Salton Dehydrator

I've been using a Salton Dehydrator that I purchased at Walmart for about $50 for the last two summers. 

It's been a trusty tool, very essential to our success on our trips. With most of our food dehydrated, our packs are much lighter, our food is delicious and healthy, and we probably save a ton of money.

This stuff ain't cheap!

7-day trip menu

Spiced up chicken (I used canned from Costco)

Granola 

Fruit Leather

The two baggies hold one jar of sauce

Eggs and ham

I've gotten a lot of use out of my dehydrator and I've had no problem with it. It sits on an apartment-sized dryer in my kitchen. It's next to a window and I have to make sure that the window is closed for optimal function of the dehydrator. I think a breezy, cool day impedes its best performance.

I ordered special liners for my trays. The solid ones are used for the liquids, such as fruit leather and salsa. The other ones are used for items that shrink to a tiny size as they dry out such as blueberries and peas.

I think I might invest in a bigger dehydrator this spring. However, this one has suited me well. Two of my non-camping friends even bought one after hearing about me rave what a great appliance this is. Seriously, pineapple dried in this tastes amazing and you don't have to go camping to appreciate that!

Planning food for a 7 day trip

And.....we're almost off!  Here's what I'm packing for a seven day trip.  Our loop is 79.3 km in total distance with over 15 km of portaging.  Phew!

Breakfasts:

• One of fresh eggs (LT is bringing the pre-cooked bacon)
• Two dehydrated eggs with dried ham breakfast
• Two blueberry pancakes (LT is bringing the maple syrup)
• One banana nut oatmeal breakfast

Breakfast minus the bacon and maple syrup

Lunches:

LT has decided to cut back on lunches, we are bringing 3 shared lunches.  I am integrating the concept of making a single lunch for myself at breakfast, putting the dried food into a thermos with boiling water at breakfast and eating it later on the trail.  

• Rice, salsa, veggies, and chicken
• Rice, chicken, veggies and soy sauce
• Good old KD with cut up pepperettes
• Single lunches are rice, veggies and either chicken or beef

+ the Thermos I'm trying this trip

Dinners:

• Soft tacos with salsa, chicken, veggies, and cheese strings
• Pizza with fresh dough crust, veggies, cheese strings, and cut up pepperettes
• 2 dinners of Pasta with sauce, ground meat and veggies
• Chicken and rice with veggies and salsa

Dinner choices

Desserts:

• Banana nut bread pudding (3 of these)
• Fruit crips (1 of this)
• Pineapple Upside Down Cake (2 of these)

Just Desserts! We'll have earned them...

Snacks:

• Dried bananas
• 4 dried pineapples
• Dried cherries
• Bannock
• Cinnamon buns (with fresh dough mix)
• York Peppermint Patties (after dinner snack)
• A few bars
• Gum
• Walnuts
• Almonds
• Pistachios
• Tea bags, sugar, salt and pepper (not in picture)

Yum-yum!

Stuff from the fridge: butter, cheese, pepperettes

What's going in the dry food bag

I will weigh the bag once it is fully packed and update this post with the final weight.  This is the bag I usually carry.  If it's over 10 pounds I might want to convince LT to take some of it.  :-)  

14.2 pounds.  And it doesn't all fit in the food dry bag, but it does fit in my pack. Okay, wait, no, it doesn't fit in my pack..... ;-P

Making Dehydrated Eggs

My only experience with powdered eggs is the $1.99 breakfast at Ikea's. I used to work right next door to the Ottawa Ikea years ago and the only way they could keep the price that low is powdered eggs. I'm assuming. Also, they only serve it for about an hour in the morning, open at 10, breakfast until 11. I tried it once with my co-workers, then just switched to their massive cinnamon buns. (Shhhh, I didn't really say that!)

I hear that powdered eggs are almost always gross. Chef Glenn has a solution. It takes a bit of work in the kitchen, but it produces palatable scrambled eggs in camp. He doesn't give the recipe for free on his web site, so I'm going to be respectful and not give you the proportions of ingredients. But I'll explain the process.

Having eggs for breakfast while canoe camping is great. We need protein, especially if it's going to be a travel day, something that's going to give us energy and strength to push through the morning.

This egg recipe is not just eggs, it's a hybrid version. The eggs are mixed with polenta. The first step is to make a batch of polenta. Once it has cooled slightly it is mixed into some eggs that have been beaten so the yolk and whites are completely mixed. The whole batch is put into the oven to bake, you need to stir it a couple of times during baking. I don't even add salt or pepper. I bring those along and much like my cooking at home, I salt when I'm going to eat it, except for baking when it's in a recipe.

