What a great idea . Im sure they will taste good. No matter how good they taste a big fat greasy cheeseburger and fries will look like a meal fit for a king. Im excited to see what your trail names are going to be.Peace Love and freeze dried meals
I make my own meals as well, and have had fun trying out various things. Many of my 'one pot' meals, I dehydrate all the individual items, then combine the items before bagging and sealing. I find this actually makes the meal reconstruct a bit better than if everything is put together first, then dehydrated. For instance, I make lasagna - dehydrate the sauce/diced peppers/chopped onions/spices/herbs all together, dehydrate the shredded moz cheese, dehydrate the ricotta cheese, dehydrate the cooked ground beef, dehydrate the cooked ground sweet Italian sausage, dehydrate the cooked lasagna noodles that have been cut into about 1" wide pieces. Then I combine everything into one-serving bags and seal them up. One caveat, since the meat is the one thing I am most worried about in regards to dehydrating for longer term shelf stable storage, I usually seal the meat up separately, then put that small bag containing the meat into the bag with all the other ingredients, before sealing that up. That way if I find the meat doesn't smell quite right, the rest of the meal is still fine and perfectly safe to eat. I've never had dehydrated meat go rancid, but I play it safe so I still have something to eat on trail if it does. I know it's a pain, but as I said, I found it rehydrates better, less of a mushed mess of stuff. 😆 I've also found that taking the time to cooked, then dehydrate any type of pasta works great - it's basically already cooked so rehydrating it doesn't require cooking to get it to al dente. So many different pasta/stew dishes can be made - one of my favorites is a Moroccan stew. I've never thought of the citrus for water bottles though - I'll have to try that out! I also make a lot of more custom size bags, since I just need food for one. It's easy to cut a large roll of vacuum seal bags into whatever size you want, sealing all but one side before putting in the food to vacuum seal. Those things aren't cheap, so I try to get every bit out of them that I can. Since I'm not long distance hiking, I bring home the used bags, and one that was used for the meal is still big enough for the meat for another use. Once the bag has been used for meat, what is left is usually big enough for a couple tablespoons of peanut butter, or Nutella. Even those can be washed and finally used for a few pills or vitamins. I always try to be as frugal as possible! LOL
Learning how to hydrate now. So far only blueberries and strawberries and I have mangos on my list of things to do today. Will graduate to "meals" next week. We have the exact same dehydrator. Praying for your sweet family. :)
Here in Eur I can buy bags of pre-dried aubergine (egg plant), bell pepper, tomato. Mainly from Turkey. Quite salty, takes a while to rehydrate and cook. The aubergines have their soft interior cut out before drying, which leaves a quite substantial, not too mushy vegetable. In the bags that I bought online the individual pieces are strung om a string. Might be interesting for you too (if you still have the time to search and order).
One suggestion is to add more protein than you would for normal life meals. Long distance backpacking over works muscle tissue and can cause cell damage (one of the reasons that you’re sore the next day). Protein helps repair those cells plus provide energy to the cells. We dried ground beef, thin slices of chicken and steak. Dried TVP (vegetable protein) was inexpensive, available at our health food store, doesn’t weigh much and has no flavor so it was easy to add to anything. We also dried lots of veggies. I’d add a cup of protein and veggies to a qt. water bottle, fill with water and carry it for the day then added it to a noodle or rice dinner. Easy peasy and tasted great. Your system looks great! I died my food in a homemade food dryer or the stove. Boy, technology sure has advanced! Looking forward to following y’all’s hike. Stay warm!
Very true, much cheaper, more delicious making your own meals, and you can control what you’re eating. I’m planning on using Mylar bags so I can pour the hot water right into it, just like the store backpacking meals have.
Great job preparing. I’ve always thought this would be the way to go. Prepackaged are so expensive & don’t taste that good. Plus, all the future landfill waste of the packaging. If you’d like s good fresh home cooked meal once in awhile most hostels will fit a small fee will let you shower & eat w/ no stay or stay in property in your own sleep system.
Great idea for a LD hike! Thanks for posting.
Great way to make meals that everyone likes. Looking forward to following.
Thanks so much! We are also trying put dehydrating for our LASH starting in May! Happy Trails!
