Dehydrated Spaghetti Sauce

Dehydrated spaghetti sauce is super easy to make and is great for backpacking trips or any situations where space and weight are a concern. 

This works best if you use less chunky sauces since the chunks are more difficult to dehydrate thoroughly. I used Catelli Sauce this time. Of course homemade sauce would be great, if you are into that, but I usually think of preparing this stuff the night before I'm leaving. 

Dehydration

1 jar of sauce on 4 trays

•  Cover your dehydrator with parchment paper. Make sure there is still airflow.
• Spread an even amount of spaghetti sauce around the tray. It should be less 5mm thick.
• Dehydrate for 7 - 10 hours. You will know that it is done when it is completely dry and the consistency of a fruit roll-up. 
• Peel the sauce off the tray and let cool
• Pack in an air tight bag

Spaghetti Frisbee 

Use

To use the spaghetti sauce simply add a bit of water and heat. Add water a bit at a time until it is the proper consistency. 

For backpacking, where fuel is a concern, I find that capellini (angel hair) pasta works best since it cooks quickly.

Recipe: Chickpea "fish" cakes

Chickpea "fish" cakes

By Andrew Jefferies

These patties are good when placed on sandwiches or by themselves as a substitute for fish cakes. They don't really taste the same at all but that was the concept that I started with. Anyways, here goes:

Prep time: 30 min
Cook time: 5 minutes
Total time: 35 minutes

Ingredients:

• chickpeas rinsed, drained and mashed -1 Can
• onion minced   -  1/4
• red bell pepper minced   - 1/4
• celery seed - pinch
• curry powder - 1/4 tsp
• Eggs - 2
• mayonnaise - 1 tbsp
• Olive oil - as needed for frying

Mix all ingredients together well. Make into patties. Heat oil in pan and fry until golden. It only takes a couple of minutes per side.

I used my patties in a baked sandwich with avocado, thin sliced apple, lots of jalapeño,Havarti cheese and honey mustard. Very tasty.

Published: March 11, 2011

36 hr adventure race meal planning - vegetarian

This spreadsheet is the calorie counter I made up to help plan for the Race the Phantom adventure race. It is based on an estimation of burning 250 calories per hour. If that estimation is high I'll be carrying extra weight, if it's low I'll be a little hungry at the end...

Book Review: Lipsmackin' Vegetarian Backpackin'

I bought my copy of Lipsmackin' Vegetarian Backpackin' a couple of months ago in the Fundy National Park bookstore. I'm REALLY liking it! Great recipes and the format of the book is perfect. If you are a backpacker, whether of not vegetarian, you need this book.

All of the recipes are broken into the steps that are required beforehand and then the steps that are required on the trail.

Many of the recipes use dehydrated ingredients or your own dehydrator.

So far I've tried:
Spaghetti sauce - Loved it
Brunswick Stew - Loved it
Coleslaw - I'm not sure if something went wrong but it tasted terrible
Tofu jerky - Loved it
Chili - Made it with the scouts and they loved it

Tofu Jerky

So, I tried dehydrating tofu to make tofu jerky. I used this recipe, which is supposed to be THE original tofu jerky recipe.

Making the jerky was pretty straight forward. Just throw all of the ingredients together and marinade for a few hours and then stick it into the dehydrator. It took approximately 8 hours to complete. In the end the stuff was more the consistency of fruit leather than jerky.

I sampled a little bit before running out the door for my sailing adventure. It tasted pretty good! It's been around 18 years since I last ate meat jerky so I'm not sure if it tastes the same or not. I think so...

As I mentioned in my trip blog post, I had a bit of a stomach issue on board that prevented me from trying more of the jerky (or even thinking too much about it!) but I finally dug it out again today and tried it while on solid ground. I really like it. It's very salty and strong tasting but I guess that's part of the appeal of jerky.

I'll definitely do it again. There are a few other jerky recipes in Lipsmackin' Vegetarian Backpackin' that I'm going to try for comparison. Stay tuned.

Food Dehydrator

After buying a copy of Lipsmackin' Vegetarian Backpackin' on my last hiking trip to Fundy, I have been inspired to buy a dehydrator. I finally found one the other day on Kijiji ($25) and picked it up.

As the book says, they are big, they are ugly and yes they do take up a lot of counter space...but I'm pretty excited to try it out.

Tonight we try Tofu Jerky, Brunswick Stew and South Sister Stroganoff. Our pending trip to PEI will serve as a test bed for these meals in the rough.

Stay tuned for pictures and reviews!

Book Review: Edible Wild Plants

I got a copy of Peterson Field Guides Edible Wild Plants 3 years ago for Christmas. This was my wife's response to my request for an edible wild mushrooms book. Apparently eating wild plants is much less scary than mushrooms.

I must say that this is my all time favorite pastime while camping or hiking these days. I take it on most hikes and trips. There is nothing more satisfying than going for a hike and bringing back a bag full with your next meal. Grant it, sometimes these plants really don't taste very good. Other times, however, they are great. In response to this we have come up with our own "ass-factor" scale that describes the plants flavor in relation to ass. I've started rating each plant as I try it.

The book makes identifying plants fairly easy. Although in most cases you need to have a flower available for easy identification. Winter identification is much more challenging.

I recommend this book whole heartily to anyone who is a little adventurous in what they eat.