Teardrops n Tiny Travel Trailers

Last fall I bought an Excalibur dehydrator and it works great. I have been too busy to try some of the dehydrated dishes for camping that I have seen. Does anyone dehydrate meals for travel? I do a lot of making things from scratch and don't want to spend all my time at the campground cooking and washing dishes which is what it used to amount too. Since we are hoping to start building the camper this fall or spring, I feel inspired to give the dishes a try so I'll report back on how they work out. Cathy

for me, simplicity is the key. limited resources, simple meals. franks and beans taste great while camping.

There are also more and more almost healthy instant type meals available.

And, since I have a microwave, I can pick up a couple of frozen dinners and heat and eat.

One dish meals are extremely popular with me when I'm camping...

I use a dehydrator anytime I have access to fresh fruits to use as snacks. I just like the intense flavor and the texture. Blueberrys, strawberrys, pears, and other fruits make my favorite snacks.

Dehydrators work especially well for onions, green peppers, and apricots. Apricots tend to turn brownish color but they still taste good. Chopped dehydrated green peppers and onions are nice for seasoning other foods. I've never tried dehydrating egg whites but I like them and purchase them for use in camp cooking...no refrigeration needed and no yolk to dispose of at the campsite.

But, for camping, I prefer canned foods whenever possible as I keep at least 3 days survival food packed for camping and emergencies. I use camp trips to rotate the old stuff out. If one is in an emergency or in a primitive campground that does not have water, dehydrated food can be a problem.

That's only one cent's worth. I don't have two cents to give on the subject.

I have dehydrated hamburger and used it while canoe camping. You need to get very lean meat. Brown it well and drain and rinse with hot water to get any grease rinse. Dry very well.

I have taken hamburger helper, dehydrated speghetti sauce, made pizza with it and sloppy joes. Works well. My wife like it with Rice-A-Roni also. I need to be cooked with something for at least 10 minutes or so to re-hydrate. I almost looks like coffee grounds when dehydrated.

While in the back woods of Kodiak Island I have taken several packages of Freeze Dried foods. There are several national brands available at most sporting goods stores. They are very light and only require boiling water.
Simply pour recommended amount of boiling water into the bag, stir, then seal for about 8 to 10 minutes. The foods are very tasty and quite handy.
The breakfast items such as scrambled eggs and bacon are the only ones I do not like.
Larry

king arthur flour mills has a catalog with a number of dry ingredients that I find very handy for emergency supply / camping.

http://www.kingarthurflour.com/shop/list.jsp;jsessionid=4704DFCFC652C07425CC7B428D88CE91?pv=1223568578493&select=C78&byCategory=C292

Some of my favorite "grocery store" dehydrated meals:
Quaker instant grits
Store-brand instant oatmeal (here is a trick: get one package baked apple or cinnamon apple and one package cinnamon roll, and 1/3 cup dry milk. Boil 1/2 cup water and pour into the oatmeal/milk mix in a mug, cover and let stand 10 minutes. It's yummy. You can skip the milk and sub in apple or cranberry juice and have something very like pie, too.)

razorback wrote:While in the back woods of Kodiak Island I have taken several packages of Freeze Dried foods. There are several national brands available at most sporting goods stores. They are very light and only require boiling water.
Simply pour recommended amount of boiling water into the bag, stir, then seal for about 8 to 10 minutes. The foods are very tasty and quite handy.
The breakfast items such as scrambled eggs and bacon are the only ones I do not like.
Larry

I used to do a camp cooking class at REI, and they wanted me to make these dried meals part of the class material. I was reluctant, but then I took some out and tried them. They really weren't bad at all -- and some were pretty tasty. As a result, I started to take some of them on backpacking weekends.

I still really prefer to cook from scratch when I camp, though.

CD