Carrie's blog

Well, I'm onto the last of the dehydrated meals for our upcoming 2 X 4 day camping trip. I decided to make a large batch of beef bulgogi for dinner and dehydrate the leftovers. When dehydrating, I spread the meat thinly on the solid trays and I added the extra sauce into the mix as well. I figure that will add to the sauce/taste when we rehydrate at the campsite.

All in all it went well. It was mostly dehydrated overnight with the dehydrator set on high. I did stir/flip it before I went to bed and again in the morning. When it was finished, I stuck it in a plastic bag and into the fridge. The only problem is, it tastes so good dehydrated, that it is awfully tempting to munch on it right now! In fact, I believe someone got into it for afternoon tea! Yum! :-)

Today I tried to rehydrate some pumpkin soup and learned some things.

1. Whoever wrote to put a smaller amount (eg 1 disk) of dehydrated soup into a cup of water likes watery soup. I think next time we will use a greater soup to water ratio.
2. The soup takes longer than I thought it would to rehydrate. What I read indicated it should take about 5 minutes, but after 10 it may have needed more. Next time (especially if on the trail) I would add some water to dehydrated soup in a bag or other container to start rehydrating early. Then it would be mush or paste when I added boiling water to heat it up and get the consistency right.
3. Learning how to rehydrate well is a journey!

One of the things I think about with cooking while camping is trying to find meals that are balanced and have high nutritional content. If you're used to having lots of fresh veggies day to day and you are without fridge or esky, it can be an easy thing to miss. (Yes, there are lots of canned veggies for sale, but if weight or space is an issue, this provides another option.)

In all of my reading about dehydration, one of the things I thought I would try is soup. It seems easy and full of good veggie content for the diet! We'll likely use ours for lunches. So here's what I did:

Roasted Pumpkin Soup
1 whole butternut pumpkin (squash), cut into large chunks
2 onions, cut into crescents (as you would for roasting)
1 head of garlic, separated and unpeeled
olive oil
4 tsp chicken stock powder
Water

I have been dehydrating. After Geoff's Western Arthur trip where he survived on all dehydrated food, we decided to try some dehydrating for our next family camping trip in Tasmania.

The reasoning for this is four-fold: 1) It should basically negate our need for refrigeration/esky 2) We are going to be tight on space as we're not taking a trailer with us this time 3) We would like to minimise the need to regularly stop into shops - more time in the bush that way! 4) Our food prep at camp will be greatly reduced (boiling water isn't so hard) leaving more time for relaxing.

We will be camping for a total of 8 days (2 x 4 days), so I have worked a menu based around repeating meals. My dinner plans at this stage include: Apricot Chicken and rice, Sweet and Sour Mince with rice, Pasta with Veggie Tomato Sauce and perhaps a mexican style meal with refried beans and rice.