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Purchase
a dehydrator—make your own jerky, dried meats and fish, dried
fruits, and vegetables. You can even prepare a dish and then
dehydrate it.
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Forget
the gourmet meals—enjoy them at home, keep it simple in the
wilderness.
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Purchase
packaged dinners, such as Lipton “Chicken and Broccoli”, at the
grocery store. You can fortify them with your dehydrated meats and
vegetables.
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Use
the “boil and set” method to save fuel. Bring water to a boil
in your cook pot, add your dinner, bring back to a boil, cover and
turn the stove off. Wait 10 minutes and eat. This works with
packaged dinners (both pasta and rice) that specify a simmer time of
12 minutes or less.
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Always
use a lid on your cook pot and a wind screen to increase the
efficiency of your stove. A pot cozy may increase efficiency, but we
question whether it's worth the extra weight.
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We
are experimenting with no-cook meals to save weight by not
taking a stove on short (1-2 night) trips, and will post some
recipes when we work them out. Some things that we have found so far
that re-hydrate ok in cold water are dried pea and lentil soup mix
and refried beans from a natural foods store, and
instant potatoes.
Muesli
Adapted
from “Uprisings: The Whole Grain Bakers’ Book”
7½ cups Old Fashioned rolled oats
5 cups rolled wheat
2½ cups rolled rye
2½ cups rolled triticale
1¼ cup dates
2 cup raisins
½ cup almonds (sliced or cut up)
½ cup walnuts
1 cup sunflower seeds
3 T. cinnamon
1 cup dried fruit
Bring water to boil—two parts water to one part cereal. Add
cereal.
Bring back to boil. Let set for 5 to 10 minutes. One serving is ½ to 1
cup of the mix.
No-Cook Meals
The usual reaction we get to our no-cook meals is--Yuck!
Many people can't imagine eating cold dinners, but they eat cold
breakfasts and lunches. To be completely honest, we haven't found a cold
dinner that tastes as good as a hot one. Basically what you get is baby
food--it doesn't look very appetizing, but it tastes fine and is just as
nutritious as a cooked meal. If you're not a fussy eater (like Will), and
you want to save some weight and keep things simple, then read on.
We experimented with a lot
of different foods to determine which were suitable for no-cook
meals. Through trial and error, we also found methods to make a
wider variety of foods re-hydrateable in cold water. Here is a
summary of what we found:
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In general, everything
needs to be fine-textured in order to re-hydrate in 5-10 min with
cold water.
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A coffee grinder works
great to pulverize foods so they re-hydrate quickly.
-
A food dehydrator is
very handy to dry a variety of foods, which can then be ground in a
coffee grinder for no-cook use.
-
It is easiest to use
some kind of commercial mix as a base because it contains all the
needed seasonings. Many natural foods stores have dehydrated soup
mixes and refried beans in bulk. Also, there are a variety of soup
mixes available.
-
A typical homemade
no-cook meal contains a commercial mix (powdered) as a base,
plus some powdered meat, plus a powdered vegetable.
The following recipes
provide some examples of homemade no-cook meals using the techniques
listed above. For Will, a dry weight of 7 oz is about the right amount;
it re-hydrates to about one quart of dinner. You will need to determine the right amount for your weight and
activity level.
Gourmet Beans (for
1 person):
1/2 cup instant refried beans
1/4 cup powdered cheese
1/4 cup dehydrated and powdered beef (we use elk meat)
1/8 cup dehydrated and crumbled tomatoes
Add instant potatoes to a total weight of 7 oz
Hearty Soup
3/4 cup powdered soup mix (Bear Creek soup mixes work great)
1/4 cup dehydrated and powdered chicken or turkey
1/8 cup dehydrated and powdered vegetables
Add instant potatoes to a total weight of 7 oz
Hummus and Spuds
1/3 cup dried hummus
1/4 cup dehydrated and powdered meat
1/8 cup dehydrated and powdered vegetables
Add instant potatoes to a total weight of 7 oz
Nature's Burger Stew
2/3 cup powdered Nature's burger (available in bulk from a natural foods
store)
1/4 cup powdered cheese
1/4 cup dehydrated and powdered meat
1/8 cup dehydrated and powdered vegetables
Add instant potatoes to a total weight of 7 oz
You have probably
noticed that a common denominator in our recipes is instant potatoes.
Instant potatoes work very well for no-cook meals using cold water. We have tried grinding couscous and instant rice, but they do not work as
well. We have also tried using Falafil mix, and our advice is to avoid it.
There are many, many variations we have tried with different soup mixes
and they all work quite well to produce different flavors.