Food Prep Nearly Done

15 more days, I am starting to get excited for our upcoming trip.  I still have a few more supplies to purchase since the boys are going with us this time.  The tent needs sealed and sprayed for bugs and I've got to make sure the boys have everything they'll need to be comfortable.  (Well, as comfy as you can be carrying all your belongings on your back for a week).

I went through the freezer to see how I was doing with the food supply and wow, I only need a couple sides to mix with meat and I'll be ready to go.   Here's the dehydrator I use.  Meals take roughly 12-18 hours to dehydrate (the juicer they are the longer they take).

Here's a few of the staples I've found to deydrate/rehydrate really well:

This is just a rice mixture with veggies and shredded turkey.  When I put it in the dehydrator I portion it out so I can keep track of how many servings I have.

 When its done deyhdrating I put it into ziplock bags in 2-serving portions, getting as much of the air out as possible.  It really is amazing how little it weights after its dehydrated.  Believe me, when you're carrying your food supply for a week you want something that's lightweight!

When I go to put all my little baggies into the Bear Vault I'll crumble them up and get any extra air  out and try to make them as small as possible.

 This is either shredded beef or pork,  I've dehydrated both.  I will dehydrate a can of Pork N Beans to mix with the meat.  Really good stuff.

This is another of the sides that tastes great and packs a punch.  I mix a can of beans with a can of mexicorn.  Dehydrate it and mix it with meat when its rehydrated.

When you're putting it in the dehyrator you want to try and do a single layer as well as leave plenty of open space to help it dehdyrate evenly.  Some people actually blend up their food and then dehydrate it.  I haven't had any problems with it dehydrating/rehydrating so I don't do that.  I have enough picky eaters without their food being mush when its rehydrated.

We take a small camp stove but prefer cooking over the fire.  My picky eater(s) needs it to simmer forever before he can eat it.  We get our fire going, pull some coals to the side and set our pot directly into the coals.  The food is much better done that way.  We'll be carrying lots of fuel just in case we end up not having fires.

Quick and Easy Taco Salad Dinner

When my husband and I met in college there was a small group of us that took turns cooking a meal to share with one another.  Taco Salad is the meal my future hubby prepared.  We've been making it ever since.  No, it doesn't qualify for our "no added sugar or preservatives diet" but neither does the doughnut I had for lunch yesterday.  (I didn't say I was doing good on the diet, I'm having an awful time).

 

Anyhow, here's what you'll need:

 

1 lb. Hamburger

Pkg. Taco Seasoning

 

Lettuce

Shredded Cheese

Taco Sauce or Salsa

Mayonnaise

Nacho Cheese Doritoes

 

Brown your hamburger and add seasonings, while it simmers shred lettuce, crumble a handful of Doritoes (we have used plain Tortilla  chips instead) and add cheese to your liking.  Mix mayo and taco sauce or a couple spoonfuls of salsa.  Add seasoned hamburger to the salad mixture, pour mayo mix over the top and stir it all together.  Done. 

 

We eat ours by scooping it up with chips.  Yummy!  Back in our college days it was served in a taco salad shell (you can find them at the store with all the other Mexican food supplies).

 

As you have probably noticed there are no measurements, I just throw stuff together.  No recipe I ever make is the same twice, drives my husband crazy.  I'd guestimate about 1/4 cup of Mayo.  I used about 1/2 a head of Romaine lettuce last night for the two of us.

 

We are pretty picky eaters around here so no added extras but there is so much you can do with this recipe to make it your own.  So Good!

 

 

 

 

Dehydrating For Our Next Backpacking Adventure

Last year was our first backcountry camping trip, what a great adventure it was.  We spent a week wandering Yosemite's gorgeous backcountry and this year we'll be heading out to Grand Teton National Park. 

Prepwork has begun!

Last year when I was researching foods for our trip I decided to dehydrate our main meals.  We took oatmeal for breakfast with dehydrated strawberries, had two snacks throughout the day (candy of some kind or granola bars) and then a dinner that I'd dehydrated.  It worked out very well.   I did a little research on dehydrators and this is the one I decided on.  Very happy with that decision. 

It came with 5 trays, two mesh inserts like you see below and two solid inserts for fruit roll-ups and the like.  My first use this year is with left-over  taco turkey, veggie rice (I'll share a generic recipe at the end of the post).  It rehydrates really well so it's a great choice for dehydrating.  You can see the larger slots of the trays and the smaller mesh insert that I used.  I have put this onto the larger slotted trays but it will fall through.  (If I had it to do again I'd order enough of these mesh inserts for every tray, they are really convenient).

