Today seems to have dissolved into the past without leaving much impact. Whew... how can it be Wednesday tomorrow! There has been some curiosity about my food preparation for the hike, so I'll tell you a bit about it today.
I'm really rather meticulous (that's the nice word) about hiking food. On my hikes everything else might be fraught with difficulties, but there will be a nice meal no matter what. It's a real upper! But it takes a lot of advance planning.
I dry almost all my own foods, weigh and package them by the meal. Then in the woods all we do is pull out an appropriate meal, cook it and eat!
In this picture I have peach slices on the bottom shelf, then strawberries, strawberry fruit leather and some tangerines on the top. The dehydrator has 9 trays, but I didn't get them all filled today. I really like this Excalibur dehydrator, and I wrote a review about it on Shared Reviews.
My favorite cookbook for backpacking food is "The Well-Fed Backpacker" by June Fleming. But I'm slowly working on writing one myself. With all of the years experience I've had now, I have quite a collection of good menus, recipes, and tips and ideas.
You can see what I accomplished in the box below. Still doesn't look like much, but all the little pieces eventually add up.
| Hike Planning Report |
| Found the map of the area that burned in 2007 and noted the approximate boundaries of that in our guidebook. Did another round of grocery shopping for the hike. Worked on getting the correct menus into the master food spreadsheet for this hike. Loaded the dehydrator again. Packaged some more stuff. Meals complete: Spanish Rice with salami Cinnamon Pears Eggplant in Tomato Sauce w/spaghetti Chocolate Pudding Rice Pudding with Raisins (a hot breakfast for one of our days off- generally don't cook in the morning to save time) |
 | See The Food is Done |
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6 comments:
You sure are a hard worker. I know it takes awhile to fill up a dehydrator that size.Have fun and good luck. Joe Todd
Looking forward to reading how this adventure goes for you. I hope it is a wonderful time!
I am so impressed by you every single time I come here!! That's cool that you do your own dehydrated food for the hikes.
That's an impressive dehydrator. I should have expected nothing less. I only have a small counter top dehydrator, but it serves me for what I need, so far. Seeing this might get me started on doing this much more than I do now. Thanks.
Hi Joe- Do you do a lot of dried camping foods too?
Cherlock- I won't be able to do many updates while we are on the hike, but should have lots of fun stuff afterwards, and I have some snippets to schedule for my regular readers.
Hi Lin- well, (haha, laughs nervously), most people just consider me somewhat obsessed, but keep stopping by and reading! Just don't feel intimidated. I'm just a nut case who has learned enough social skills to be left loose in the general population.
Hi Ratty- The problem with the kind I think you are saying you have is that they blow air through the trays instead of over them. Leads to uneven drying. I need the big one for our hikes!
I'm still stuck on the store-bought dehydrated stuff, but this post has inspired me to spring for my own dehydrator. Nice job!
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