Grilled Jambalaya

Hello World,

I'm heading out to the sierras for a backpacking trip in the greater hetch hetchy ecosystem of the sierras. On the menu is a variety of goodies, including a smoked jambalaya, good bars, and fake meat. The jambalaya is a more robust version of the stuff I made last season. I added some shredded chicken to the mix, and more veggies.


I soak some apple wood over night for generating smoke


and prepare some fresh veggies


GARLIC


onions and jalepenos


bell peppers


smoked over low heat for a while


Cook it up with some diced tomato, rice, and chicken broth


shred the chicken with forks


Dry 10 hours and flip over


until dried completely


Gratuitous grill photo !

Cheers y'all, I'm out of here for a very well deserved vacation.

Yours,
Cayenne

Strawberry Electrolyte Gel

Greating my friends, I made these for my trinity alps trip. Due to getting stuck in a snow storm, I didn't get to push myself hard enough to properly evaluate the functionality of this snack. I enjoyed the taste, but think I can improve on the texture of these.


I start with 1/3 flat of fresh organic strawberries ( 0.5kg)


Strawberries are scored in parallel lines, 5-8 cuts per berry, and flavor
is extracted by covering with evaporated cane juice (200g)


After a short rest, and a quick stir, it should look like this gooey mess


There are lots of ways to get the juice from the mix, I use cheesecloth


drain, drain, drain, drain . . . rinse with OJ . . . I collected almost 100ml of juice.


Add the juice from some oranges to bring volume to 100ml.


Pastuerize the liquid, and add in some dissolved gelatin (21g), then pour into a container to set


Cube, and toss lightly with a small amount of sugar. I cut mine so that I could easily squeeze them out of my refillable squeeze tubes. This amount filled one tube completely.

I hope to get the write up done for my trinity alps trip soon.

It's backpacking season, be safe out there,
Cayenne

Good Bars

Hello Internets,

I needed a bar that I could stand to eat, so I made one. I set out to make something deceptively sweet, crunchy, and chewy. This is the basic bar, with more flavors to come as I do more trips. Simple sugars come from evaporate cane juice, agave nectar, and a local honey made from bees pollinating blackberry shrubs. Oats, rice, amaranth, and millet add complex carbohydrates, and some protein. Butter, seeds, and nuts add fat and texture.

FWIW, these bars are 4.8Cal/g.

The full recipe should appear in the list on the right soon, enjoy the picture show.

INGREDIENTS

• 170g Evaporated organic can juice (~1cup)
• 185g Peanut Butter (~2/3 cup) (12f:8p:5c)/32g (200Cal/32g)
• 120g agave nectar (1/4 cup) (360Cal)
• 115g butter (1/2 cup)
• 10g vanilla (2tsp)
• 270g rolled oats (3 cups) (140cal/39g)
• 71g oat flour (1/2 cup) )140cal/39g)
• 80g sunflower kernels (1/2 cup)
• 30g sesame seeds (1/4 cup)
• 15g amaranth, toasted/puffed (1/4 cup) 374cal/100g
• 35g millet (1/4cup) 119cal/100g
• 80g corn syrup (1/4 cup) (120cal/30g)
• 116g blackberry honey (honey from black berry plants, not fruit honey combo) (1/4cup) (60cal/20g)
• 50g crisped rice (120cal/30g) (four or five hand fulls)
• 30g hemp seeds ( 174cal/30g) (a couple of plam fulls)
• 88g peanuts (802cal/144g) ( about 1/5 lb)

Crunchy Peanut butter, agave nectar, honey, vanilla evaporated cane juice,

some butter

mix the butter, PB, and sugars

puff the amaranth and millet, separately, over fairly high dry heat

add the puffed millet and amaranth, oats, oat flour, sesame seeds, hemp seeds, sunflower seeds, and peanuts. Mix it up

pack into baking sheet, 3/8" thick

bake 20 minutes @ 350F, and then dehydrate at 150-180F for 4-6 hours. Cut into 100g bars.

Thanks for reading, Electrolyte gels and Trinity Alps trip report coming soon.

Cheers,

Planning for the weekend

Unless weekend plans spring up between now and Friday at 11:00AM, I will continue this summer with more wilderness adventure, probably in Lassen VNP.

I was planning on making tikka masala for the trip. I even did a test batch at home Sunday. It was good, so I ate it three days in a row. Two problems.

• I don't really have a craving for it anymore
• Too much food for one person

So here I am , thinking of something new. I don't want this blog to turn into fifty ways to cook rice, so lets make some rules for this dish.

1. No rice, no beans, no lentils


2. No dried meats


3. No chili peppers

I think those three rules ought to be plenty to get the creativity flowing. I will tour the Berkeley Bowl for inspiration, and have my recipe online as soon as I have something.