| vegetable | instructions | notes |
|---|---|---|
| green beans | Dumped a bag of frozen green beans on the trays | crunchy! I like them on their own but they might be good with some garlic or other spices mixed in. |
| peas | They were too small to fit on the trays (they'd fall through) so I put foil over the trays and then poked small holes in the foil to allow the air to flow through. Used petite frozen peas from Trader Joe's with zero seasoning. | Tasted as expected - like dried peas! |
| red and yellow peppers | Sliced red and yellow peppers into thin strips, then put them in the dehydrator plain | Crunchy and tasty! Good on its own without seasoning if you like eating sweet peppers plain (I do) |
| onions | Diced an entire yellow onion and put the pieces onto the trays directly | It made the house smell nice (if you like onion!) but I wouldn't do this one again. I realized later I can easily buy dried onion at the bargain stores for cheap so it's not worth the effort. |
| kale | De-stemed and roughly cut without seasoning | Didn't make these for snacking but for soup mixes so I didn't try them plain |
I ran out of time, but I had also wanted to try carrots, tomatoes, and beans. In the end, I used the dried vegetables to make my own soup mixes. These are the two I made:
Soup Mix 1
- dehydrated onion (can also use dried)
- garlic powder
- kale (crush and crumble with hands)
- dried sliced shiitake mushrooms from Asian market
- zucchini chips
- dehydrated peas
- spice mix from Penzey's
Soup Mix 2
- kale chips (curry-flavored)
- sundried tomatoes, chopped
- garlic powder
- dehydrated peppers, cut into smaller pieces with scissors
- zucchini chips
They were both great! The curry flavoring on the kale chips was enough to flavor the rest of the mix in the second soup mix. When it came time to eat, I used a Jetboil to make hot water, added the water to some of the mixture, and let it sit for a few minutes. It was great comfort food.
I also brought an array of other things to supplement the dried stuff:
canned no-salt beans, apples, bananas, homemade larabars, nuts and seeds, dried figs, zucchini chips, bag of frozen vegetables, roasted garbanzo beans, baby carrots
We stayed in a hotel the first night, which had a microwave and fridge, so I had a dinner meal of frozen vegetables and beans. BF had Jack in the Box. On the trail, I consumed homemade larabars, figs, brazil nuts, and roasted garbanzo beans. I didn't take any dried vegetables with me and think that was wise because since I was burning so many calories, I need to replenish them quickly, and eating the massive amounts of vegetables necessary to get that many calories would have taken a really long time. We're already slow hikers and didn't want to take longer breaks than we needed. The other meals (in the car) and at camp were the soup mixes, combined with some baby carrots, canned beans, nuts or seeds, and an apple. Surprisingly, I didn't feel as hungry as I thought I would (all the fiber?) and was able to stop eating with what seemed like very little food (and I was satisfied!).
I'm happy with how I did on the camping trip. In the past, I've caved and claimed it was "too hard" to eat this way on the road but it wasn't really a problem this time. Even with my SAD-eating BF eating fast food for almost all of his meals! With a little extra prep and planning, even I was able to stay true to ETL (so you can too :) ).
