Date: 2008-06-02
To: 9 Months
Miles today: 0.0

My goal for the summer is to get most of my food prep done...March is 9 months away, but I would like to give myself plenty of time to get all my meals ready so I'm not rushing towards the end (I'm sure I'll have lots of other things to be stressing out about by that point!).Here is a list of most of the resources I'll be using to help with my food prep:Freezer Bag Cooking - I'm not a big fan of doing dishes, especially when I'm out in the middle of the woods. To get around washing my pot out every day, I'll be preparing most of my meals using the freezer bag cooking method. The meals will be prepared at home (using dried ingredients) and put into ziplock (or equivalent) freezer bags. When ready to eat, boiling water is poured into the freezer bag. Let sit for 15 minutes, and the meal is done and can be eaten right out of the bag! This website has recipes and helpful information on dehydrating.Lipsmackin' Vegetarian Backpackin' - This book has tons of recipes, most using the freezer bag cooking method.Backpack Gourmet: Good Hot Grub You Can Make at Home, Dehydrate, and Pack for Quick, Easy, and Healthy Eating on the Trail - I borrowed this book from my boss, Karl, who is a backcountry chef extraordinaire. I haven't tried this method yet, but am excited to experiment with it this summer. It basically involves cooking an entire meal and dehydrating it. On the trail, you just put the meal in your cook pot, add water and simmer for a few minutes. This involves doing dishes afterwards, but if I can eat a cheesy potato casserole on the trail just by adding water, I'm ok with that! Since dehydrating vegetables and fruits can be time consuming and expensive (lots of electricity), I will be purchasing some dried food in bulk rather than doing it myself. I plan on dehydrating food that I can get cheaply (i.e., inexpensive herbs from the summer farmers market) and that doesn't take days to dry. Here are the links for some websites that have good selections of dried food:- Just Tomatoes- My Spicer- Suttons Bay Spices- Fantastic Foods- Be PreparedAddendum: I just successfully made my first batch of trail food! I made some really good veggie chili (from a 'Vegetarian Times' recipe) and dried it in my Nesco dehydrator...I rehydrated some after it was done (5 hours later) and it came out great! Now that I know how easy it is, I'm really excited to experiment with other one-pot meals from the Backpack Gourmet book (stews, soups, casseroles, pasta dishes, hot breakfasts). I may also try dehydrating leftovers from dinner some nights and see how those turn out.Addendum Part II: My second successful batch of trail food! I used a recipe from "Backpack Gourmet" (I am loving this book!) called Thai noodles. It uses angel hair pasta, mushrooms, garlic, shallots, ginger, soy sauce, and red pepper flakes to give it some kick. I made the meal (4 servings) and dehydrated for 5 hours, and out came very brittle strands of pasta with dried flakes of sauce. I was a little skeptical, but I rehydrated a little bit just to test it out and it tastes great...an unknowingly taste tester wouldn't have even been able to tell it apart from a fresh, non-dehydrated pasta dinner! I was psyched.