Ready for the oven

Once it is baked, you take it out of the oven and put it on the dehydrator trays. His recipe says it takes about 4 hours to dehydrate. I have a less expensive dehydrator, so I often find that it takes a bit longer to dry for me. 

Out of the oven

Here's a picture of the tray ready to go into the dehydrator.

And this is what the 5 trays of eggs look like when they are finished drying:

I also dehydrate some canned ham to add to these eggs when we're going to eat them. I got these cans, 4 for $5, at Food Basics yesterday.

As I mentioned, I'm not a powder egg connoissuer. However, LT is and the first time he tasted these he really liked them. This batch I am making above is coming along with us for a 7 day trip we're taking in September.

Making Lunch at Breakfast

Are you trying to figure out what the heck that title means? It's supposed to hook your interest!

While reading Chef Glenn's website recently, he had an idea that I decided to try out. When we have a travel day we often don't want to stop to make a hot lunch. Getting out the stove, having clean water to boil, dirtying pots and dishes and utensils - none of that really works when we just want to keep going.

Today I purchased a wide-mouthed Thermos bottle at Canadian Tire. When my son was young he refused to eat sandwiches for lunch at school. School lunches were often burritos or Jamaican patties that were heated up in the microwave and popped into a plastic wide-mouthed thermos that had been pre-heated with boiling water.

I did choose 3 different bottles at Canadian Tire and took them over to the kitchen scales section, but I didn't have enough nerve to set up any of the packaged scales to see which bottle was the lightest. I had to trust my own ability to see which one was lightest. I selected the following bottle:

It weighs 8.3 ounces (when empty) and holds 12 fluid ounces

Tonight I tested it out. I put in a single serving of rice, corn, peas, red peppers and canned ham - all dehydrated. I boiled water, added a cup, gave it a quick stir, closed the lid and let it sit for several hours. Okay, I'm not very patient, 2 1/2 hours. I opened it up and ta-dah! I had a meal ready to eat and it was warm. Steam came off of it when I put it in a bowl.

So at camp, when I'm boiling water for my tea at breakfast, I'm going to add a single serving meal to this baby, add the boiling water, carry it and have a hot lunch at the ready on the route! I just need to figure out how to keep a fork handy, I have a tendency to lose utensils on the trip.

It was yummy!

Food Planning and Preparation: Desserts!

Last, but not least - DESSERT!

I don't have many pictures because even though the desserts I've been making are yummy, they are not photogenic.

• Banana Nut Bread Pudding*
• Trail Angel Food Cake with Berries*
• Fruit Crisp
• Upside Down Pineapple Pudding Cake*

*Chef Glenn's recipes, the last one in the list above, he has on his website, make it!

Our number one favourite that we take on every trip is the Banana Nut Bread Pudding. It has dried bananas and dried Italian bread, walnuts, and sugar. I rehydrate the bananas with some sugar, then add the nuts and dried bread at the end, mix and devour.

The cake with berries is dried angel food cake, dried strawberries and a little bit of cocoa mix made into a chocolate sauce. The berries get rehydrated in boiling water, the sauce stirred up in a mug, then the 3 parts mixed together.

Fruit crisp is crumbled granola over rehydrated berries (usually frozen raspberries that have been dried) and a touch of sugar.

The last dessert is one I added to the rotation this year for the first time. It is a bit more of an effort to make, but it sure is delicious! It is one part instant vanilla pudding, one part dried pineapples rehydrated, one part dried angel food cake and coconut sprinkled on top.  I'm taking it on a trip this weekend with my brother's family.

3 dried pineapples - teacup for scale

Check out: 

• Breakfasts
• Lunches/Snacks
• Dinners

Food Planning and Preparation: Dinner

Dinner Options:

Dinner is the most fun meal to plan. I've had some hits and some misses. It is trial and error. Here are some of my favourites:

• Pizza (who doesn't LOVE pizza?)
• Soft tacos
• Spaghetti and meat sauce
• Rice and chicken
• Shepherd's pie

Our first night is always a fresh dinner. Beef stew, chili (as long as SOMEONE remembers to bring it!), and shepherd's pie are some of the dinners we've had. We usually don't bring raw meat. Often campers bring that for the first night, they freeze it first and it thaws slowly while you're paddling to that first campsite. We will freeze our fresh meal sometimes too.

