Trail Recipe

When backpacking season comes around I begin to think about all of the delicious food that can be brought. I'm not big on dirtying dishes while out and about, so I take advantage of freezer bag cooking. Here's one my favorites that is easy to prepare before the trail. All you'll need to do is add boiling water, eat, and enjoy!

Pasta w/Meat Sauce
At Home
Dehydrate your favorite pasta sauce to the point it looks like leather. Be sure to put plastic wrap on your trays, or a rather large mess will be made.

Dehydrate 1/4 pound lean hamburger or turkey per person. Brown meat, rinse until as much of the grease is gone, pat dry, and your ready to dehydrate. I suggest using the plastic wrap trick here also, as the meat dries it turns into gravel and falls through the holes of the trays.

Cook pasta until aldente (use your judgement on amount, remember when it dries it looks like much less than what it will reconstitute to). I like rotini or penne pasta.

Rip sauce into smaller pieces and place in sandwhich baggie. In a gallon size freezer bag put dehydrated meat, noodles, and sauce pouch together. I also like to add a packet of parmesean cheese.

On the trail
Remove sauce pouch, add about 1/3 cup water, not boiling, mush around. Water from your bottle is fine.
Boil aproximately 1 1/2 cups water. Add boiling water and sauce mix to meat/pasta mix. Stir well, place in foil cozy and let sit for 10 minutes or until pasta is tender. Stir well again, add your parmesean and have a delightful dinner on the trail.

Outdoor Cooking

With backpacking season approaching, it's time to start thinking about food. What to bring is always a huge concern. There are so many things to ask yourself; Does this have enough calories? Does this have enough nutrition? Will this sustain me? How hard is it to put together? How about the weight? How difficult is it to make on the trail? Does this taste good? There are endless questions when it comes to prepping for your pack meals. I would like to share one of my favorite recipes that is a main staple on my pack trips. Everything is prepared before hand, placed in a freezer bag, and is ready to go! Just add hot water. I hope you enjoy!

Fiesta Taco
makes 2

Ingredients:
hamburger 1/2 pound (aprox)
onions
olives
instant rice 1 cup divided
taco seasoning 2 - 3 tsp. or to taste
salt (to taste)
pepper (to taste)
tortillas - optional
freezer bags 2-1 quart
Heavy dut aluminum foil

You will need a dehydrator to prepare this.

*Brown hamburger until fully cookes. Rinse and rinse hamburger to remove as much grease as possible. Pat dry.
*Slice olives and dice onions. The amount you use will be to your liking.
Put hamburger, olives, and onions in dehydrator on seperate racks and dry until ready.
*In your freezer bags mix half the hamburger, olives, onions, seasonings, and rice. Voila! Your meal is prepped. Take the heavy duty foil and fold it into a pouch shape, making sure the edges are tight, leaving an opening at the top to slide in your freezer bag meal.
At camp, boil water, about 1 - 1 1/2 cups
*Place freezer bag meal inside foil pouch and pour in boiling water. Close freezer bag and fold over top of foil pouch. Give everything a good squish around to mix. Let it sit for about 10 min, then you're ready to eat. You can scoop the mixture into tortillas if you like. I usually just eat as is. The foil pouches can be reused many times. When you're done with it just fold it back up and put with your food items.

I hope you all enjoy this. I will be sharing recipes that I have tested throughout this blog, and encourage all of us to share and share alike.