Meal Dehydrator

Johnnygm7lsi

Guest
Anybody used one of these meal dehydrators for taking your home made recipes with you, I used to use the bought ready meals when backpacking and some of them were pretty tasty, but I`m getting fussy in later years
 
Aren't you

Better off buying a decent factory dehydrated meal and simply enhancing it with simple extras
eg cheese, herbs or spices, chutneys and pickles.:juggle::juggle::juggle:
 
I haven't, but I do use a vacuum sealer and freeze portions of home made food ... most things can then be heated using a boil in the bag technique.
 
I've got two dehydrators which have had extensive use over the last ten years for backpacking trips. Never used them specifically for the purposes of motorhome trips, although mainly due to laziness (i.e. not finding the time, pre-trip, to cook and dehydrate some stuff). I did intend to dehydrate some meat for our trip to Norway this summer and, on reflection, should have done both that and some veg too.

Here's a blog post I wrote a few years ago on the subject of what meals we dehydrate: M&G Go For A Walk: Dehydrating.

Happy to answer any questions you may have.
 
Part of the fun for us of being in the van is shopping locally and cooking, or not cooking in the case of Brittany, where we ate more oysters in 3 weeks than we'd had in the whole of the rest of our lives!

Lesley
 
LesleyKH said:
Part of the fun for us of being in the van is shopping locally and cooking, or not cooking in the case of Brittany, where we ate more oysters in 3 weeks than we'd had in the whole of the rest of our lives!

Lesley
Click to expand...

I agree but more often than not we end up in back of beyond somewhere, it's late and we have no idea where the nearest shop is and it's good to have stuff in the van that will make a meal without too much hassle. I always used to believe that you were never far from somewhere you could buy eggs and bread in this country until we got caught out once and ended up eating a tin of beans mixed with a tin a ravioli because that is all we had! It wasn't bad actually. My son cooks meat in kilner jars and takes that away with him and I have been looking at doing this especially as we don't have a fridge. Also we always keep a few sachets of these in the van:
Look What We Found! Beef bolognese with fresh Italian herbs - Waitrose
 
LesleyKH said:
Part of the fun for us of being in the van is shopping locally and cooking, or not cooking in the case of Brittany, where we ate more oysters in 3 weeks than we'd had in the whole of the rest of our lives!

Lesley
Click to expand...

True.
I bought 6 of the biggest oysters from Orlonne.
Only two of them worked.
I got a refund.
 
meal dehdrator

Personally I try to leave swmbo cooking at home when I go away.
 
I used to use a dehydrator to remove as much weight as I could from 'rations' when cycle-camping. However, a dehydrator removes flavour nearly as effectively as it removes water, so I haven't used the dehydrator for some years. Also, some foods are more suited to dehydration than others. I found fatty foods didn't lend themselves to this method (e.g. I needed to use as lean a cut of meat as I could for spag-bog). HTH, Geoff
 
Lima Delta said:
I've got two dehydrators which have had extensive use over the last ten years for backpacking trips. Never used them specifically for the purposes of motorhome trips, although mainly due to laziness (i.e. not finding the time, pre-trip, to cook and dehydrate some stuff). I did intend to dehydrate some meat for our trip to Norway this summer and, on reflection, should have done both that and some veg too.

Here's a blog post I wrote a few years ago on the subject of what meals we dehydrate: M&G Go For A Walk: Dehydrating.

Happy to answer any questions you may have.
Click to expand...

Thanks for that, interesting blog, I don`t see much seasoning, do you add that when re-hydrating then have it with rice or similar.
 
suneye said:
I agree but more often than not we end up in back of beyond somewhere, it's late and we have no idea where the nearest shop is and it's good to have stuff in the van that will make a meal without too much hassle. I always used to believe that you were never far from somewhere you could buy eggs and bread in this country until we got caught out once and ended up eating a tin of beans mixed with a tin a ravioli because that is all we had! It wasn't bad actually. My son cooks meat in kilner jars and takes that away with him and I have been looking at doing this especially as we don't have a fridge. Also we always keep a few sachets of these in the van:
Look What We Found! Beef bolognese with fresh Italian herbs - Waitrose
Click to expand...

We never stick either, always a Mathesons garlic sausage (They dont need refrigerated) and a packet savoury rice in the cupboard.
 
We have separate freezer but its usually full, and the other half is trying to reduce her salt intake, we eat healthily when at home, but most of these convenience meals are high in salt, hence the idea of dehydrating, which I thought was as simple as make a big pot of chicken tikka masala or beef stew and dry it out, then boil it, sounds more of a science and a totally new way of cooking. We also like to buy local and cook it, but shops are a bit bit thin on the ground in NW Scotland over the winter.
 
Johnnygm7lsi said:
Thanks for that, interesting blog, I don`t see much seasoning, do you add that when re-hydrating then have it with rice or similar.
Click to expand...

All of the meals have herbs, spices and/or stock in them when made, and remain flavoursome enough through the de- and re-hydration process. The only extras added when rehydrating is half a lamb stock cube to the Shepherd, because it doesn't tend to keep enough of a lamby flavour otherwise, and a bit of pepper to the stew dishes.

Because of the backpacking context, we have all of these as 'one pot' meals, so the rice*/pasta*/cous cous/smash gets mixed into the same pot, although with the luxury of better kitchen equipment than I'm prepared to carry on my back, they would work equally well with the accompaniment cooked (or rehydrated) separately, with an appropriate modification to the quantity of water used to rehydrate (*rice and pasta are also cooked and dehydrated at home and added in 10 minutes before serving). (I'm not sure that I've explained what I mean particularly well there, but it's getting late by my usual standards!)
 
Lima Delta said:
All of the meals have herbs, spices and/or stock in them when made, and remain flavoursome enough through the de- and re-hydration process. The only extras added when rehydrating is half a lamb stock cube to the Shepherd, because it doesn't tend to keep enough of a lamby flavour otherwise, and a bit of pepper to the stew dishes.

Because of the backpacking context, we have all of these as 'one pot' meals, so the rice*/pasta*/cous cous/smash gets mixed into the same pot, although with the luxury of better kitchen equipment than I'm prepared to carry on my back, they would work equally well with the accompaniment cooked (or rehydrated) separately, with an appropriate modification to the quantity of water used to rehydrate (*rice and pasta are also cooked and dehydrated at home and added in 10 minutes before serving). (I'm not sure that I've explained what I mean particularly well there, but it's getting late by my usual standards!)
Click to expand...

Explained perfectly, our oven has a dehydrating setting so I`m gonna give it a try with that first to see how it goes, many thanks.
 
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