Food!

The food

This post is going to be all about the food!  When you embark on a trip of this type, and you’re headed to the south, AND you’re a vegan, you’d better be prepared to either bring or make your own food.  Knowing myself well, I just cannot be troubled to cook for myself, especially if there is any reason not to, like if I’m tired from biking all day, or camping, or you know, pretty much anything.  I do love to cook, but only for others.  Knowing that it’d be unlikely that I’d actually cook to feed myself, and knowing I’d need to eat, I fell back on my backpacking experience.  I prepared and dried enough food to last me for 34 days.

I knew I’d want a variety of food, but not a lot of variety, as I’m kind of a creature of habit.  I decided to make several different dishes, put them in the dehydrator. I have several favorites from my time as a backpacker, so I was sticking with those, along with a couple of new things to try.  Thirty-four days is a lot of days for which to prepare meals, so I started about 2 months before I was set to leave.  Some of my favorites are Brunswick stew, a thanksgiving meal, spaghetti, teriyaki stir fry, and black beans and quinoa.  To this I’ve added lentils and rice, a pasta salad, couscous, and beans and rice.  Burritos, vegan tuna, and top ramen for lunches, and cream of wheat and scrambled tofu for breakfasts.

What it is

The Brunswick stew is dried lima beans, corn, and frozen hash browns, combined with TVP, bouillon, dried tomatoes, and instant mashed potatoes.  I sliced some garlic cloves, briefly toasted them and put them in the dehydrator, and added some to the stew.  The thanksgiving meal is dried vegan breakfast sausage, peas and corn, combined with stuffing mix, instant mashed potatoes, and dried cranberries.  This meal is delicious and filling and so comforting.  I bought some “instant” pasta from the Outdoor Herbivore that you don’t have to cook and drain, you only need to soak it in boiling water.  I dried pasta sauce and will add that to the pasta for spaghetti.  The teriyaki stir fry is steamed cauliflower, broccoli, carrots, and onion, diced finely and tossed in teriyaki sauce and dried, added to some instant rice.  My black beans and quinoa is cooked black beans and quinoa, dried, with chopped pecans and dried pasta sauce.  The lentils and rice are just that, with caramelized onions, which we eat at home.  It’s a recipe I’ve been making for years and one my daughter grew up on.  You can get a bag of lentils, a bag of rice and a bag of onions very cheaply, and when you’re poor, that is the way to go.  This pasta salad is served hot and has pasta, chopped peanuts, dried onion, and a bit of brown sugar which will get mixed with rice vinegar, oil and soy sauce.  My couscous recipe is dried vegetables, vegan chicken gravy, TVP and couscous.  And my beans and rice is dried black beans and brown rice, combined with onion soup mix and soy bacon bits.  I mean, are you hungry yet?

I make different kinds of burritos and scrambled tofu, whatever I feel like when I’m preparing is what goes in.  The burritos always have beans, sometimes rice, chipotles, onions, and spices.  The tofu has whatever spare veggies I have, sometimes vegan sausage, sometimes vegan chorizo, or whatever I’ve got.  I added my dried garlic to some of the meals and not to others.  I also cooked up a boatload of mushrooms and added them to the dryer.  I put them in the pasta dishes and some of the stews.  I’ll tell you though, mushroom sure shrink down when you dry them!

I can pick up tortillas along the way, as well as supplemental snacks and any other stuff I might want.  While it’s hard to find vegan food that is fairly easy to prepare while in certain parts of the country, it’s not too hard to find some things.  Tortillas are one of those things.  Fresh fruit and veggies are another, but in some places where they don’t grow food, they can be expensive, and maybe not as fresh as this California girl likes!

Pasta Peaches

Years of experience have taught me that you have to be careful what you dry together.  I once dried pasta sauce and peaches.  That was a disaster!  Peaches and pasta sauce do NOT go together!  Oh, the things you learn through making mistakes!  Sometimes the dehydrator is full, sometimes only a tray or two at a time is going.  I’ll tell you though, the house sure smells good when I’m drying food!

Breakfast

I’ve had to do some experimenting to get my rehydration quantities right.  Usually, when I’m backpacking, I just guess at the amount of the water needed to rehydrate the food.  Sometimes it’s a little crunchy, sometimes a little soupy, but always tasty.  This time, I’ve carefully weighed everything before and after drying, done a bit of math, and come up with how much water I need to rehydrate.  I can always note in the journal if it’s right or not, but it should work.  I’ve made a couple of test recipes, particularly of the scrambled tofu.  This is something I’ve tried before, but not successfully.  This time though, it came out well and I’m excited to have it, as it’s one of my favorite breakfasts.

Part of why I like making my food is because I can make what I like and I know it’s healthy.  I don’t have to worry if someone put butter in the sauce, or if it has some meat, or gelatin, or milk.  My food is actually really tasty and I know I’ll eat it, even if I’m tired or not really feeling it.  When my family goes back to Michigan and I stay at home, I rarely cook anything for myself and would live on popcorn if there wasn’t usually a pan of lasagna made right before they left!  I just don’t enjoy eating the food I make when I’m the only one eating it.  Maybe I’m just lazy.

How much can I carry

In sorting and packing my food, I realize I can carry 10 or 11 days of food in my dry bag.  I’ll need to mail myself food twice and now I need to figure out where to mail the food.  From my backpacking I know that I can send myself food to a post office, general delivery with an approximate pick up date and the box will be waiting for me.   Surprisingly, 11 days of food does not weigh as much as I thought it would.  Then again, I’m not carrying it on my back!  When it’s there, I think it weighs more.  Lucille shouldn’t mind the weight on the back seat.  She’s stronger than I am.

Almost there

The time for leaving is almost here.  I’ve less than 30 days before I hit the road!  I’m really excited.  I’ve gotten all the farm animals sheared, and I’m ready to go.  It is just a matter of passing the time until I roll out of here.  Stay tuned!