Ready to Eat
Recipes in PACK LIGHT, EAT RIGHT an online book
by Brenda L. Braaten
Nutritional recommendations for backpackers
and other endurance exercise enthusiasts.
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Dodie’s Crazy Asian Gorp
From Jack Young:
All ingredients are organic.we have the luxury of being close to a GREAT food coo-op. If you are not you may be able to find a buying club in your area.
So here is what we do:
Equal measures of:
Puffed millet
Perks brown rice cereal
Just carrots (I see REI now carries these)
Raisins
Dried barberry berries (if you can't find these at a mid-east grocery, you could use dried cranberries for the tartness, but the barberries are better because they're cheaper & not so sweet)
Roasted Chinese pumpkin seeds (see how we spice these below)
In smaller portions but in equal measure
Chopped dried shrimp-this is the best part!
Cut up nori
Cut up dulse (seaweed)
Cut up roasted sea palm fronds
Toasted sesame seeds
Now about the Chinese pumpkin seeds:
In a bowl put in
The seeds
Cayenne pepper
Chili powder
Garlic powder
Sea salt
Olive oil
Mix it up good, roast it on a cookie sheet (or stovetop if it's a small enough quantity) and let cool
In the meantime, mix the raisins with
Nutritional yeast
Kelp powder
--Use your hands to mix it all up! The powdery stuff will stick to the raisins & not end up in the bottom of the bag & it also makes the raisins not be sticky…
Then mix in the balance of the ingredients.
Sometimes we put pieces of crystallized ginger in it as well.
We eat about a cup of this a day. Notice there is very little fruit. We also carry a mixture of dried fruit and allocate a cup a day per person.
Dodie’s Tahini Food Bars
We make a food bar that is more of a meal than treat. These bar are very tasty and pack very well
(Dodie is my clever and beautiful wife’s nick name-she’s the real brains behind all this crazy food stuff)
½ cup pumpkin seeds roasted & chopped
½ cup raisins
½ cup quinoa flakes
2TB flax seeds
2TB quinoa whole grain
2TB sesame seeds, toasted
2TB honey
1TB rice bran
1TB red pepper flakes
1TB just whites (powdered eggwhites-for +protein)
1/2ts xanthum gum
1/3 cup flour (we use a mixture of rice and rye)
4TB hummus mix
6TB tahini (you can probably use any nut butter)
~6TB water
Mix together, form into a loaf and cut off bars. Bake @ 325 for 20 minutes
Ultralight Joe's Moose Goo Recipe
Placeholder for now, just to get the raw info out to you....
I've never seen anything this simple and (for me at least) effective before. Of course I also don't get out much. :-) Feel free to use and propagate this concoction, but if you do so please keep the name, and ask others to do the same. I'd really get a kick out of meeting a stranger on the trail and having them offer me something called "Ultralight Joe's Moose Goo." :-) Since I'm essentially anonymous, it isn't an ego thing. Just asking, that's all. Thanks!
Having tried corn pasta and finding it uniquely awful no matter how it was cooked / seasoned, I was in a dilemma. It's bad enough I've never read Jardine's book, but here I was also bagging on his sacred "super fuel" as totally inedible. What's an ultralight freak to do? Constantly hearing of the Mystical Powers of corn pasta, I felt left out. So I decided there had to be another way....
I made up a quick recipe that I felt would meet my basic needs for compact, efficient nutrition that would taste good and last well on the trail. I saw a lot of recipes on the Web, but to my barbaric senses they were all too complicated. I'm a lazy cook at heart. Anything with more than four ingredients better involve candles and a waiter named Jean-Luc. :-) What I stumbled on is so simple, basic and tasty that even a restless kid could make it and like it!
Please note again that I am not a nutritionist! I just eyeballed my goals for ease, portability, calories, simple- and complex carbs, protein, etc. Then tried to fit that to what tastes good to me. The results: A mixture of honey, corn flour and peanut butter. That's it! For me at least, it's turned out to be a perfect, palatable mixture that supplies a good dose of "oomph".
One food tube supplies me with enough of the Goo to spread on my lunch tortillas for three days, two days if I'm really woofing the calories. Has a good shelf life too. The half-tube I had left over from my latest Canyon trip was still good after sitting on the kitchen counter for a few weeks afterward. Honey doesn't spoil! Guess the preservatives in the peanut butter helped with the rest.
Recipe for Ultralight Joe's Moose Goo
- 2 parts honey
- 2 parts corn flour (NOT corn meal!)
- 1 part peanut butter (preservative-laden)
- Mix thoroughly, will take some time.
- Pack into Coghlan's Squeeze Tube (REI, Campmor, etc), or
in cold weather, wrap in wax paper.