What a great idea . Im sure they will taste good. No matter how good they taste a big fat greasy cheeseburger and fries will look like a meal fit for a king. Im excited to see what your trail names are going to be.Peace Love and freeze dried meals
I make my own meals as well, and have had fun trying out various things. Many of my 'one pot' meals, I dehydrate all the individual items, then combine the items before bagging and sealing. I find this actually makes the meal reconstruct a bit better than if everything is put together first, then dehydrated. For instance, I make lasagna - dehydrate the sauce/diced peppers/chopped onions/spices/herbs all together, dehydrate the shredded moz cheese, dehydrate the ricotta cheese, dehydrate the cooked ground beef, dehydrate the cooked ground sweet Italian sausage, dehydrate the cooked lasagna noodles that have been cut into about 1" wide pieces. Then I combine everything into one-serving bags and seal them up. One caveat, since the meat is the one thing I am most worried about in regards to dehydrating for longer term shelf stable storage, I usually seal the meat up separately, then put that small bag containing the meat into the bag with all the other ingredients, before sealing that up. That way if I find the meat doesn't smell quite right, the rest of the meal is still fine and perfectly safe to eat. I've never had dehydrated meat go rancid, but I play it safe so I still have something to eat on trail if it does. I know it's a pain, but as I said, I found it rehydrates better, less of a mushed mess of stuff. 😆 I've also found that taking the time to cooked, then dehydrate any type of pasta works great - it's basically already cooked so rehydrating it doesn't require cooking to get it to al dente. So many different pasta/stew dishes can be made - one of my favorites is a Moroccan stew. I've never thought of the citrus for water bottles though - I'll have to try that out! I also make a lot of more custom size bags, since I just need food for one. It's easy to cut a large roll of vacuum seal bags into whatever size you want, sealing all but one side before putting in the food to vacuum seal. Those things aren't cheap, so I try to get every bit out of them that I can. Since I'm not long distance hiking, I bring home the used bags, and one that was used for the meal is still big enough for the meat for another use. Once the bag has been used for meat, what is left is usually big enough for a couple tablespoons of peanut butter, or Nutella. Even those can be washed and finally used for a few pills or vitamins. I always try to be as frugal as possible! LOL
Learning how to hydrate now. So far only blueberries and strawberries and I have mangos on my list of things to do today. Will graduate to "meals" next week. We have the exact same dehydrator. Praying for your sweet family. :)
I'm excited to follow your families adventure 👣
Thanks so much for joining our digital trail family! We are stoked to get started ❤️🥾
Here in Eur I can buy bags of pre-dried aubergine (egg plant), bell pepper, tomato. Mainly from Turkey. Quite salty, takes a while to rehydrate and cook. The aubergines have their soft interior cut out before drying, which leaves a quite substantial, not too mushy vegetable. In the bags that I bought online the individual pieces are strung om a string. Might be interesting for you too (if you still have the time to search and order).
One suggestion is to add more protein than you would for normal life meals. Long distance backpacking over works muscle tissue and can cause cell damage (one of the reasons that you’re sore the next day). Protein helps repair those cells plus provide energy to the cells. We dried ground beef, thin slices of chicken and steak. Dried TVP (vegetable protein) was inexpensive, available at our health food store, doesn’t weigh much and has no flavor so it was easy to add to anything. We also dried lots of veggies. I’d add a cup of protein and veggies to a qt. water bottle, fill with water and carry it for the day then added it to a noodle or rice dinner. Easy peasy and tasted great.
Your system looks great! I died my food in a homemade food dryer or the stove. Boy, technology sure has advanced!
Looking forward to following y’all’s hike. Stay warm!
Very true, much cheaper, more delicious making your own meals, and you can control what you’re eating. I’m planning on using Mylar bags so I can pour the hot water right into it, just like the store backpacking meals have.
Great!
Great job preparing. I’ve always thought this would be the way to go. Prepackaged are so expensive & don’t taste that good. Plus, all the future landfill waste of the packaging.
If you’d like s good fresh home cooked meal once in awhile most hostels will fit a small fee will let you shower & eat w/ no stay or stay in property in your own sleep system.
How did you choose your dehydrator? I like the size of yours