Bullet.
I place this fine powder in a small zip lock, place the small zip lock into the large one that has the dehydrated pasta and sausage, add a small zip lock of cheese and close.
When I get to camp I heat the water, empty the "sauce" and sausage into the large bag - add the hot water and put the freezer bag into the cozy. When it is "cooking" I set up my tent.
By the time the tent is setup dinner is just about done.
"Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed, is more important than any other one thing." Abraham Lincoln (1855)
Dogs are excellent judges of character, this fact goes a long way toward explaining why some people don't like being around them.
Woo
The texture in my product is like fruit leather. I have been told that it is best to use a sauce that has little or no oil and little or no cheese (do not add cheese, carry it separately). The batch I am drying as I write this is throwing a little oil around the edges, so I am thinking it had too much fat in it to be ideal. Never less, I am using it later this week, so as long as I can get it to the fruit leather stage, I will be good, I am sure.
I see a couple of causes here. A half inch deep spread is too deep. You need to get it thinner, to less than a quarter inch.
It’s best to have air flowing across the top of the tray to help drying, but I’m not sure how you could do this without a dehydrator.
Also, 170 F is a little high for dehydrating, and could cause the sauce to start cooking.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
So after dehydrating the pasta and pasta sauce, can you just put it in a Ziploc bag and push the air out? Should I put an oxygen obsorber packet it with the Ziploc bag?
When I was into my heavy gluten phase I processed beaucoup vegetarian spaghetti for my backpacking trips. Here's how I did it---
** Cook up one box of spaghetti, drain water etc.
** Add sufficient pasta sauce from jars of your choice.
** Mix everything together, add some mushrooms if desired.
* The spaghetti meal is now ready to eat but don't eat it and instead place all of it on dehydrator trays with silicone sheets and have at it.
A full box of noodles with sauce once dried will fill a one gallon ziploc bag---see below---and this bag lasted me 9 days on the trail as dinners.
TRIP 137 014-L.jpg
Btw, to prepare just place a certain amt of dried spaghetti in cook pot, add sufficient water and bring to boil and shut off stove---place in pot cozy for 30 minutes and eat.
Unless its real chunky and relatively dry I always use parchment paper on the trays to start. I do a top to bottom rotation and when the top is set, flip the food over without the parchment paper. It can be a juggling act.
Others are right, you need the airflow, that's important.
This week I've done jambalaya from the Hungry Hammock Hanger and Honeymoon Lake Cheese Noodles from "Backpack Gourmet". Waiting for plastic rolls to arrive so that I can vacuum seal the individual meals.
Making your own is better and cheaper than buying meals.
76 HawkMtn w/Rangers
14 LHHT
15 Girard/Quebec/LostTurkey/Saylor/Tuscarora/BlackForest
16 Kennerdell/Cranberry-Otter/DollyS/WRim-NCT
17 BearR
18-19,22 AT NOBO 1562.2
22 Hadrian's Wall
23 Cotswold Way
This is almost exactly what I've been looking for!
Question: Do you think it's possible to use the powdered like a seasoning? I.e.: have a jar of the stuff to scoop out and add to plain Ramen noodles? I envision homemade (read healthy option) Italian, Curry, or Chinese-style powdered bark to liven up trail-bought staples.
"Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time; it is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable."
--Sydney J. Harris
Looks tasty!
I drive off most of the water while it’s still in the pot, makes a huge difference.