Adventures in dehydrating

“Well I made me a pudding leather yesterday. Just like a fruit or yogurt leather, only with pudding. It's real chewy, and not half bad. I used instant pudding and let it set up for a couple of minutes before pouring it on the tray and spreading it out evenly. Makes it easier to handle if you do that.


Points to watch out for:

1. I forgot to grease the tray you use to make the leathers with. I could only get about half of the leather off the darn thing. I had to soak the tray in hot water for a couple of hours to get it clean. Next time I'll be sure to grease that thing good.

2. Next time I'll use something better tasting than banana cream pudding. Like chocolate or butterscotch.

I think it's time to go to the grocery store! Next I want to make my own chili mac and dehydrate that!”

“go for the good dishes...beans and rice with ham, be creative. I just dehydrated Chicken Noodle Casserole.”

“Yah I think next for me is to make some of my own red beans and rice and dehydrate that.

Too bad you can't dehydrate cornbread.”

“Bitpusher, you can buy "Jiffy" brand corm nuffin mix (actually is johnny cake but I digress). With enough tryouts at home you can prolly figure out how to make some fry bread. I think I have perfected fresh tortillas for the trail.We shall soon see.”

“birch, is that sweetened like most Southern corn breads? I'm not a big fan of sweet cornbread. Being a native of the South, I've tasted cornbread that could have passed as cake. Ugh.

I prefer sour, buttermilk cornbread that is a little on the dry side. Yum....”

“Yeah, johnny cake is the sweet stuff. Unless you go homemade the good stuff is hard to find.

For fresh muffins try this...

Cut a pop can in half, fill with muffin mix about 1/3 the way. Place in your cook pot (be forwarned this can mess up your pot, use an old one) place the pop can on some small stick to elevate it from the bottom, cover cookpot and "bake" till done. Yummy stuff!”

“I'm wondering if I could dehydrate the liquid ingredients of my good cornbread recipe (buttermilk, eggs) and mix it up on the spot with some water...hmmm... may have to experiment....”

“I bet you could, I would watch with eggs however, maybe buy some premade dehydrated ones.

As a side note I have been trying to find a very simple homemade bread or biscuit recipe for the trail. While in texas last year I bought 6 lbs of tortilla mix for $5 I have been tinkering and am pleased.”

“Have you ever tried to make an oven in the campfire with a tin? I've been thinking that if you dug a shallow hole near the campfire, put some hot coals from the fire into it, then covered it with a little dirt, say an inch, then put your tin with the stuff to be baked in it, then covered that with dirt, and raked some more coals over the top of that, that you might approach oven temps in the tin without setting it on fire. Or maybe if you just rearranged the fire ring rocks a little and built a fire around a little niche in the rocks, you might be able to successfully create a trail oven without having to lug one along.

I guess I have even more experimenting to do.”

“I made some chicken soup with Soup Starter a few days ago. Today I put the rest of it in my dehydrator and dried it for use on my next excursion. I want to save it for my next trip, but then again I want to rehydrate it to see how well it'll work. I don't know if I'l be able to wait!!!”

“I have some pork fried rice that I have the same dilemma with Buddur. Don't know if I can wait.

I did try some of the pudding leather today though. Banana creme isn't the best flavor to try, but it's okay.

My wife and son didn't like it though. Picky little $#!ts.”

“OOoooh I am so jealous! I asked for a dehydrator for my birthday, but the b/f said it was too boring. I got snowshoes.

Dang!”

“When people ask me what I want for my birthday, I can't think of things like "dehydrator" or more likely I'm thinking, "I'll say I can't think of anything because there's no telling what you'll get if I say 'dehydrator' and I have a good idea what I want so never mind you getting it for me."

I usually do end up with some cool stuff though, even if it has no backpacking use. Christmas before last, my wife got me the GRANDDADDY OF ALL SWISS ARMY KNIVES.

I love it, but it's too heavy to go backpacking with. I have a much smaller model I bought for myself.

See what I mean?”

“You can find powdered buttermilk in baking sections of many grocery stores. It works great. We even use it at home to make buttermilk waffles!

The powdered eggs we've found at REI also work well in pre-mixed, that is at home, recipes. One packet goes a long way.

You pre-mix at home, then just add the appropriate amount of water. Packages tell you how much water to add, then just write that amount on your re-packaged freezer bag.”

“I knew about powdered milk, but never saw the powdered buttermilk. Of course I wasn't looking for it either. I'll have to look for the powdered eggs too. REI, you say?

Now all I have to do is figure out a fool-proof way of baking in the backcountry....I'd try the way birch suggested but I think my usual pot would catch on fire if I tried that...it's pretty light aluminum.”

“Bitpusher, i actually burned a whole through a aluminum pot with esbit while baking muffins. I didnt fint out till I was on a 3 day winter trip. Not good!”

“There are two backpacking "bakers" that work with your single burner stove. (The names are similar so I can never remember which one I have.) They use a pan that rests on top of a heat diffuser, to reduce scorching, and covered with a reflective "cozy" that surrounds the covered pan. Mine has a simple thermometer that helps you to regulate the heat. Made scones, cake and pizza(!) using the "oven." As you can tell, on those trips I don't travel ultra-light.

