DIY backpacking dinners - "sushi"

I think this is where everyone is going to say, "He's crazy!" But I got this weird idea and decided to go for it. The main ingredients will be the rice, mushrooms and foil packet of (cooked) salmon. But I am also taking some toasted seaweed sheets to see if we can't do some hand rolls on the trail. Over 600 total calories.

Ingredients

• 1 ½ cups instant rice
• ¼-½ cups dried shiitake mushrooms
• 1 ½ tsp garden seasoning flakes (really small dried veggy flakes)
• 1 tsp wasabi powder (that oughta get things going!)
• dash of salt (really needed to find dried soy sauce)
• 1 sheet of crumbled dried seaweed
• 3 sheets of dried seaweed for rolling
• 3 oz foil packet of salmon

Preparation

Add 1 ½ cups boiling water and let sit for at least five minutes (or better for more like 30 so it can cool off. Spoon into seaweed sheets with some of the salmon and roll up and eat.

DIY backpacking dinners - "spaghetti" with beef and tomato "cream" "sauce"

Almost 600 calories, but also ten ounces, so not as good ratio as I would like. This one will be one of the more "interesting" ones in terms of how it ends up actually tasting. I am somewhere between hopeful and trepedated.

Ingredients

• 2 3 oz. packages of crumbled ramen (remove the flavor packets and pitch 'em or save for something else)
• ½ jar of dried beef, quartered
• 1/3 cup dried milk (mostly for texture, I hope, and a bit of thickening)
• 2 Tbs dried chopped tomatoes
• 2 Tbs grated Parmesan cheese
• 1 Tbs dried red and green pepper flakes
• 1 Tbs dried garlic chips
• 1 Tbs dried onion flakes
• 1 tsp marjoram
• 1 tsp oregano
• 1 tsp basil
• dash of crushed hot red pepper flakes
• dash of pepper

Preparation

Add a little over one cup of boiling water and let sit for at least five minutes.

DIY backpacking dinners - stuffing with veggies

This one only clocks in at 450 calories, but stuffing always seems to "stick to your ribs" so hopefully it will be enough, perhaps for a light day. A single box of stuffing mix made enough for two, so there's another bag of this as the spare, in case we stay in country an extra day.

Ingredients

• 1 ½ cups stuffing (I used chicken, you could use any flavor)
• 1 Lipton "Cup-a-Soup" chicken noodle soup packet (for the dehydrated chicken bits more than anything else)
• 1/3 cup dried vegetable flakes
• 1/3 cup fried peas
• 1 Tbs dried onion flakes
• 1 tsp Butter Buds
• dash of pepper

Preparation

Add a little over one cup of boiling water and let sit for at least five minutes.

DIY backpacking dinners - rice pilaf

At just around 500 calories for eight ounces, this is getting toward the low end of calories per ounce, but I think it will be tasty.

Ingredients

• 1 ½ cups instant rice
• 3 Tbs broccoli cheese soup mix
• 1 Tbs dried red and green pepper flakes
• 1 Tbs dried chopped tomatoes
• 1 Tbs dried onion flakes
• ½ Tbs dried garlic chips
• 1 tsp oregano
• 1 tsp marjoram
• ½ tsp crumbled dried sage leaves
• dash of pepper
• dash of salt

Preparation

Add 1 ½ cups boiling water and let sit for at least five minutes.

DIY backpacking dinners - shepherd's pie thing

This one may end up being a little suspect. I wonder if the mashed potatoes are going to be a bit too bulky or cloying when trying to eat them. Also, it has dried beef in it, which in the past has been a bit too salty to be palatable at altitude. May be good to have this on day when I've sweated a lot to replace the electrolytes. We'll see. 550+ calories.

Ingredients

• 1 ½ cups instant mashed potatoes
• ½ cup fried peas
• ½ cup dried beef, quartered
• 1/3 cup dried milk
• 1 Tbs chives
• 1 tsp Butter Buds
• 1 tsp dried cheese sauce
• dash of pepper

Preparation

Add 2+ cups of boiling water and let sit for at least five minutes.

DIY backpacking dinners - noodles with peas and cheese sauce (and salmon)

Trusty old ramen with some dried cheese sauce (a bulk-bought variant of what comes in a mac & cheese box) and some peas. The kicker will be mixing in the salmon after it is cooked (sort of like tuna mac & cheese, except with salmon). The fish will bring the total calories to 670+, although the total weight for the meal is high (11 oz.)

Ingredients

• 2 3 oz. packages of crumbled ramen (remove the flavor packets and pitch 'em or save for something else)
• 1/3 cup dried milk
• 1/3 cup fried peas
• 3 Tbs dried cheese sauce powder
• 1 tsp Butter Buds
• 1 tsp chives
• dash of pepper

Preparation

Add 1.5 cups of boiling water and let sit for at least five minutes. Add salmon and stir before serving.

