[at-l] Soups can be a pain to dry

[nealb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (William Neal)]

I practically live off of soups now.  I even eat them for breakfast at
times.  I usually pour the "leftover" into a bowl and quickly pop it back
into the ice box.

But I guess you can't do that on the trail.

Anyway, it is better to leave your ingrediants seperate and mix as the mood
hits you.  If you cook and dehydrate a ton of Chilli, you are stuck with
chilli.  Keep the ingredients seperate and you have lots of different
soups/stews.

I don't even keep the Ramen packs together.  In fact when I hit the trail I
had lots of little Ramen powders in their individual packs since I use the
noodles by themselves: Hydrate and add lots of butter or olive oil or mix
with Ranch dressing.  Sometimes I hydrated them and fried them.  And I woul=
d
do the same with store brand and cheap brand Mac 'n' Cheese.  So I had lots
of cheese and ramen soup packets.  But they made a good base for soups and
other things.

Take some powdered cheese and some powdered milk, and mix.  Add water (just
a little) and heat.  Mix in a tad of beer -- if you got it it.  Some spices=
.
Pour over stale bread.  Mock Welsh rabbit.

Add a few bits of summer sausage and some cheese powder and a few dehydrate=
d
potatoes and you have a fair soup.  Take the summer sausage, some ramen
powder, and few dehydrated veggies and you have a fair beef-veggie soup.  I
also found a Hebrew instant tomato soup mix which I used with assorted item=
s
to make a good soup.

And for a cold soup: Take some powder milk.  Mix with cold water.  Stir in
some drink mix (grape is best).  Add some fruity trail mix or your choice o=
f
dehydrate fruit.  Add sweetener and spices (I like nutmeg and ginger) to
your taste.  Let sit for awhile.  If the weather is not too hot, put in a
tight container and you can have a quick snack/meal on the trail.  Also, if
you get near a place that has sour cream or yogurt, stir some in -- but
don't carry too long.  Or mayo, though it takes a lot of those little packe=
t
to give it a good "twang".  It goes good with cookies or a black bread. Or
cheese and plain bread.

For a fish soup, I use tuna.  Corn.  Potatoes. Onions.  Celery.  Cook the
tuna, corn, potatoes, onions, celery, and spices in water -- not too much
because you are going to add milk.  Mix some milk in a seperate container
with cold water.  After the first container has cooked, slowly stir in the
milk.  Stir the mix until it gets hot and remove.

To thicken soups (and make them seem more substantial) carry arrowroot or
corn starch.  Remember to mix them with cold liquids and add to hot liquids=
.
Flour will work if you carry flour.  Also if you can stand okra and
especially if you can get if fresh, add okra.

William, The Turtle

-----Original Message-----
From: bleederguy [mailto:bleederguy@earthlink.net]

I agree with POG, soups are a pain to dry.  What I do is mix the individual
dehydrated ingredients less meats and oils for a dehydrated entr=E9e.  I ke=
ep
any meat separate until its needed.  I have found that the meat can reduce
the shelf life of my mixtures.  I use TVP for my protein needs.  Jerky is a
good flavoring.  Soak the meal while hiking prior to its need.  Then just
warm the soaked mixture.  To make a dehydrated soup or flavoring base grind
in a coffee bean grinder, making sure it is coffee oil free, dehydrated
individual or combined ingredients.  This dust only takes a few minutes to
rehydrate.  Just add rice or noodles for your own cup-a-soup.  To make a
Lipton's & sauce type entr=E9e add dehydrated milk, cornstarch, and flavori=
ngs
dust to rice or noodles.  I carry individual mushroom, tomato, spinach and
Tabasco dust packages (1/4 oz total) in my pack to enhance meals.

Beau Bushor
Bleeder Guy

-----Original Message-----
From: at-l-admin@mailman.backcountry.net
[mailto:at-l-admin@mailman.backcountry.net] On Behalf Of KarenS62@aol.com
Sent: Tuesday, January 14, 2003 9:27 AM
To: janl2@mindspring.com; at-l@backcountry.net
Subject: Re: [at-l] Ham and Split Pea Soup

In a message dated 1/14/2003 9:07:52 AM Eastern Standard Time,
janl2@mindspring.com writes:

> Any reason this wouldn't rehydrate?

I would scoop out the ham peices after cooking and dry it separately.  They
will dry at different rates and you could end up overcooking the soup part
in the drying process. The other benefit of that is you can start
rehydrating the ham early so it isn't too chewy. And actually, I would
probably leave out the ham totally , but I can't stand ham :)

Soups can be a pain to dry because there is so much liquid. Measure the sou=
p
before and after drying so you have a good idea of how much water you will
need to add for reconstituion and then add another 10-15%.

You might consider looking at Knoors instant soup or Bear Creek and using
that instead. Bear Creek has at least a half dozen flavors including
Minestrone, Potato, tortilla, veggie chili and a couple others. They make 8
serving bags as well as big containers you can get at Sam's and they cook i=
n
10 minutes.  They look expensive up front (on sale $4 - $5 for 8 servings),
but a little goes a long way, they are packed with veggies and thats still
only 50 cents per serving for real food.

POG
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