Experiments in camp food

I've spent the last few days watching tons of videos on YouTube on camp cooking, everything from dutch oven meals to making a full breakfast on one little firebox stove.  I've gotten some good ideas and am eager to try them out...if only the weather would cooperate!

The other night I managed to adapt this recipe for sweet and spicy meatballs from 70theprofessor.  I made some tweaks because I wasn't sure how hot it would be and I knew the kids wouldn't eat it if it was too spicy.  They both liked it (Squatch more than Bubbie) and Squatch even said "Hey! You could make this camping if you dehydrated everything." I'm so proud!  I'm sure you're thinking...can you dehydrate meatballs?  I would imagine not, so what I did was cooked up some ground beef with onions and a little garlic salt, then added the sauce ingredients and let it cook down.

I'm going to try it with dehydrating the ingredients, then I'll post the actual recipe or maybe I'll get ambitious and actually make a video.

Another recipe I made this week was a cornbread recipe from oarsweb but since no grocery stores sell packaged cornbread mix around here, I had to make the base from scratch.  I used a recipe from World Championship Dutch Oven Cookbook but any cornbread recipe should work.

My intention was to make this in the dutch oven, but of course it was raining so I just made it the oven. It turned out really well.  Next time, I'll make it in the DO, maybe when we go camping.  It makes way more than the four of us can eat in one meal, and while normally I would eat it without problem for the next day or two, I was leery of the whole corn in it.  I'm sure it would have been fine but it seemed weird to me.  Anyway, the point is, for just the four of us, I think I'd half the recipe and use a 8" dutch oven (when I get one) or maybe make it in a small cast iron skillet.

Anyone else try any new camp recipes?  Tonight I'm hoping to try a unrolled cabbage roll recipe that should be easy to adapt to a dehydrated camp meal...fingers crossed!

Trail Snack: Dried Coconut Chunks

I love coconut in my trail mix but to be honest, the shredded kind doesn't do it for me.  It settles to the bottom of the bag and gets all crumby from the rest of the ingredients. I'd rather pick things up with my fingers than fill my palm with little tiny bits and then drop it all in my mouth...less messy. A few months ago, Chris and I were cruising Costco and we saw big bags of coconut chunks, so we grabbed a bag to see if it would be yummy for adding to trail mix.

It was!  We ate most of it in the car on the drive home. (By the way, I don't recommend this...coconut is pretty high in fibre...) A week later we went back since we were going to be camping soon and thought we'd grab another bag, but they were out.  I almost cried, I swear.  A trip to a different Costco revealed that it was a product they weren't carrying any more.  Chris suggested we try drying out own so we bought a coconut and gave it a shot.

First of all, it's a heck of a lot of work, but the results were pretty great.  One coconut did the two of us (the kids don't like it) for a 2 night trip and that was with me nibbling bits off the dehydrator tray while it was still drying.

If you're interested in trying this yourself, here's how I did it.

1. Buy a coconut or two.  Make sure they feel heavy for their size.

2. Hammer a nail into two of the "eyes" and drain out the water.  You can strain the bits out and drink it if you want...I don't like it, but Chris does.

3. Crack the coconut in half.  There are lots of websites with instructions on how to do this...I get Chris to hack at it with his big chef's knife but that's not the way you're supposed to do it.

4. Heat your oven to 375 and put the coconut halves in a casserole dish so they stand up like bowls...put a bit of water in each half and bake for 5 minutes.  This just softens the meat enough to make it easier to get out of the husk.

5. Pry out the meat in chunks.  I use a paring knife and score it, then twist.  Sometimes it pops out easily other times not so much.  It's the most frustrating part.  Be careful not to cut yourself or stab yourself in the wrist!!!

6. Your pieces will still have a thin layer of husk on them, so use your paring knife to peel the dark skin off.  By now your hands will be slippery from the coconut oil and that brown stuff is hard and sharp in spots so be careful.  Your hands will hate you by the time you are done.

7. Rinse your pieces to get all the little bits of brown off.  I threw them all into a colander and used my hand to turn them over a few times.

8. If you want your coconut sweetened, dissolve 1 tsp of sugar into 1 cup of water per coconut (so 2 tsp of sugar into 2 cups water if you do 2 coconuts) in a bowl large enough to fit your pieces.  Let it soak for half an hour then drain.

9. Put your chunks onto dehydrator trays.  You might want to use a mesh tray to keep the smaller bits from falling through.  They won't lose much in size, but when you are prying the meat out of the shell, you will get some smaller pieces.  Drying time will depend on how big your pieces are.  I kept mine under 1 inch square.  It'll be done when it's more opaque...you'll be able to tell.  The inner part will have a shiny look to it if it's not done.

I don't want to state how long they'll be good for.  Mine never lasted more than a few days before they were all eaten up.  Also, raw coconut can harbour salmonella so, it's best to do them up them within a day of buying them.  To further ensure safety, you can process it in a hot water bath for 10 minutes before soaking in sugar water and drying.  Here's an excellent article on storing coconut and how to tell if your coconut has gone bad.  If there's any hint of the coconut meat yellowing, or any of the other factors mentioned in the article, don't risk it.  Salmonella poisoning is bad enough at home, in the middle of nowhere?  I don't even want to imagine.