But after that first night we only have dehydrated meals for dinner. Here's what makes each of them up:

Pizza:

I used to be able to buy a dry packaged mix for the crust, but I haven't been able to find it so far this season. I'd mix it up with water, let it rise in a warm place (one of my cozied pots), then I would rehydrate pizza sauce and veggies in a smaller pot. Once the dough is ready, I spread it into my oiled camping fry pan (no, I don't carry a cast iron pan camping, although I know it's a popular choice). I spread the pizza sauce and veggies onto it, then cut up some pepperettes and then pull apart several cheese strings to top it. I cover it up, place it on the stove with the diffuser plate and cover it with my camping "oven".  

The only trip we've had pizza on so far this year I made the dough from a dry scratch mix from home and yeast which I raised in my mug (I don't even raise pizza dough at home!) and we baked it on a fire that had burned down to embers. It was the best pizza I've ever made!

Soft Tacos:

This is one of my favourite meals right now. I get a package of the soft flour taco shells at Loblaws and leave the bag unopened for freshness. I buy canned white chicken meat to dehydrate. I mix it with taco seasoning then spread it out on the trays. It dries nicely. I also dehydrate salsa. I puree it first then spread it on the special fruit leather trays.

Chicken being prepped

Going into the dehydrator

In camp I make the meal by rehydrating the chicken, salsa and veggies together, then we build the tacos with that mixture and cheese strings.

Pasta and Meat Sauce:

I've learned from Chef Glenn to dehydrate ground beef by adding some bread crumbs to them during the cooking process.  It prevents the rehydrated beef from being hard pellets. I also try to use ground sirloin instead of regular beef. I dehydrate bottled pasta sauce, puree it first and pour one bottle onto two of my trays.  Each tray yields a circular sauce leather, perfect for 2 servings. I bag the sauce with a variety of dried vegetables. In camp I boil pasta and in a smaller pot rehydrate the pasta sauce and veggies. This can be a really filling meal.

Pasta sauce: 1 jar = 2 trays (each tray is 2 servings)

Rice and Chicken:

We like the rice and chicken combo and I've got a couple of versions I make. One is plain chicken with dried salsa and veggies, another is with chicken that I dried in soy sauce. Both are yummy and easy to prepare. We mix all the ingredients in a pot, add the boiling water, cover and let it rehydrate, stirring once in a while. 

Shepherd's Pie:

Here's where LT and I diverge on what we prefer. I LOVE the packaged dried mashed potatoes you can get at the grocery store for pretty cheap. He HATES them. My recipe for Shepherd's pie pretty much has to use the packaged mix. I've tried using Chef Glenn's instructions for drying mashed potatoes, but it flopped. I make the packaged potatoes according to the instructions (I add milk powder, water, butter) and rehydrate ground beef with dried corn in it. Pretty easy!

Check out: 

• Breakfast
• Lunches and Snacks
• Desserts

Food Planning and Preparation: Lunches and Snacks

Lunches:

Lunches have been a bit of a challenge for us. The first day we're fine, we have a fresh lunch. We've evolved the process to just packing cold meats, salamis, proscuitto, ones that aren't too delicate if they're not kept super cold. We have them with a nice cheese like gouda or edam. LT always supplies the first day lunch and we've had some really nice ones. We stopped bringing bread to have with the lunches as we've been finding it too heavy. He also cuts up fresh apples, pears and other fruit for the lunch and has started bagging it into two, one bag for each of us.

I have a salsa, rice, chicken and vegetables lunch we cook up. Each of those ingredients are dehydrated, then mixed together and rehydrated with boiling water. I have made pot cozies for all my camping pots. The food is put into the pot, the boiling water added, then we let it sit for 10-20 minutes, stirring it once in while. 

Homemade pot cozies

There's the reliable standby - KD, Kraft Dinner, with cut up pepperettes in it for lunch. It's always a hit, I packed two of them for LT's solo trip and he didn't eat either of them. It has nothing to do with the taste, it's more to do with the effort. Especially if we've got a long day of paddling and lots of portages, the last thing we want to do is stop, unpack the cooking stuff, get water, then pack up dirty dishes to continue on. So we often don't.

I tried a different lunch idea on our last trip. I got some very yummy teriyaki pork jerky at Costco then divided the bag into several servings and immediately vacuum sealed it just before bringing it along. I had some crackers with that, Triscuits I think. And some cheese string. I like using the cheese string cheese as it is all prepackaged in individual servings and I think that helps keep it fresh without refrigeration on our trips.  

