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Steve E wrote:
It's gonna be hard giving up the pound of bacon each morning...I'm not going to lie...
Ya know, you can cut down on weight without having to give up on life. ;-)
A couple of really easy things to prepare with the dehydrator are chili and spaghetti sauce. For the chili I make up the pot of chili and then just spread out on the plastic trays in the dehydrator, set the temperature to 165 and let it run. For spaghetti sauce I find it works better to dehydrate the ground beef and the sauce separately.
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Question on the dehydrated foods...If I make them ahead of the trip, do I just put the dehyrated food in Ziplocs and put them in the freezer until the trip? Or should I make the meals closer to the trip and not freeze them? How long would dehydrated meals (i.e. chili, etc.) last before spoiling?
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That's the worst brand of dehydrated meals you can buy. For a comparison, look at the Mountain House brand and compare the amount of positive reviews by real people - it's a no brainer. That Alpine brand is horrible and very high in sodium. They all are high in sodium but Alpine is one of the worst offenders in this category. Your taste buds must be in your socks..lol
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What kind of meals do folks do for mid-length trips in the back country (i.e. 5 or 6 nights)? We're trying to look at ways to cut down on the weight and bulk of stuff that we bring. We've gotten away from the types of trips we used to do because the portaging has gotten too exhausting with the amount of gear we bring (this is my 73 year old dad and I) so over the last few years we've just done trips with either no portages or very minimal ones. We want to get back to our old ways but that means cutting some weight (i.e. no more cooler and big comfy directors chairs
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Any ideas for meals that are filling but wouldn't weigh as much as a steak, potato, salad and garlic bread? I do have a dehydrator that I've never really used so I'm open to suggestions for that as well.
Thanks!
Fire up that dehydrator and go on over to Kevin's channel on YouTube - Kevin Outdoors. He's incredibly proficient at creating tasty dehydrated meals for backpackers and trippers. Check it out..
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That's the worst brand of dehydrated meals you can buy. For a comparison, look at the Mountain House brand and compare the amount of positive reviews by real people - it's a no brainer. That Alpine brand is horrible and very high in sodium. They all are high in sodium but Alpine is one of the worst offenders in this category. Your taste buds must be in your socks..lol
It really depends on what you get. The Chicken Teriyaki from Mountain House has about 1500mg per package (about 550kcal) according to their website and the beef chili from alpine aire that I posted earlier in this thread has about 1200mg for about 600kcal. I don’t think it’s fair to compare X brand is better than Y brand because of sodium content when each package varies wildly.
Also given how active you are on a canoe trip, usually under the sun, and how much you sweat, you might need that sodium. It obviously depends on the rest of your diet but I eat a very low sodium diet (not intentionally just my preferred food choices) so having a meal like this is actually beneficial for me.
I can’t argue if you’re talking purely about taste though, that just comes down to personal preference. Mountain House may have better reviews overall but it seems like myself and others here still enjoy Alpine Aire.
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My comment was referring to an overall opinion shared by most people who have tried both brands (and several others) in a real wilderness setting while tripping and camping...and sweating.
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Do you guys find that the pre-made dehydrated meals (i.e. Alpinare) are accurate in their serving suggestions? They look so small it really looks as though a hungry adult could eat a 2 serving meal of those?
I usually just eat a full bag for myself. I find that's the perfect amount to fill me up (I wouldn't want to split a bag, even one that says it serves 2)
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That's the worst brand of dehydrated meals you can buy. For a comparison, look at the Mountain House brand and compare the amount of positive reviews by real people - it's a no brainer. That Alpine brand is horrible and very high in sodium. They all are high in sodium but Alpine is one of the worst offenders in this category. Your taste buds must be in your socks..lol
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Just to be clear, you're telling me that my personal preference is somehow invalid because you don't agree with it?
I've had many mountain house meals and they're fine, but I prefer AlpineAire. You're welcome to disagree with me - but you don't need to try to invalidate my opinion while doing it.
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That's the worst brand of dehydrated meals you can buy. For a comparison, look at the Mountain House brand and compare the amount of positive reviews by real people - it's a no brainer. That Alpine brand is horrible and very high in sodium. They all are high in sodium but Alpine is one of the worst offenders in this category. Your taste buds must be in your socks..lol
But how do you really feel about them?
(Also, adding lol at the end of a weirdly aggressive attack on someone's personal preference doesn't make it okay. There are ways to disagree with someone without attacking them)
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One thing I forgot to add about the super scientific "look at the number of positive reviews" comment: MEC has carried Mountain House forever. I mean as long as I've been shopping there, Mountain House has been on their shelves. You can find reviews going back 10+ years. MEC started carrying AlpineAire maybe 4 years ago.