- BEWARE! Below 40F, "Ultralight Joe's Moose Goo" becomes
impossible to squeeze out! For snow camping I pack it in
wax paper instead, eat it like a candy bar, or pre-pack
it into tortillas.
Single Squeeze Tube Proportions (2-3 lunches w/ large tortillas):
- 8 tbsp honey
- 8 tbsp corn flour
- 4 tbsp peanut butter
Per tube:
1320 calories
172g carbs (70 simple, 102 complex)
24g protein
38g fat (That's a high proportion of fat, but what the heck...)
Variations on Ultralight Joe's Moose Goo
My old friend Marc sent some email my way after reading this. Seems his family used to munch on something very similar when he was a kidlette, but instead of corn flour, they used dried milk. Neat idea!
K.H. and others have also kept the Moose Goo suggestions pouring in. Adding chocolate powder, maple butter (spoilage problem?), powdered eggs, powdered eggnog, rice flour, nuts, dried fruit, you name it. Tell you what - If you actually make a batch of something and like it (note that critical distinction ;-) ), send me your variation and I'll post it here with full credit (or blame ;-) ) to you!
Home Made Energy Bars
Kathy Johnson
Here's my recipe for energy bars. I love them, my husband loves them, my teenage kids say they taste like dogfood. But what do they know?
1 c. uncooked oats
1/2 c. wheat bran
1/2 c. oat bran
1 c. crunchy peanut butter
2 T. margarine (I use soy margarine)
1/2 c. protein powder (I use soy)
1 c. raisins
1 c. coconut
1 c. chocolate chips
1 c. light color Karo syrup
I mush it all up with my hands and smash it onto a sheet of wax paper set on a cookie sheet. Then I put it in the freezer for an hour or so just so it gets set up a bit. I then cut it into bars and put them in baggies. As you can see, I put basically a cup of anything that doesn't move into these things and I think they're great. My husband keeps stealing them from the fridge so I have to watch or they're all gone before I know it. This recipe makes quite a few-can't remember how many-at least 15 I would guess. I cut them about 2x3" or so.
They only take about 5 minutes to throw together. I prefer to do this instead of spending $1.25 on each one at the store. I think the ingredients are similar but there are no additional vitamin/mineral supplements or anything great like that.
I'm a horror at math so I did the adding 2 x's. Who knows if I'm completely wrong-I THINK I got it all right. I'm giving the nutritional info for the entire recipe which can be cut into 15-20 bars depending on the size you like. You can do the math for each bar based on the servings you get.
Calories 5,395
Carb 567.34
Protein 133.8
Fat 266.8
Sodium 406.5
Fiber 57.95
Hope that helps. There's a lot of fat-if you don't like that then leave out the coconut, putting in more oats in its place. Or try using only 1/2c. of the peanut butter and more Karo syrup to make it moist.
Alex Feldman
Here is something I snarfed off the net years ago. I don't use them in races or training, but they are OK for hiking. Despite the name, I don't think they taste much like powerbars (a plus, in my opinion).
Home-made "powerballs"
Ingredients:
24 dried figs
1/3 cup honey
4 tbsp. orange juice
2 tbsp. lemon juice
1 tsp. lemon juice
2 1/2 cups unbleached flour
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 tbsp. canola oil
1/4 cup dark corn syrup
2 egg whites
1 cup oat bran
Directions:
Add figs, honey, orange juice and 2 tbsp. lemon juice to food processor and mix on "chop" setting until figs are finely cut. Set aside. Put remaining ingredients (except oat bran) in mixing bowl. Beat with electric mixer for 3-4 minutes at medium speed. Add fig mixture until everything blends. Roll 20-24 balls and coat with oat bran poured on plate. Place balls on pan and bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes or until warm and a bit puffy. Place in refrigerator to harden.
and here's another I haven't tried:
1-1/2 cup whole wheat flour
3/4 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
1/4 cup wheat germ
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1/3 cup corn, safflower, or light olive oil
1/4 cup molasses
1/4 cup RAW sugar (not white refined sugar)
1 tablespoon finely grated orange peel (California orange NOT Florida)
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup orange juice (fresh JUICED from those California oranges)
1 cup chopped dried figs
1/2 cup golden raisins
1/2 cup chopped almonds
Combine flours, sugar, wheat, wheat germ, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt. In smaller bowl, blend eggs, butter, honey, molasses, orange peel, vanilla, and orange juice with wire whip. Add liquid to dry ingredients; whip until smooth. Add figs, raisins, and almonds.
Spread in a greased 9 x 13 inch baking pan. Bake at 350 degrees F oven for 35 minutes, until it tests done.
