Adventures with Hash Browns

I have some skills. Maybe not in chopping wood or carrying the canoe long distances. But I can sew, knit, bake and cook pretty good. Except I always need to follow a pattern or a recipe. Whenever I ad lib, it never goes well.

On our last trip to Grand Lake we had some store bought hash browns and they were yummy. However I purchased them on my last trip to the USA at a Target store. I haven't seen the same product here. So I decided to try to recreate the same item using potatoes and my dehydrator.

My inspiration - these were yummy and easy to make while camping

I bought 1.075 kg of yellow gold potatoes. I selected 3 really nice ones. I brought them home, peeled them, and ran them through my food processor using the grating blade. I parboiled them before placing them on the dehydrator trays using the screens (not the liners).

Once they were dried they didn't look anything like the store-bought hash browns. I was prepared for this to be a failure. I ended up with 85 grams of dried potatoes.

My dehydrated potatoes

Comparison with the purchased product (1/4 cup for perspective)

Close-up

In order to test out whether they would taste okay, I decided to make some for breakfast today. Here's where things went a bit wonky. The purchased hash browns weigh in at 85 grams - the same as my 3 potatoes. That seemed like an awful lot. Granted, the purchased product contains 4 portions and LT and I wolfed them down between us.  But when I started portioning out what I would make for myself, I stopped at 15 grams of my dried potatoes.

I put them in a small bowl and covered with boiling water. My plan was to just dump out the excess liquid, being in my home kitchen this was easy to do. After waiting about 10 minutes (the same time the package instructions recommends), I put some butter in the frypan and tossed the drained potatoes in to cook.

Before - they really did expand back to a good size

One of the struggles we had making these on our trip was the tiny camping spatula I have. At home I have a much bigger one. But it was still tricky to flip them. I think I need to have the patience to just let it cook and blend into a more solid mass than flipping them too early.

After - totally delicious!

This was very yummy and I now have a new item to add to my camping food menu. The one tweak I will try is adding some dehydrated chopped onions to them for flavour. The packaged hash browns have onion powder added. I just have to remember to portion out a smaller amount than the package size of 85 grams!

My Food Saver: Vacuum Sealer

I picked up this kitchen appliance last spring. These babies are NOT cheap! However, because I wasn't ready to make a big financial investment, I kept checking Kijiji until I found one. Score! I paid $40 for my Food Saver, probably a $200 savings. I took it home and started playing with it that evening. The seller was kind enough to give me a single roll with some plastic left on it.

Bags:
The best place to buy the special plastic you need to seal your food with is at Costco. I paid about the same price as the Food Saver for a box of a variety of sizes of plastic. It has some bags in it, but mostly rolls where you seal one end, insert the food, then seal the other end.

In this box I got;

• 36 pre-cut bags that are 1 quart
• 1 roll that is 8 inches wide and 20 feet long
• 4 rolls that are 11 inches wide and 16 feet long

I checked the other day and the price is pretty much the same, $39 for the box.

Bags are pre-sealed on 3 sides

Tricks:
You need some tricks to use this tool properly. For example it's tough to vacuum seal something that is relatively moist. Most of my camping food is dehydrated, so that's not an issue. But I tried using it to seal bags of freshly peeled and sliced apples to put in the freezer. I ended up putting a strip of paper towel inside the bag at the end I was sealing to catch the juice. 

It took me a while to be able to judge how big of a bag I would need. This plastic is expensive, and I wanted to get the most use out of my rolls of it.

I got into the habit of writing down not only what the contents were, but what I had to do with them (how much water to add, if I needed to boil it and for how long, how many servings, etc.) with a Sharpie on the outside of the bag.

Chef Glenn suggests putting in a paper towel on one side of the bag to help ensure that hard, spiky food doesn't poke through the bag and it provides a better backdrop to read any writing on the bag.

Just sitting here minding its own business....

I don't leave this appliance on my counter. it takes up a lot of space for me. My sister bought one recently (she has a tent trailer, so she camps with refrigeration) and she uses it a lot. It's excellent for freezing fresh meat into individual packets. It works well for splitting a large block of cheese.

