The push is on.
Each tray is 13 inches diameter. This is about 4 pounds of carrots and 3 pounds of cabbage, lightly precooked (to stop enzyme action that could cause spoilage even in fully-dried food) and ready to go into the dehydrators. Each tray is 13 inches diameter; one dehydrator holds 4 and the other, 5.
I have a list of what I will need to finish dehydrating and bag up in the next 10 weeks, based on a 6-month or 24-week trip:
12 cups dried measure of each of the following:
- Carrots
- Cabbage
- Corn
- Broccoli
- Green beans
- Turnip/collard greens (yes, I like these, and yes, they rehydrate well!)
This will give me 1/2 cup dry = 1 cup reconstituted per week of each... a different vegetable each day for 6 days. The seventh day I plan to eat in town.
That's just the vegetables. I'll be mixing them with:
- Dry beans (need 24 cups dry measure = 1 cup per week = 2 X 1 cup rehydrated.) I buy them dry, soak & cook, dehydrate, and end up with "instant" dry beans. I'm not drying any more of them, though, since I discovered that lentils and split peas, after soaking 3-4 hours, cook in 5 minutes. I'll put them into a jar with water at lunchtime and heat them up for dinner.
- Brown rice (I'll need about 5 pounds for the same number of servings; soak & cook like lentils)
- 24 cups tomato sauce = 1 cup per week; I'll dry it and flake it in the blender and divvy it up; it's less expensive than 72 tomatoes (3/week)
- 8 pounds hamburger = 1 serving/week of 1/3 pound
- 8 pounds ground turkey = 1 serving/week of 1/3 pound
- Onions -- however many it takes to make 6c. dried minced onions
Then there's fruit. I don't have this fully-planned yet. Just something to mix into my oatmeal, basically. Probably:
- Applesauce "leather"
- Banana slices
- Maybe pineapple rings
That's just the stuff I'm going to dry myself.
So my dinners will include a couple servings of meat a week; complete protein the other days from the beans/rice mixture, plus cheese (buy en route); and a different vegetable every day, along with onions and tomato sauce.
I'll save breakfast, lunch, and snack plans for another post.
~Sigh~
I'm tired just from making the list. Burned up a pound of calories right there, I think.