DIY backpacking dinners - curried couscous with veggies

With the added vegetable flakes (which doesn't have nutritional info printed on the side of the bulk tub I bought them in) this probably approaches 600 calories, which isn't bad - I am aiming for 100 calories per ounce on most of these recipes.

Ingredients

• 5.7 oz box of Near East Mediterranean curry couscous
• 1 tsp curry spice (just 'cause I like a lot of curry)
• 1/3 cup dried vegetable flakes
• ½ Tbs dried garlic chips
• 1 tsp Butter Buds

Preparation

Add 1 ¼ cups boiling water and let sit for at least five minutes. Fluff with spoon and eat.

DIY backpacking dinners - black bean burritos with salsa

This will certainly be one of the heaviest meals for the trip, both in terms of weight (8 oz. for the filling, 3 oz. for the salsa, plus whatever the flour tortillas will weigh) and being filling (780+ calories for this recipe, not counting the tortillas). But since it will be a series of one to three days trips over eight days that allows for not carrying all the food at once, and simply restocking from the truck each time we hike back down from a camp. So it should be worth it in terms of flavor vs. weight. I've made something similar to this before, it was good, but too much for one person.

Black bean burrito filling

Ingredients

• 7 oz box of Fantastic dehydrated black beans (their regular refried beans would work, too)
• 1 Tbs dried onion flakes
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• ½ tsp salt
• dash of garlic powder
• flour tortillas

Preparation

Pour in two cups boiling water, let sit for five or more minutes. Serve with salsa (below) and tortillas.

Backpacking salsa v0.2 (beta release)

An update of the original attempt. Made it with more hot pepper flakes, less tomato and peppers and more seasonings.

Ingredients

• 3 Tbs chopped dried tomatoes
• 3 Tbs dried red and green pepper flakes
• 2 Tbs dried onion flakes
• 2 Tbs crushed hot red pepper flakes
• 1 Tbs dried garlic chips
• 1 tsp oregano
• ½ tsp ground cumin
• ½ tsp cayenne pepper
• dash of salt

Preparation

Open ziplock bag and pour in cold water to fill it. Reseal and let sit for an hour.

DIY backpacking dinners

Mike and I have tried a variety of different options for backpacking food over the years. We've gone the completely stoveless route with MREs (which aren't bad, but are heavy for anything other than overnighters). But mostly we've done the tasty but expensive freeze-dried route with brands like Mountain House. Those entrees are lightweight but typically run $6-$10 in most stores and online. The local Wal-Mart carries some Mountain House dinners for $4-$5, but they're all of the spaghetti, lasagna and chili mac varieties and I'm kinda burned out on those.

So this time I've decided to roll my own and do eight days of backpacking dinners from scratch, hopefully cheaper than I could buy freeze-dried, using only what I could find at the local grocery store. I wanted each night's dinner to be different, and all of them to be of the "just add boiling water and let sit for five minutes" preparation technique to avoid wasting stove fuel simmering something. Over the next eight or nine days I will publish the recipes. The plan is to later on publish field reviews of each, because sometimes what sounds good in the flat lands doesn't taste good or settle well at altitude after a day of exertion.

The "just add boiling water" criteria isn't as hard to meet as it might seem. Here is a list of the base carbs I used:

• Couscous
• Dehydrated refried beans
• Instant mashed potatoes
• Instant rice
• Ramen (you really don't have to simmer it)
• Stuffing mix

There are probably others. Like ramen, with some experimentation I wonder if some of the quicker cooking noodle boxed dinners would work out with just soaking in hot water.

Here's a picture of some (not all) of the ingredients I used:

Besides the instant starches, some of the other ingredients included:

• Dried onion flakes
• Dried garlic chips
• Dried tomato bits
• Dried red and green pepper flakes
• Dried mixed vegetable flakes
• Fried peas (the kind that are crunchy for snacking - I hope they rehydrate well)
• Dried beef (the kind in a jar - I've tried it before, it's a bit salty, so we'll see how it works)
• Dried milk (for calories as well as texture)
• Dried cheese sauce
• Toasted seaweed sheets (you'll see - it's part of a wild idea I had)
• 3 oz foil packs of fish and meat (adds a bit of weight but I think will be worth it for the luxury and texture of not having rehydrated meat)
• Parmesan cheese
• Lots of spices and flavorings

One thing new I used this time was a vacuum sealer. We received it as a Christmas gift a few years back but have never really used it because our kitchen counter and storage space is limited. But it worked great for sealing up the meals. Here's a picture getting ready to seal one of the dinners:

And here's the finished output - nine meals (one's a spare), all sealed up and ready to go:

Stay tuned to see how I mixed and matched all of the above together to come up with eight different recipes!