For camping this past summer I tried it for a variety of things. Some worked and some didn't. My purpose in having this appliance was to shrink size of a food item, help in preservation, and make the food bag pack better.

When I repackaged a box of Kraft Dinner it created a solid block of pasta with the cheese sauce inside. I had been using just a Ziploc bag before and in this case the Ziploc bag is the better choice. The block just didn't fit in the food bag as easily as the Ziploc bag did.

I used it to package soft flour tortillas for a single meal (4 instead of the 8 in the package). This also did not work well as when the air was squeezed out of the tortillas they got stuck to each other. Ziploc wins this one too.

Open, ready to slice the length of bag you choose

I bought some soft, juicy jerky from Costco last summer. Pork Teriyaki (yes, it was delicious!). It packed quite well in the vacuum sealed bags. This was a win. It also helps keep the jerky from spoiling. However one must be careful as sealing alone might not be a solution for food preservation as other bacteria can flourish in a vacuum sealed bag.

I sealed turkey pepperettes in individual bags as well. I would put 8 inside a bag of its own for one of our snacks. I cut up another 8 to be put on a pizza or mixed into KD. Cutting up ahead of time really worked well. 

Turkey pepperettes, the uncut version

I have purchased some mini-snack-sized baggies (no brand name) that hold a much smaller amount of contents. I will put several of these into a larger vacuum-sealed bag for a meal when I don't want to mix the contents ahead of time. For example, pasta sauce, veggies, pasta.

Sealed, dried apples

I have put a single serving of a dehydrated chicken, rice and veggies meal in one vacuum-sealed bag, perfect to dump into my Thermos at breakfast to eat at lunchtime.

Overall I'm very happy to have this kitchen appliance in my toolkit for food prep. It gives me some peace of mind to know that all the food we've got packed in our food bag has a high level of durability, helps keep food fresh and dry, meal items are packaged together, and it is easy to tell what is in each bag.

Meals sealed and ready to go

Drying my heart out......

I have been working away busily buying food supplies for the upcoming camping season and having a lot of fun using my new Excalibur! Much like Eureka! which has the exclamation point after its name, I think the dehydrator should too. 

This model is so much faster to work with, food dries much quicker. The biggest difference is that the heat comes from the back and blows over all the trays pretty much at the same rate. In my old dehydrator, the heat comes from the bottom up. I would have to shuffle the order of the trays during the drying process. My old dehydrator went over to LT's to try and keep him in dried bananas. It's a losing battle!

Some of the things I've dried so far:

• red peppers, orange peppers and yellow peppers
• corn
• peas

• celery
• carrots
• mushrooms

• 2 litres of salsa
• 2 bottles of pizza sauce

The liners LT bought me for this new machine work AMAZING!

• 1 bag of frozen blueberries
• pineapples
• bananas
• 8 apples

• a loaf of Italian bread
• rice (cooked and dehydrated)

• 6 cans of chicken from Costco (2 with mild taco seasoning and 2 with hot)
• 6 cans of flakes of ham - used with dehydrated eggs

This is what's in the dehydrator now!

2 dozen eggs

Cooked polenta

Both mixed together then baked (stirred) and baked some more

Spread on a tray for drying

I've got all nine trays full of eggs right now. The 2 dozen eggs are good for 6 breakfasts (for 2 people).

I've dried 3 packages of celery, 2 were hearts and one full bunch:

All dried up

Celery is indeed mostly water, look how much those babies shrink! I put a toonie in the picture for scale.

And here's all the trays in one small jar:

Banana for scale

I also did 3.8 pounds of extra lean ground hamburger (it was on sale!). I mixed in 1/2 a cup of finely ground bread crumbs for each pound, fried it up, then dried it. I use this for pasta dinners mostly. This year I might try mixing it with soy sauce, rice and broccoli.

What's left to do?

• an angel food cake for desserts
• fruit leather, going to try cherries this time
• pasta sauce, I'm going to make my own instead of using the bottled stuff

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

Food Planning and Preparation: Pictures

7-day trip menu for LT's solo trip

Food for Carl Wilson trip

Costco jerky

Turkey pepperettes re-packaged with vacuum sealer

Various meats - all dried

For my trip this weekend!