Makes about 24 bars.
The only problem with this recipe is the ingredient list doesn't match up with the instructions. Soooo... take a chance, and let us know how it works!
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From: Trailblazer75
Survival diet
My survival pack that is always on my back when I am more than 200 yards from camp depends on the highest calorie balance of foods which supply all needed nutrients and requires no cooking except for hot beverage. I will expand on tasty light foods in a later email. 3,500 calories per pound is pure fat or oil. All other foods can be judged on this basis. This is not intended to be a long term diet, but to provide survival meals. First, the base is Fritos corn chips. These are the earliest chips. I crush them a little or a lot to save space. Actually in my pack they are a coarse powder I eat with a spoon or my fingers. At 2,800 calories per pound, they provide complex carbs, protein, oil, and salt. Don't forget the Indians could travel for days on a diet of parched corn. Second, if beef or venison jerky for added protein. It weighs about one-sixth the weight of fresh meat, so one oz is the equivalent of 6 oz. of fresh meat. Roughly 450 calories per oz. Third, My own trail mix of 1/4 each of oil-roasted peanuts, oil-roasted sunflower seeds, raisins, and dried flake coconut. About 2,000 calories per pound. Fourth, hard candy is assorted favors. Us to flavor tea, flavor dull water, provide quick energy. satisfy sweet tooth. 1440 calories per pound. A diet of 1.5 oz jerky, 8 oz. trail mix, 6 oz. Fritos, 4 oz candy provides 3085 calories and weighs 19.5 oz. a little tea and cocoa will still be under 21 oz. No cooking required, and strictly survival. If the Fritos are increased and candy and trail mix reduced, it becomes more concentrated.
From: Charlie Thorpe
Fruit leather
Within the last month we had some discussion of making fruit leathers. I
have pretty good luck cooking down apples or applesauce half and half with
another fruit (like strawberries), and pureeing the mixture. Two cups each
of applesauce and another fruit cook down to a thick puree that fills my
leather sheet. Adding some plain gelatin can help with consistency, but is
not critical. You may want some sweetening, but that varies by fruit and
individual preferences. Some find sugar crystallizes as the leathers dry
and
prefer to use honey or corn syrup. With cooking the mixture, I haven't had
that problem. The sugar actually helps with the texture. Think of jellies
compared to stewed fruit. The thickening is mostly from pectin, but also
from the sugar. If you need to use an artificial sweetener, add it at the
end of cooking to avoid having it become bitter. A trick I learned is to mix
flavored Jell-O with applesauce to make different flavored leathers. It was
a good substitute for boxed stuff for the kids snacks. Now I'm more
interested in the minerals, etc., from different fruits and don't use the
Jell-O so much. Banana apple leather is a good trail snack when a hiker has
sweated out a lot of potassium on a hot day. Have some with a little jerky
and water. A lot of good stuff at a light weight.
From: [email protected]
pemmican
I prefer to use pulverized jerky. Used to pound it, but now use food processor. While traditional recipes use tallow as a binder, it is hard to get good tallow because of way beef is fed today. I use instead high temperature chocolate that I get from bakers supply houses. It tastes better anyway. It is semisweet. I use half jerky, 1/8 each of raisins, slightly chopped peanuts, shredded coconut, and dried cranberries (plus rose hips when I can get them). Stir this into enough of the melted chocolate to make a really stiff paste. Melt chocolate in double boiler or microwave. Press mixture into a square pan. It should be from 3/4" to 1" thick. Let cool until rather stiff, Cut into bars the size you like. Mine are usually 1" by 2-1/2". Let cool completely and remove from pan. Wrap each bar smoothly with aluminum foil. If I am going to keep it for more than 2-3 months, I dip the completed and wrapped bars in melted paraffin. I have kept it for more than two years in the freezer with no problem. Over six months in an emergency pack. Just doesn't last longer than that, somebody always says it's an emergency ;)
From: gothicgirl69_us
Pinole
Popcorn, popped
Grind in your blender or food processor into a fine powder. May add
sugar & salt to taste.
To Use:
Native Americans would take pinches of this & eat as they walked.
Also, can be used in pemmican, gorp, over hot/cold cereals, in
hot/cold beverages, roll dried fruits in it.
Have U tried parched corn?
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PARCHED CORN
dehydrator
a heavy bottomed frying pan (cast iron skillet - good)
Take a package of frozen corn and dehydrate it over night. Parch the
corn over medium high heat until it turns light brown. Stir
constantly. This only takes a few minutes. Add salt to taste, let it
cool a bit, and store in an air tight container.
Variation: Try hominy.