Snacks:

Granola on special tray

We've moved to just having more snacks. When we first started out I had a great recipe for granola from here: Ohsheglows granola that I made regularly and we packed it up with fruit I had dehydrated and even M&Ms (only for cooler weather!). The problem with the granola is that it may start out nice and chunky, but after being carried around for a couple of days it breaks down into really small pieces and you almost need a spoon to eat it. Which is fine when you're at your kitchen table at home, but not so much when you're trying to shove some calories into your mouth while the canoe is being unloaded at the 5th portage of the day.

Fruit Leather

I've been really successful with making my own fruit leather using the dehydrator.  Again, Chef Glenn has some good recipes. I've adapted his recipe to the following:  a banana, a cup of applesauce, a cup or slightly more of a "main fruit" (I use frozen strawberries, blueberries, or mango) and juice from a single lemon. I puree the mixture up in my Blendtec blender, pour it onto special trays I have for the dehydrator and dry that up. Once it's dehydrated, I peel it off the trays and pack it by cutting the big circle in half and rolling it in plastic wrap. So it truly is a fruit roll up! These pack well, are fine with not being refrigerated and are delicious. You just need to remember to drink water while eating them.  

I've tried my hand at making tamari almonds. I just soaked the almonds overnight in tamari sauce and then put into the dehydrator to dry. They are good, maybe not as much as the super spicy flavoured almonds you can buy in the store, but with a lot less chemicals.  

Check out: 

• Breakfast
• Dinners
• Desserts

7 Day Menu Plan - Solo Trip

LT is headed out on Sunday for his first solo foray into the park.  I wish I could join him, but I think he's looking forward to spending some time on his own. He'll be there for Canada Day.  Here's his planned route:

• Brent Access Point
• Cedar to Catfish - Sunday night camp at Catfish
• Catfish to Burntroot - Monday and Tuesday nights at Burnroot
• Burntroot to La Muir - Wednesday night at La Muir
• La Muir to Hogan's - Thursday night at Hogan's
• Hogan's to Catfish - Friday night at Catfish
• Catfish to Brent Access - Saturday night safe at home

LT's route (source: Jeff's Maps)

He's had to rethink what he's bringing with him.  He has to add the pots/dishes, water filtration system, and dried food to his pack.  I've weighed the food bag and it is 8 pounds without the fresh food.

All meals below marked with an asterisk (*) are from my favourite backcountry cookbook by: Chef Glenn AKA as The Backpacking Chef (http://www.backpackingchef.com/)

Here's what I've packed for him to enjoy:

Yep, it all goes in one bag!

Breakfasts:

• 2 breakfasts of fresh eggs with reheated bacon
• 2 breakfasts of blueberry pancakes with syrup and butter
• 2 breakfasts of dehydrated eggs* with dried canned ham flakes

Lunches:

• 1 fresh lunch (probably cold meat with cut fruit)
• 2 Kraft dinners with vacuum sealed chicken pepperettes
• dried canned baked beans with dried canned ham chunks
• salsa, chicken, vegetables, and rice (all dehydrated)
• pork jerky (from Costco) vacuumed sealed with crackers and cheese

Dinners:

• 1 fresh dinner (the chili that we forgot to bring on our last trip)
• 2 dinners of tricolor rotini, pasta sauce, veggies, ground beef (all dried)
• 2 dinners of salsa, chicken, vegetables, and rice (all dehydrated)
• 1 dinner of soft tacos with salsa, chicken and veggies (all dehydrated)

Desserts:

• 2 Banana nut bread puddings* (all dehydrated ingredients)
• 2 Trail raspberry crisps* (all dehydrated ingredients)

Snacks:

• homemade fruit roll ups (banana/mango)
• walnuts
• tamari almonds
• mixed nuts (cashews, almonds, peanuts)
• dehydrated banana chips
• dehydrated pineapple
• bannock mix

Condiments:

• salt
• pepper
• butter
• maple syrup
• sugar

Beverages:

• Twinings Earl Grey tea bags
• Powerade drops (to add to filtered lake water)
• Nightcaps (I'm not sure what he's bringing this trip)

All dehydrated meals are made in camp with boiled water

Canada Day at Cedar Lake last year - cinnamon buns (they were AWESOME!)

Another one from last year's trip

Packed and ready to go!

Do you think he'll miss me this trip?