Food Prep: notes and menu

Heart of the Park

Algonquin Park Canoe Trip
Menu Plan

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19 days worth of food ready for the barrel

Canoe Trip – Summer 2019

Dehydrated Meals & Meal Plan

We are heading out on what will be for us a long canoe trip. Nineteen days through the middle of Algonquin Park with long hilly portages and some very large lakes. One of the many challenges has been creating lightweight filling and nutritional meals. This is a task I stated 6 months in advance. It would have been impossible to prepare in time if I had left it till a couple of weeks before our trip. I joined a backpacker’s dehydrating Facebook group and picked up a ton of ideas. 

Here are a few generalizations:

Almost anything can be dehydrated, the exception being high fat foods such as cheese and avocados. A few types of food are better bought freeze-dried; eggs, bacon and cheddar cheese for example.  

Fresh cooked chicken dehydrates hard as a rock and will not rehydrate to an edible form. However, chicken in a can dehydrates and reconstitutes okay and is much cheaper than freeze-dried.  Costco sells a very good quality chicken in a can. 

Prepare your favourite one-pot meals and pasta sauces to dehydrate. Dehydrate in measured meal portions; store in a labeled Ziplock Baggie.

If making a meal that is to be served over grains such as rice or pasta, cook and dehydrate at home, then add to the dehydrated meal. For example, I dehydrated several meals of a Chickpea Curry dish. I cooked the rice separately, measured portions onto a dehydrator tray, and when dry added to the Chickpea Curry baggie. The benefit being, you do not need to cook the grains at camp. Backpackers simply add boiling water to the Freezer Ziplock Baggie, stir, wait and eat. I will use my Fairshare mug or pot over the fire to rehydrate and warm the meal. 

Fruits and smoothies should be dehydrated on the lowest possible setting (115 F. at most) to preserve nutrients and not cook the fruit.

Vegetables @ 130 – 140 F. Some of them need to be blanched first. Lots of online information.

Cooked meats and meat sauces @ 145 F. up to the highest heat setting.

Dried smoothies are like fruit leather. Freeze to make brittle then use a food processor or spice grinder to make into a fine powder so that it will reconstitute smooth, not lumpy.

Smoothies - process

• Blend well and divide onto dehydrator trays lined with parchment paper.
• Dehydrate at 115 F. as the low temperature will preserve the nutrients and not cook the fruit during the drying process.
• When completely dry (like leather) freeze. Once frozen the fruit leather will be brittle. Break up and turn into fine powder in food processor or spice grinder.
• Store in zip lock baggie for trip
• Rehydrate night before by combining powder and water in a 1 liter Nalgene bottle. I added a shaker ball to the bottle. Shake well in the morning and serve.

after the trip notes

What was great:

We loved the baked beans and bacon with naans for breakfast. I made the baked beans from scratch in the crock pot and dehydrated them. They reconstituted awesome.  Baked Beans from a can would be just as good.

The coffee energy smoothie provided a huge boost. I  reconstituted in water bottles and drank with snacks during long portages.

All the dehydrated dinners worked out great.

What didn't work:

Avocado smoothie was barely drinkable. I'll never bring it again. 

The chicken I dehydrated from a can was great in the risotto and chick pea curry but didn't work out  for chicken salad with wraps. Too runny. We ate it anyway because we had to.

Dehydrated salmon salad is absolutely gross. Never again. Dogs loved it. There goes our emergency lunch.

Next time:

Even though I measured 50 percent more than we usually eat for a meal I should have doubled it as we were always hungry.

The Orange Breakfast Smoothie was good but I think next time I will dehydrate fruit smoothies to have with breakfast rather than for breakfast. I like the crunch of granola.

More bannock. More pancake mix. More baked beans. Two extra dinners, two extra lunches even if I just throw in freeze dried Mountain House meals for insurance.

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While we did deviate a bit, we mostly stuck to the food schedule. This was a really helpful exercise both in preparation and in the field.

Meal Plan

All meals fit in large barrel = Total weight with food approx. 50 lbs.

18 Dinners + 1 extra

19 Lunches + extra bannock

18 Breakfasts + 1 extra

DINNERS

1 – Chicken Souvlaki, Rice (or Pita) & Salad with tzatziki sauce - fresh

2 - Coconut Curry with chickpeas and rice; dehydrated.** Cashews.

1 – Smoked Salmon, fusilli, basil pesto, sundried tomatoes, sweet peppers

2 – Risotto with Chicken, dehydrated**

3 – Beef Chili, dehydrated. Freeze Dried Cheddar Cheese.**

2 – Irish Beef Stew, dehydrated**

2  - Spicy Cajun Pasta & ground beef, dehydrated. Freeze Dried Cheddar Cheese.**

2 – Turkey Vegetable Stew, dehydrated

3 – Pasta Sauce with Beef & Super Grains Fusilli (GoGo Quinoa)

LUNCHES

1 – Pastrami and Swiss cheese on Rye with sauerkraut; apple (fresh day one)

2 – Salmon Salad, dehydrated -  on naans

4 – Chicken Salad, dehydrated -  on wraps

4 + 2 extra – Fruit Bannock with Jelly

4 – Bagals with peanut butter and cashew butter

4 – Salami/Hard Cheese on Crackers; 4-bean salad dehydrated

BREAKFASTS

2 – Bacon, scrambled eggs with red peppers, hash-browns**

3 – Baked Beans, bacon, naans & cheese

6 – Breakfast protein bar & Breakfast smoothies (dehydrated) 3 Avocado/Kale & 3 Orange/Banana**;

5 + 1 extra – Alpen / Granola and dried fruit

3 – Buttermilk Blueberry Pancakes with maple syrup, bacon

SNACKS & DESSERTS & DRINKS

Chocolate covered coffee beans/ cranberries

7 High-energy Coffee/Cocoa/protein smoothies for two (dehydrated) – mid-day portage refuel**

Veggie Chips

Instant Coffee, Herbal Tea, orange crystals

Ketchup, Mayo (individual packets), cheddar cheese powder, hot sauce, pepper salt, oil spray