 

Here it is spread out and ready to go.  I cut up the larger pieces of veggies and turkey so that it'd dehydrate more evenly and tried to leave some open space within the tray for air circulation.  If you layer it too thick it'll take forever to dehydrate (you're already looking at 10-12 hours).

 This particular dehydrator is really easy to use.  Simply turn the dial to match the type of food your dealing with and plug it in.  I started this at 8am and turned it off around 8pm. 

 

Here it is after dehydrating. 

I didn't weigh it before and after, I'm sure you can imagine how heavy it was before and now it's extremely light!  Perfect for backcountry camping when you're looking to rid yourself of all heavy products.  I put it into the dehydrator by serving size, estimated based on how I'd serve it at home.  After it's dehydrated I put it into baggies, 2 servings per bag.  This works for us because that's how much our cookware holds.  Enough for the two of us.  This year the kids are going so we'll end up with another set of cookware, also service for two.  Easy way to keep track of meals when I'm packing them up. 

 

The first night at Yosemite I did the re-hydrating.  I'd read that you only need to boil water and pour it in, let it sit for a couple minutes and  its ready to go.  My husband is a little more finicky with his food and couldn't hardly eat it.  The texture is different if you only rehydrate it for such a short time.  Our solution:  we cooked it in the fire (well, most of the nights, he cooked it in the fire).  We made sure to stop at designated camp sites where fires were allowed, built a nice fire, spread out some coals and added water to the dehydrated food, put it directly onto the coals and let it boil for a while.  No hurry.  I was always starving by dinnertime and ready to eat while hubby was patiently stirring and letting it boil down for what seemed like an eternity.  He heard, "is it ready yet" quite a bit but the food was amazing when rehydrated longer like that.

 

 

Sphaghetti rehydrates wonderfully, chili works great too.  Here's my rice concoction:

 

I start with olive oil heating in a pan, throw in onion and pepper, saute still soft.  Throw in precooked rice, veggies and shredded meat of your choice.  Let the flavors blend. 

 

Hamburger, turkey, chicken, beef; all works well.  For the turkey meal above I re-heated my turkey in a saucepan with taco seasoning.  Sometimes I use chili seasoning as well. 

 

Have you ever done any rehydrating?  Have a favorite recipe to share? 

 

Hamburger Patties with Roasted Carrots

I do believe this diet is going to get the best of us.  I am hungry most of the time and my husband feels like he's starving to death.  There are no fillers, so your body never registers as full.  We fill like we're "missing something".  It gets better over time but never completely goes away. 

 

Every night I hear, "I'm starving".  This was our dinner tonight.  Roasted carrots, which I love and my husband chokes down.  All I do is cut them up, put them in a plastic baggy.  Add some olive oil, salt and pepper, then throw them in the oven till they're tender.  @400. 

 

So Good!

 

 

 The main course is a simple hamburger patty.  No bun and no condiments.  I mix in pepper (I used red and jalapeno's) and onion, a little bit of garlic powder and a dash of milk (if I have it).  Not on the diet and Worcestershire sauce makes it in as well, not tonight.

 Fry them up in a pan and they're an easy, tasty dinner.  Cheese is a treat.  I think dairy causes my husband some problems (he deals with migraines) so we are trying to cut back on that as well.  We did add some cottage cheese and pears to complete the meal.

It was very good, just no fillers.  You eat, finish everything and really just want a handful of chips.  That's awful, but true!

 

The patties are wonderful if you have deer meat as well.  Tomorrow, pork tenderloin and sweet potato (for me, he hates sweet potato, I'll have to figure out something else for him).   To make the pork tenderloin compatible with our diet I'll have to leave out the BBQ sauce, no condiments allowed. 

Chicken Roll-Ups

My husband has tried to ban chicken from the house, yes, you heard me correctly.  And pork!  He wants all read meat, it's awful.  What's really funny, well, not funny, but fitting, is that he now has a medical condition where he's being told red meat should be completely off the menu.  Now that's funny!

He refuses, but I'm hoping to lessen how often we eat it around here.  This recipe is a good start.  Although he hates chicken, this recipe gets high marks, even from him.

You'll need boneless, skinless chicken breasts, pizza sauce, pepperoni and cheese.  That's simple enough.

Cover the chicken breasts with wax paper to help keep down the mess.