Getting to the core of the matter

Here's a little tip you may already know that I didn't learn until I was working in restaurants during my indolent teens. It's a quick and easy way to core a head of lettuce with no utensils.

Step 1: Get a head of lettuce

[All photos by Leslie Lehmer.]

Step 2: Raise in the air holding on to it firmly with both hands, with the core pointed down.

Step 3: Bring down swiftly and firmly onto a flat surface.

Step 4: Remove core plug.

It's just that simple!

Why don't we love a good mystery?

This past Sunday was Trinity Sunday in the liturgical calendar. It is the one Sunday a year when our denomination says the Athanasian Creed:

Whoever will be saved shall, above all else,

hold the catholic faith.

Which faith, except everyone keeps whole and undefiled,

without doubt he will perish eternally.

And the catholic faith is this,

that we worship one God in three persons

and three persons in one God,

neither confusing the persons

nor dividing the substance.

For there is one person of the Father,

another of the Son,

and another of the Holy Spirit.

But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit is all one:

the glory equal, the majesty coeternal.

Such as the Father is, such is the Son, and such is the Holy Spirit.

The Father uncreated,

the Son uncreated,

and the Holy Spirit uncreated.

The Father incomprehensible,

the Son incomprehensible,

and the Holy Spirit incomprehensible.

The Father eternal,

the Son eternal,

and the Holy Spirit eternal.

And yet there are not three eternals

but one eternal.

As there are not three uncreated nor three incomprehensibles

but one uncreated and one incomprehensible.

So likewise the Father is almighty,

the Son almighty,

and the Holy Spirit almighty.

And yet they are not three almighties

but one almighty.

So the Father is God,

the Son is God,

and the Holy Spirit is God.

And yet there are not three gods;

but one God.

So likewise the Father is Lord,

the Son Lord,

and the Holy Spirit Lord.

And yet they are not three lords

but one Lord.

For as we are compelled by the Christian truth to acknowledge every person by himself

to be both God and Lord,

So we cannot by the catholic faith

say that there are three Gods or three Lords.

The Father is made of none, neither created nor begotten.

The Son is of the Father alone, not made nor created;

but begotten.

The Holy Spirit is of the Father and of the Son, neither made nor created nor begotten

but proceeding.

So there is one Father, not three Fathers;

one Son, not three Sons;

one Holy Spirit, not three Holy Spirits.

And in this trinity none is before or after another;

none is greater or less than another;

But the whole three persons

are coeternal together and coequal,

so that in all things, as is aforesaid,

the Unity in Trinity

and the Trinity in Unity is to be worshiped..

He, therefore, that will be saved is compelled thus to think of the Trinity.

Furthermore, it is necessary to everlasting salvation

that he also believe faithfully the incarnation

of our Lord Jesus Christ.

For the right faith is

that we believe and confess

that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God,

is God and man;

God of the substance of the Father,

begotten before the worlds;

and man of the substance of his mother,

born in the world;

Perfect God and perfect man,

of a reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting.

Equal to the Father as touching his Godhead,

and inferior to the Father as touching his manhood;

Who, although he is God and man,

yet he is not two but one Christ.

One, not by conversion of the Godhead into flesh,

but by taking the manhood into God;.

One altogether,

not by confusion of substance,

but by unity of person.

For as the reasonable soul and flesh is one man,

so God and man is one Christ;

Who suffered for our salvation;

descended into hell;

rose again the third day from the dead.

He ascended into heaven;

he sits at the right hand of the Father, God Almighty,

from whence he will come to judge the living and the dead.

At whose coming all men will rise again with their bodies

and will give an account of their own works.

And they that have done good will go into life everlasting;

and they that have done evil,

into everlasting fire.

This is the catholic faith which

except a man believe faithfully and firmly, he cannot be saved.

The whole creed is a good reminder about the triune (buzzword alert!) nature of God, but I love our denomination's wording of this part - "...one uncreated and one incomprehensible." I love a creed that affirms that God is incomprehensible, that we humans cannot box Him in and claim to understand Him no matter how hard we try.

And try we do. We talk and argue and read and write and study and fight and broadcast and podcast over the nature of God. We split into denominations and declare heresies over it, when in fact it should be heretical to dissect God as if He were some sort of system that can be mastered. The irony of the Athanasian Creed is that even as it affirms God's incomprehensibility it still tries to define some of His nature. God should not be studied - He should be followed.

Why? Why do we have to figure everything out? Why can't we just revel and relax in not knowing? Why can't we have a God so immense that we just have to admit our puny little brains can't hold Him? Why can't we just believe and have faith?

It's a mystery.