Trail Magic and Trail Food Cravings

Yesterday we made a surprise trip down to the Finger Lakes Trail to pick up our friends Buttons and Bearwalker.  They're thru hiking the North Country Trail, 4500 miles from Vermont to North Dakota, and needed a ride to the post office.  Since New York isn't exactly hitchhiker friendly, especially when people aren't used to seeing them, they only had a short amount of time to get to their resupply box, which had their dog food in it.  Since Molly  had run out of food and the post office was closing soon, we rushed down to get them, getting them to the post office at 5:05 p.m.  Even though they closed at 5, the postmistress still allowed them to pick up their package!  We got to hang out with them last night and have hiker talk, eat large amounts of food, and look at all their gear.  It was a great time with them and we dropped them back off at the trailhead today.  

When we got home I was pretty hungry and, probably due to being in full on hiker mode for the day, was craving ramen.  Yes, ramen!  The cheap staple of broke American diets and thru hiker cuisine de jour.  Since I was whipping up a ramen recipe for us to take on the trail, I figured it would be the perfect time to test out the spice blend I was planning on using on our batch.  With the fresh veggies I added from the fridge,  I had a steaming bowl of hiker supper!

Ramen with broccoli, portobello mushroom, red onion, and carrot.  

Here's the trail recipe I developed tonight, and a photo of how nicely it all packs out to camp! (Links provided for hard-to-source ingredients!)

Thai Ramen, packed and ready to hit the trail!

Thai Ramen - 1 serving
1 pack ramen of your choice (chili lime shrimp would be perfect!)
1/4 cup dehydrated mixed vegetables
1 tablespoon powdered coconut milk
1/2 tablespoon powdered peanut butter
1 tablespoon cashews
1 True Lime packet
1 Sriracha packet
At home prep:
+In a snack-sized zipper bag, combine the cashews, powdered peanut butter, and powdered coconut milk.
+In a regular-sized zipper bag, pour in your dehydrated vegetables, place a ramen packet inside, and add the packet of True Lime and sriracha sauce. 
+Add the snack-sized bag to the large bag and seal
In Camp:
+Remove the bag with the coconut powder, peanut butter, and cashews.  Also remove the True Lime and sriracha sauce. 
+Break up the ramen in it's pack, then open it and pour the ramen and the vegetables in your cook pot.  Remove the ramen seasoning packet and cover the noodles and vegetables with the water level you chose for your soup. 
+Cook ramen according to package directions and turn off the heat.
+Add the ramen seasoning, powdered coconut milk, peanut butter, cashews, and True Lime packets.  Add sriracha sauce to your desired level of spiciness.  For best flavor, allow the mixture to cool off and let the flavors meld together. 

Two weeks of food done... only six more to go!

This afternoon, in between making my own bacon bits (yes, really!) and dehydrating more frozen vegetables, I was able to bag up 32 trail breakfasts.  This means NoKey and I have 16 days of breakfast all ready to pack up and mail!  

Breakfast Rice and Breakfast Couscous Ready to Go!

So, while it may  not look like much, these 32 meals were a big undertaking.  I did the rice dehydrating myself so we could use a brown rice instead of a minute rice.  When you dehydrate things yourself you not only control the quality of the ingredients, but you get a little more flexibility on what goes into the rice.  For this batch of breakfast rice, I actually cooked it in sweetened vanilla-flavored almond milk!  It gives the rice a nice subtle sweetness and the sugar energy hikers need at breakfast time.  I've posted recipes for the breakfast rice and couscous below!

Breakfast Rice Pudding (adapted from Backpacking Chef Glenn) - One Serving
-3/4 cup rice of your choice, cooked in vanilla almond milk and dehydrated
-1/2 tsp sugar
-1/4 tsp cinnamon
-1/4 cup dried fruit of your choice (I mixed it up and did some tropical mix, apples and cranberries, blueberries and coconut, and currant with coconut)
-1 tablespoon slivered almonds
+At home prep - combine the first 3 ingredients into a labeled freezer bag
+Put the dried fruit and almonds into a snack-sized zipper bag; put this smaller bag into the bag with the other ingredients and seal, making sure to remove as much air as possible
+Trail prep - Remove the bag with the fruit and nuts and set aside.  Pour the rice mix into your cook pot and let it reconstitute for 5 minutes.  Turn the heat element on your stove up and bring to a near-boil. Just before boil, shut off the heat and cover.  Let it sit approximately 10 minutes.  Devour!

Breakfast Couscous - One Serving  
-1/2 cup whole wheat couscous
-2.5 TBSP milk powder (use whatever kind you like - I mixed whole, skim, and coconut powders for this recipe)
-1 TBSP brown sugar
-1/4 tsp HEAPING cinnamon
-2 TBSP slivered almonds
-2 TBSP dried fruit
+At home prep - Combine all ingredients above into a labeled plastic zipper bag and seal, getting out all air completely. 
+Trail prep - Bring approximately 3/4 cup of water to a boil and turn off the heat.  Carefully, add the water to your bag and seal.  Squish the bag around to make sure all ingredients get water.  Let it sit approximately 5 minutes.  Fluff couscous and eat.