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 #4: Raspberries and cream oatmeal

My inspiration for this came from a really yummy looking recipe for raspberry cheesecake oatmeal.  To be honest, I was going to make it with cream cheese, even though I wouldn't be able to make it that way when camping, but to my disappointment, I didn't actually have any cream cheese in the fridge.

This recipe calls for large flake oats that cook in 4-5 minutes.  I did this because I wasn't sure how long it would take for the raspberries to rehydrate, and figured a few minutes of cooking would be better than eating berries with the consistency of styrofoam. (If you've never eaten a dehydrated raspberry, it's kind of nasty)  Also, I made this for 2 people, where normally I've been making a 1 serving sample.

Raspberries and Cream Oatmeal (2 servings)

1 2/3 cup water
2/3 cup oats (large flake)
1/2 cup dehydrated raspberries
1 tbsp powdered skim milk
1 tbsp granulated sugar

Put the raspberries into the water right away.  Once the water comes to a boil, add the oats and stir until cooked (should be 4-5 minutes) then stir in the powdered milk and sugar.  The raspberries will break up into individual little pieces, but that actually makes it better because it means you get berry flavour in every bite.

Conclusion:  I'm pretty picky about my oatmeal.  I can't even get through a packet of the instant stuff because the last few bites worth make me want to puke but I scraped the bowl of this.  Chris liked it too.  It starts off kind of tart, but as you eat it, it seems to get sweeter.

When I calculated how much water (okay there was no calculating. I totally guessed)  I figured the recipe on the oats calls for 2/3 cup water for 1/3 cup of oats (1 serving.) I doubled that and added another 1/3 cup for rehydrating berries and for the milk.  It seemed to work well and the end result was neither too runny or a thick glue-like glob, so yay me!  As to using large flake oats, yes it will increase fuel use to boil the oats for that long.  I'm not sure if letting them sit in a cosy for a few minutes would work, I imagine it would.  I don't have a cosy, but once I make one, I'll give it a try.  I prefer large flake oats over the instant stuff anyway, so I'm hoping it works out.

Tomorrow's experiment...Curried Pumpkin Soup...it's on the dehydrator now, so I'll let you know how it turns out.

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.

Recipe experiment #1 PB&J oatmeal

As I stated in my last post, I'm hoping to try out some recipes I've found for camp meals over the winter...and hopefully make a good list of things to take with us next summer.  This first experiment was from a comment I saw on a home economics blog about making your own oatmeal packets similar to the store bought ones, only for less money. I love this idea because you can also control the sugar, and you can try other flavours that aren't available any other way.  The author said her kids loved adding a dollop of peanut butter and a dollop of jelly to their oatmeal and I thought, well that would be easy to make at camp, even when back country camping.  If you have a wholesale supply store in your area, you can buy those individual serving packets of jams and peanut butter like you get in a restaurant.  If not, next time you go out for breakfast and get toast, keep the jam packet they give you.  Restaurants aren't allowed to reuse them even if they aren't used, so it would just get thrown out anyway.  You can take peanut butter in small containers, but I'm not sure how well jam lasts at room temperature.  Of course if you are car camping, you can keep a small jar in your cooler.

PB&J Oatmeal - 1 serving

1/3 cup quick oats
2/3 cup water
1 packet peanut butter
1 packet jam or jelly of your favorite flavor.

Boil the water and add oats.  The recipe on the package of oats calls for salt, but I never add it.  It takes like 30 seconds for them to simmer to completeness, or let them sit for a minute.  Add in the jam and peanut butter, stir well.

Conclusion:  Squatch, not surprisingly, loved it, but Bubbie isn't a big fan of jam so took one tiny bite and handed me the bowl.  I think she might like it better with just peanut butter.  I will also try it with Nutella for her.  As for myself, I thought it was alright.  I wouldn't want to eat a huge bowl of it, I don't think, but it wasn't horrible.  It was easy to make, and would be easy to pack for either car camping or back country.  I also like that you don't add extra sugar, just the jam.

The great thing about taking oatmeal for breakfast is that you can easily let everyone have their own flavour choices.  I have a big list of ideas for oatmeal and how to mix it up, so keep watching for more.

If you can't find a restaurant supply store, and feel weird about smuggling jam out of a restaurant, you can order them online. There are places that sell them individually, and some that sell in bulk.  I'm trying to find one that's in Canada so the shipping isn't astronomically expensive and will post links when I come across some good sites.