 Then, using a meat tenderizer thin down the chicken to make it easier to roll up.

 For Jason and I, with the clean eating diet (which we're not doing very well on already) pepperoni is a no-no so I took a can of Rotel's tomatoes and peppers and blended them up.  I am not a purist, I still use some things from a can or jar.  I try to avoid sugar in those things.  The Rotel's has "less than 2% calcium chloride" and a couple other things, I probably should not use it, that's where they hide the junk and it'd be easy enough to do myself.  Ugh, as if this diet didn't have enough prep-work.  I just noticed the other things, I tend to use things with just calcium chloride (anybody know anything about that) but avoid the "natural flavorings" ingredient which is pretty much a "we don't want you to know" ingredient.  Don't like that!

Anyhow, enough of that rant, add a sauce of your liking.

 I made some for my son as well, following the original recipe.  He gets the good stuff, pepperoni slices.  Yummy!

 After you add the pepperoni and some sauce, roll them up and place them in a pan.  Put more sauce on top and add cheese.  I put the cheese on first then sauce for those without pepperoni so I could tell them apart. 

Cover, bake at 350 degrees for roughly 45 minutes.  They are so good.

 

The clean eating diet isn't too bad for the main course, it's the sides that kill us.  We want chips, dips, pastas, you know, the good, filling, fattening stuff that makes you tired, groggy and bloated, etc.  The good stuff!

 

Anyhow, my husband is about the pickiest eater you'll ever meet so this diet is roughest on him.  We had corn for our side (which he hates unless its corn on the cob, but he choked it down) and cottage cheese with pears.  It was really good!  Yes, I'm still hungry but my portions were fine, if not large, so I think it's my mind playing tricks on me.

 

Tomorrow its hamburger patties with pepper and onion.  No ketchup and no bread.  Yep, that's our new life.  Any suggestions for sides?  I'm really gonna crave my favorite Cool Ranch Doritoes.  Sunday is cheat day, within reason.  Bring on Taco Bell!

Sausage Rolls- A New Year's Tradition

My mother in law has a tradition on New Year's Eve of making Sausage Rolls (and of staying up till midnight like you other crazies out there). I'd never had one nor heard of them until my first New Year's in the family and I have grown to LOVE them!  I make them slightly different than my MIL, yep, "they're not like mom's", I hear that a lot.  Anyhow, they are relatively easy, freeze well and make for a nice quick dinner another night if there's leftovers.

Here's what I do:

Brown your sausage, drain.

Add 1 egg per roll of sausage and Parmesan Cheese to taste. 

You're going to use frozen dinner rolls so have them defrosting and when they're cool enough to roll out, spread them as thin as you can without making too many holes (you're gonna make a few, especially if they're extra thawed out), then spoon your sausage mixture on top and roll 'em up. 
Lay them seam side down on a cookie sheet and bake till brown. 

 

In all honesty I pay no attention to how long that is, at least 18 minutes I'd say.  I set a timer for about 15 and continually check them till they're brown. 

Now, my MIL gets all crazy and adds pepper and mushrooms, probably onion too.  UGH!  I'm a tad too picky for that but my husband loves them.  She also uses frozen bread loaves vs. the dinner rolls.  If you use the bread each loaf makes 8 rolls (at least that's how she divies it out).

After having them at my house one time my mom went home and made them using crescent rolls.  Now you know that was good!

Whenever I'm going out of town I try to have these handy for my husband.  He loves them and they're an easy dinner for him to fix for himself without too much hassle. 

My Favorite Cheesecake Recipe Ever!

Growing up my brother and I always got to pick what cake we wanted for our birthday.  Jon, always chose Chocolate.  Not me, I could live without chocolate but Cheesecake, now that's another story.  I requested this cheesecake, with blueberry topping every year and now my kids do the same.  

 

Love it!

 

Here's the recipe:

 

1 package lemon jello

1 cup boiling water

Mix together and set in fridge long enough to cool and gel enough to whip (don't let it set firm)

 

1/4 lb. melted butter (1 stick)

2 Tbsp. powdered sugar

30 graham crackers, crumbled (or 1 box of crumbs)

Mix crust ingredients together and press into 9x13 pan. 

 

2 8oz. Philadelphia cream cheese

1/2 cup sugar

2 tsp. vanilla

Cream these ingredients together, set aside.

 

1 13oz. can cold Milnot

Whip milnot until stiff in a large bowl (jello and cream cheese mixture will be added next).

It will not be as stiff as meringue, only partially formed peaks. 