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I also like good old KD...
Ahh yes, KD original. You can get a 12 pack at Costco for dirt cheap. Repackage the cheese powder in a zip lock with 60 g parmageian cheese and 60 g butter so if you get a bit of melting then it's absorbed by the powder. Yummy.
Also,there are a ton of tasty protein bars that are calorie dense and are the epitome of convenience.
P.S. When I was a kid KD called for 1/4 cup (60 ml) of butter or (yuk) margarine. Now they say add 15 ml non hydrogenated margarine. I’m sure it tastes better with the old recipe.
Last edited by solos (4/12/2019 6:57 pm)
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Definitely try experimenting with your dehydrator! There's lots of good info out there but here are my Quick Start Recommended Things To Know:
- The less fat the better when dehydrating (extra lean ground beef, rinsed after cooking)
- Timing in recipes is a wild guess. Just check it every 4 hours or so (or longer). I typically start it before bed and check in the am.
- Some people swear on the importance of measuring out how much liquid you dehydrate so you know how much to use when rehydrating. Meh; I just eyeball it and taste it as it's heating.
- I do pay a little attention to serving sizes before dehydrating. I write "X servings" on the ziplock before storing.
- Chicken doesn't rehydrate well (but apparently canned chicken rehydrates ok)
- ground beef is easy to rehydrate and delicious and full of protein
- If your dehydrator doesn't have a fan, rotate the trays every few hours (or whenever you remember)
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Tastes are pretty personal, I’ve had good luck with some of the alpine air brand, but found the portions for two to large for one. This past year we switched to Happy Yak out of quebec. These were better proportioned for 2 eaters with a large appetite. The two meal pouches indeed fed both of us. The taste was fantastic. The only fly in the ointment was one meal with dried potato slices in it, a stew. It took twice as long to cook ready then what it said on the package. Likely will pre-soak that particular one next time. We found the taste as good or better then alpine air. Full of veggies and meat you can really see.
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Steve, getting back on your topic, I portion and then freeze. I've had meals up to a year old, but I'm sure they'd last longer too. If you're really Keen you can get one of those food saver vacuum sealers from Costco (often on sale if not just well priced) and cut back on size too.
Be aware that hydration can take a while. For something like the stew recipe I posted it even a chili, I find it best to have a stove that can simmer and add water as needed. It sometimes takes longer than you'd think, especially is your experience is limited to Mountain House style meals. Kidney beans in chili and stewing beef take a while to reconstitute.
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Steve, getting back on your topic, I portion and then freeze. I've had meals up to a year old, but I'm sure they'd last longer too. If you're really Keen you can get one of those food saver vacuum sealers from Costco (often on sale if not just well priced) and cut back on size too.
Be aware that hydration can take a while. For something like the stew recipe I posted it even a chili, I find it best to have a stove that can simmer and add water as needed. It sometimes takes longer than you'd think, especially is your experience is limited to Mountain House style meals. Kidney beans in chili and stewing beef take a while to reconstitute.
Thanks Zemantics...So when you rehydrate, do you put in the appropriate amount of cold water, put the whole thing over a stove and simmer? Or do you add boiling water and remove from heat and put the pot in a cozy and let it sit?
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Steve what I've done for years is to dehydrate the meal, run it through the blender (not with beans!) on the coarse setting, line a baggie with a paper towel (used later to wipe the plate then burn't) to stop and spiky stuff from poking through, label it with serving size and directions (add beef, simmer, or soak, etc) and toss it in the freezer. if it's a week or two it'll just go in the fridge. In the bush, generally during the meal before, I'll set out a nalgine in the sun with enough water to hydrate, to warm the water and add the dry food, by dinner it's rehydrated and ready to eat. It it's a two- part meal (like spaghetti) I'l rehydrate the meat, early, simmer the sauce, and dump it in- takes 15min- 1/2 hour depending on how fine you grind up the sauce.
For chicken I'll cook it normally (roast, bbq,etc) then boil it until you can fork it apart easily. It comes back just about as good as FD, but you won't have chunks of chicken.
Whatever it is- make sure you add a spoon or so of olive or canola oil, ghee, or shortening to replace the fat lost in cooking- it also softens the meat a bit!
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Trippythings; Hate to say it, but I agree with Steve! I've got a bad ticker and the amount of salt in Alpineaire is far too high! My allowance for an ENTIRE day is only 2000MG, so one meal and a chocolate bar can put my BP way into the red zone, and the amount of actual salt you lose is, at most, a couple of hundred MG, you lose far more potassium!
