Thread: Dehydrating Meals

WelI I mentioned awhile ago that I had been thinking of dehydrating some of the stuff that we have an abundance of in the garden.

Gave it a go....

Chopped up some zucchinis (actually a marrow) Egg plant and Capsicum. Then roasted them in the oven for a bit.



Fried up some onion and mushroom in the wock and added a heap of chopped up tomatoes.



Chucked in all the roasted vegies and simmered it until it thickened.


Spread it out on the dehydrator trays lined with cooking paper and in it went for 7 hrs on 65dec



I had read that when doing this it was important to get the food 'super dry' so after 7 hrs it was clear that 'super dry' had not been obtained so back in for another 5hrs and that seemed to do the trick.



Ended up with 4x 65g bags of what I am calling ratatouille. Thinking that I will probably just boil it with some pasta out in the field.



Given that the only thing purchased was the mushrooms it was done at virtually no cost to me other than a bit of time and mucking about.

Quite happy with how it went, I guess the proof will be in the pudding though when I give it a try in the field.

Pretty keen to hear of other peoples experiences, suggestions or recipies etc when doing this.

Reckon I will keep experimenting with it, especially as this time of the year with the garden full

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Did you forget the mince?
Puttanesca comes up good.

@kukuwai had a chance to eat this in the hills yet?
I've got an opportunity to play around with a dehydrator and wondering if you - or anyone else - had found some ripping meals that I could try out.

Cheers

Originally Posted by SoreLegs

@kukuwai had a chance to eat this in the hills yet?
I've got an opportunity to play around with a dehydrator and wondering if you - or anyone else - had found some ripping meals that I could try out.

Cheers

Yep its all gone. Reconstituted well. One of those bags with some pasta added fed both myself and son. Will definitely do it again when the garden is plentiful.

Have also dehydrated a curry since and that worked put well too


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I've had great results with chilis and bolognese - I just use my own venni/tahr mince but skip adding any pork back fat + add some breadcrumbs to aid in rehydration.

This guys website has a ton of information - https://www.backpackingchef.com/

I'm completely converted to be honest - it's so much cheaper and way, way easier on your guts.

Usually serve it with rice (cooked at home then dehydrated).

I bought this guys recipe book a while back - some great ideas to level up your tramping/hunting food… https://campfirecreations.co.nz/fast-light/

Cheers Jake. I just grabbed a copy of the light and fast book. Looks interesting

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Great sources, cheers fellas. Keen to give some of them a try

This is good, hope you could share some phones later of how your cook and eat them. I used to carry some dehydrated vegetable soup with eggs for outdoors and sometimes biol it with noodles (dehydrated too). It looks no much different than those made from fresh and taste good. And it `s very light to carry only 220g, on the package said it can serve a squad of 5-7 men

Went to a how-to-do-it dehydrating workshop. The main players said they usually worked on 50-55 degrees for 24 - 48 hours

Sounded all good till I turned the dehydrator over to see its rated wattage... and saw that running it for 24 hours would quadrupple my off grid homes' power useage. So will have to come up with a plan B that uses the log burner, or the power of the sun during summer or some such.

What a cool idea. I'm definitely gonna have to give something like this a go when I get out there.