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Just Add Water Trail Food
By Roberta Cobb
I
presented a session on making and dehydrating meals at the 2004 Gathering.
Many people asked me to share some of my recipes, so each issue I will share
a few tips and one or two of my meal recipes. I encourage each of you who
make part or all of your own food to share your recipes as well.
My trail meal plan is to ‘just add water.’ All my meals are prepared on the trail by adding hot or cold water. Nothing gets cooked on my alcohol stove. I do the work at home – I make meals, dehydrate, package in vacuum-seal bags in single servings. On the trail, I add boiling water directly to the opened bag, roll the top over and clip, wait 10 minutes or so, then eat directly out of the bag. It’s not a very elegant dining setting, but we like long distance hiking and most of us light-weight hikers trade fashion for weight savings.
Before I received the meal sealer, I used freezer zip lock bags. They work OK, although they have a bigger chance of opening while in your pack. Test out the bags at home before you pour boiling water into your trail meal and find out the bags melt. I have been extremely pleased with the vacuum sealer, and highly recommend the investment if you plan to make your own “meals ready to eat.”
Here’s a meal preparation tip: I usually eat fresh one of the meals that I make, so that I’m not slaving to make trail meals. I cook up the pot of soup, and then before I divide it onto the dehydrating trays, I reserve a serving or two to eat now. I’ll add some water to that and let it simmer while I spread out the rest on the trays, then I have a meal or two for home eating. This way I’m really not taking much more time to make trail meals than I am to make my own daily meal. The only additional time is in the working with the dehydrator and sealing the meals.
Cheese is a wonderful trail food. It has been around for centuries as a way to preserve milk, so I was never too worried that it would survive a month on the trail. Cheese is loaded with fat and protein, and contains calcium. I’ve been making home made trail food for over 10 years now, and I’ve only had one meal mold before I could eat it. It was cheesy lasagna that I didn’t dehydrate quite enough. But one failure out of hundreds tells me the concept is OK. I tested Havarti by packaging some in a vacuumsealed bag, then leaving it for weeks in my westfacing upstairs window, without air conditioning. It was OK. Harder cheeses such as Asiago or Parmesan do not need to be sealed separatelyjust drop the hunk of cheese into the meal packet before sealing, and it lasts just fine. I seal separately softer cheese, such as Havarti or Jarlsberg, to keep it from oozing into the rest of the dehydrated food before I’m ready to eat it. Sometimes cheese is already cooked into the meal, such as in lasagna. Happy trails.