Enjoy!  

Experiment #5: Curried Pumpkin Soup

Last night I made up a pot of soup with the intention of drying it to see how it 1) dehydrated and 2) rehydrated.  This is a recipe I make for myself for lunches often when I'm home alone because it's fast and easy...and Chris doesn't like it because he doesn't like curry, so I can't make it for dinners.

Curried Pumpkin Soup

1 small onion, chopped (you want fairly small pieces)
1 tsp olive oil
1 1/2 tsp curry powder
salt and pepper to taste
2 cups vegetable broth
1 cup (half a large can) pureed pumpkin
1 potato shredded
pinch of cayenne pepper
pinch of red pepper flakes

Saute the onion in the oil for about 2 minutes.  Add the seasonings and stir to coat.  Add broth, pumpkin and potato.  Simmer 8-10 minutes.

Usually when I make this for home, I cube the potato, but for the sake of even drying and faster rehydrating, I shredded them.  You could use cubed and then puree the whole thing after it's cooled I suppose, if you like a smooth texture.

This makes a bit more than 2 cups worth of soup, which is one generous serving on the trail or 2 lunch size servings for me at home...okay I'd probably eat it all at home too...

Dehydrating: Ladle the soup onto a fruit roll tray, it should all fit on one, and dry for about 8 hours.  I slept in and mine went about 12 hours and it was over dried.

Rehydrating: Because I was doing this at home, I put 1/2 of the dried soup into a pot and covered water, brought it to a boil and let it sit with the lid on for about 20 minutes.  It didn't seem to be coming back fully so I added a bit more water and let it simmer for a few more minutes.  It might have been the pieces of onion and potato holding their shape that looked like unrehydrated bits though, but I wasn't sure.  It tasted the same as last night when I sampled a bit.

While this isn't a fully accurate test of the recipe (normal kitchen conditions rather than trail conditions) I'm convinced this will work well.  Next time I won't let it dry so long.

Experiment #2: Noodles and vegetables

I've been having some good luck with my dehydrating attempts, but hadn't yet tried to rehydrate anything.  Today I finally gave in and threw a mixture of dried veggies into a bowl and covered them in boiling water.  They came back perfectly, and a lot faster than I had anticipated.  From everything I've seen and read, I thought it would take 15-20 minutes, but they were mostly ready in about 3.

I didn't do anything too exciting with them because I wasn't really prepared for it to actually work, so I just cooked up a small amount of rice vermicelli (takes 3 minutes) and added about 2 tsp of soy sauce and a drizzle of sesame oil.  As far as camping goes, the only thing you probably wouldn't take would be the sesame oil, unless you had a really small squirt bottle and planned to use it in a few dishes. (I love the stuff, but the rest of the family isn't quite so enthusiastic)

This is something that is pretty simple though, and quick, so I'm going to work on ways of making a better sauce for it, maybe a thai curry sauce.  You could also drizzle a bit of olive oil over it, and sprinkle some parmesan cheese on top.

The dried vegetables I used were:
broccoli
orange pepper strips
shredded carrot
tomato slices, broken into small pieces

The other day I made a really beautiful stir fry.  It was super colourful and I really wish I'd taken a picture.  Because I'd boughten some heirloom carrots, I changed things up and used a pale yellow carrot, an orange pepper, some broccoli, and some really pretty ruby chard.  The stems were bright red and the leaves dark green with lots of dark purple.  Of course, once I added the sauce, it wasn't so pretty, but still...  I know it's possible to dry chard leaves, but wasn't sure about the stems.  I'll have to look into that today and maybe do up the last of the bunch of chard before it goes bad.

More experiments coming soon.  There's a pot of soup on the stove I'm going to dry a serving of, then rehydrate and see how that works out.

Stupid free vacuum sealer!

A few years back, when we bought our freezer, the store had a special offer where you get a vacuum sealer unit with every freezer purchase. Until now, I haven't used it but I've been eagerly awaiting having dehydrated all the things for a few camping meals so I could try it out... Okay, I got tired of waiting. I've been dehydrating stuff, but not all that much yet, so yesterday I decided to just throw some stuff into one of the bags and see how well it worked. It didn't. I was so disappointed. I guess this is why they were giving them away free, and I knew it wasn't one of the good, known name brands but I thought it would still do the job until I could get a better one. What you have to do is cut a piece off the roll, then seal the open sides, leaving one to put your food in...The seal actually melted holes through so there was no way it could vacuum all the air out. Very sad. Maybe next week I'll see about getting a Foodsaver. On the other hand, I made up a batch of refried beans from scratch the other night, starting with dry pinto beans, and then I dehydrated the whole batch. They turned out very well, though I have yet to try rehydrating some. Once I have, I'll post the recipe. Very excited to have burritos and quesadillas in the woods. Today I might try dehydrating some salsa to go with these meals.