 

Next, grab your jello out of the fridge, it should be cool enough now.  Whip it!

 

Add cream cheese mix and whipped jello to whipped Milnot, blend the three.

 

Pour into graham cracker crust and refrigerate overnight (at least 4 hours).  One of my boys won't eat topping, the other likes blueberry and my husband wants cherry.  All are wonderful but blueberry is definitely my favorite!

 

 

 

 

 

Clean Eating Adventures Begin Again.....

If you know my husband, you know that he is a meat and potatoes type of guy.  He has gone so far as to try and ban chicken and pork from the house.  Yep, he actually tried that!

Years ago we went on a no sugar diet to try and help him with migraines.  We both believe food is the culprit but we cannot, for the life of us, figure out what exactly bothers him.  The no sugar sent us both into major withdrawals, amazing how sugar can do that, but after a week (and one day we like to call "hell day") we were amazed at how great we felt.  Loads of energy, no aches and pains, just an overall good feeling. 

Even knowing the difference it makes, the diet is hard to stick to.  It is way too easy to slip back into old habits, which we inevitably do.  Once again, my husband has declared its time to go back and try the diet again.  He told me I can't go overboard (which I tend to do) but that we need to do better. 

Here we go again. 

Here's a great beginner's guide to what we'll be trying to do.  I will be sharing recipes as we go and updating you along the way on how things are going.  If you have any good recipes or are attempting to "clean up" your eating habits as well feel free to share your experiences. 

http://getfitmamas.com/getting-clean/

Frosted Banana Bars.... So Good!

Bars:

 

1/2 cup butter

1 1/2 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 cup sour cream (8oz)

1 tsp. vanilla

2 cups flour

1 tsp. baking soda

1/4 tsp. salt

3 mashed bananas

 

Bake 350 degree oven.... I bake about 20 minutes and then begin checking it....  I love it nice and moist.... so I watch it close so that it just cooks enough and then pull it out....  soooo good! 

 

 Icing:

 

1 8oz. cream cheese

1/2 cup butter

2 tsp. vanilla

3-4 cups powdered sugar

 

I took my mixer from the kitchen to finish my tile project (my mortar mixin' one burned up... that's hard on them... and of course I forgot to replace it).... so needless to say mixing the icing by hand left it a little "clumpy" but so darn good anyhow!

I was so busy making sure everyone else got everything they needed I didn't get a piece last night.... so I had one for breakfast..... there's fruit in it!

Bon-Fire Fun Prepwork and My Favorite Soup Recipe....

This is last year's prepwork for our annual Fall Bonfire.  Here I am, this year's Bon-Fire is scheduled for Saturday, it's now Tuesday and I'm once again rushing to try and get things prepped and cleaned up around here.  If only I was a little more organized!


My husband's contraption to store Tiki Torches, works pretty good.  Last year he had these brackets made, easy set-up vs. year's past.

 He chopped more than enough firewood.....

 Tiki Torches line the circle driveway and the pathway down to the backyard,  his " light orbs" make their debut as well.   Last year he dug holes and cemented in small plastic piping with caps (look close at the pic on the right), when you want to use the torches simply take off the cap and stick the torch in the pipe.....

Got all the tables set up and ready to go,  just waiting for guests to arrive.

I had trouble sleeping last night, knowing how much I still needed to get done this morning before people started to arrive.

On the Menu:

Chili, Spicy Chicken Tomato Soup, HotDogs, of course,  and my favorite Banana Bars and Pumpkin Cookies.  Chips and salsa, Cheese Ball with Crackers, Hmmmm, Hmmmm,  Good!

This is my favorite soup of all time,  Spicy Chicken Tomato Soup.
Yummy!

2 cans (14 1/2oz) chicken broth

3 cups shredded chicken

2 cups frozen corn

1 can (10 3/4oz) tomato puree

1 can (10oz) diced tomatoes and green chilies

1 diced onion

2 garlic cloves, minced

1 bay leaf

1-2 tsp. ground cumin

1 tsp. salt

1/2-1 tsp. chili powder

1/8 tsp. pepper

1/8 tsp. cayenne pepper

Dump it into a crock pot and cook on low for 4 hours.  Doesn't get any easier than that!  It also freezes well!   Have I told you that I LOVE this stuff!


This year I am behind, again.  Imagine that!  I really need to get outside and clean up but that is probably not gonna happen.  It is what it is, we'll have fun regardless and hey, if you're critiquing my house and yard you might as well stay home.