Bought the oven at REI.”

“- feverishly looking at REI's web page -

Outback Oven

Looks pretty cool but weighs almost 2 lbs.”

“Get Mel's cookbook. All you ever need to know about dehydrating...”

“I would love to have fresh bread or muffins, but the reality is that it is too much effort. I'll be happy with good pasta dishes, japenese miso soup with tofu that I dehydrate myself and a roll thrown in a ziplock. BP...you didn;t see me starve, did you...I like to bring popcorn, Jiffy pop is the way to go there.”

“There are 2 sizes. I have both, depending on how many go out with me. I think the smaller one is much lighter than 2 pounds.”

“True stikmon, but this is an ENGINEERING CHALLENGE now.

Unfortunately for me, my brain has latched onto this and if I don't have anything to think about, it'll go to that.

But hey, the last time that happened, I came up with the windscreen for my esbit stove, so it's not always a bad thing...”

“Innovate adapt overcome”

“I'm only interested in preventing over-hydration.”

“Can one be over-hydrated while packpacking?”

“ask biz”

“It was pretty good. It took two cups of water to dehydrate it though, and even though there was some liquid in the bottom of the bowl, some of the stuff still didn't quite dehydrate completely. Some of the rice was still a little crunchy. But to be honest, after a day's hard hiking, I'd have thought it was heaven on earth. It was pretty good last night.”

“Shoulda tried HYDRATING it.”

“Anybody ever tried dehydrating sour cream? I've been trying to think of something to take along on the TC2 trip that my wife will like, and burritos seem to fit that pretty well. But I'd like to have some sour cream to go on them, and obviously it must be dehydrated.”

“Never tried it, but seems to me that for a short trip sour cream would hold without dehydrating it.”

“Sour cream can certainly be dried, but I don't know what would result when you try to rehydrate it. Cream and milk dry out all the time on the rims of bottles, but I never thought about rehydrating it.”

“Yah, this is an engineering challenge rather than a necessity...lol...

I might bring the same thing along on the October trip if I can figure it out.

Oh. The October trip is before TC2. Hmm. I guess it'll be the other way around!”

“Even if it wasn't dehydrated, and just sprinkled over a meal, I bet that would work nicely. Never tried it though, I'm just musing.”

“Or added to a mix. Mostly looking to juice the calories and taste of something.”

“when i make burritos, i mix up the beans, salsa, and sour cream in one pot. i've even added things like corn to it. maybe if you did that, you could dehydrate it all together...i bet it would rehydrate better that way? maybe... at least, it would be easier to take on a trip if everything were in one bag, instead of in lots of different bags. it would still taste the same...just think of it as having someone chew it all up for you first! yum.”

“Oooooh, you would go and come up with a sensible suggestion! Now what do I do? lol...

The "already chewed" remark reminds me of an old SNL skit, "Pre-chew Charlie's"...”

“hehe.

oh, i've seen that skit! toooo funny. he has a date over to dinner too, right?”

“Maybe...but I thought it mostly took place in the restaurant, "Pre-chew Charlie's".

But I could be wrong, it's been a reallly long time since I saw that one.”

“oohhh, i'm thinking of something different. there's one where this guy's parents chew up everything on his plate, and then spit it into his mouth. the guy's like in his 20s! you can actually see them spitting it right into his mouth, eewwww!!!
:-D”

“This was placed at the other end of someone's lifespan. "Pre-chew Charlie's" was a restaurant for old people who can't chew their food anymore. The restaurant featured workers who would chew the food for you then put it back on your plate.

I'm pretty sure this was in a first-season episode, so you probably, er, weren't around yet...”

“A friend bought some dehydrated sour cream from a place she gets a ton of other stuff. She said it was horrible - it didn't rehydrate well at all. (I think it was sour cream - I can double check with her.)”

“I think I'm gonna give up on dehydrating the sour cream itself, and just put it in the mix and dehydrate that. That'll probably work best.

I dunno though. I might still try it...”

“I thought this was about not drinking enough water during a hike, but...MY GAWD lyra! This pre-chewing stuff is gagging me! ABC food! I can understand your penchant for projectile vomitting, however.”

“Smiley, It was sour cream but I thought she liked it? She recommended it to me. I can't remember where she said she got it though!”

“bitpusher, Tarpy halfway believed me when i told him like a month ago that i was born in 1987!! (instead of '78.) haaaahahahaha! okay, so he's a little slow. ;-)

would that be...yawning in 3-D technicolor, Aero? oh yeah, can't get enough!! aahhh, i harken back to college...”

“Very well could be, Sass, I don't remember. I e-mailed her to ask. There was something else that she didn't like though....”

“1987? He could go to jail!! =80”

“Sounds like he's not the only one...if I read one of the other threads right...”

“Pre-chewed? Birds do it all the time.”

“Remember one of the Bond (James Bond) women from, I think, "You Only Live Twice", Chewme?”