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,

A Masala Sauce (recipe)

Okay, so lets start with the masala sauce. This sauce forms the body and soul of the worlds most popular pseudo-indian dish. I'm working to bring it on the trail with me next weekend. Because heavy cream is not trail friendly, I've decided to substitute mori-nu tofu for the heavy cream. This dish, as prepared, is vegan and vegetarian.

I got distracted when cooks illustrated covered chicken tikka masala in their current issue. I made their recipe, and I didn't see what was so great about it. Honestly. I found it lacking in flavor, and color. It had great texture, but with heavy cream, texture isn't much to brag about.

I've tried to keep this recipe as trail friendly as possible. I didn't take pictures during the preparation because my battery was charging. I'll take pictures when I prepare it for this weekends adventure.

To make this dish backpacker friendly, I will prepare a simple spicy tomato sauce and dehydrate it at home. This will give me a fresh flavor tomato sauce without weight. It will also save me the need to carry an extensive spice rack with me.

On the trail, mori-nu tofu will be whipped into the sauce to add protein and thickness.

Masala Tomato Sauce
---------------------------

• 6-8 ripe tomatoes
• a slice of butter/veggie stuff (optional. I don't use fats in things I want to dry)
  
• 2tbls minced garlic
• one medium white onion, minced and optional
  
• 1-2 jalepeno or equivalent chillies
  
• 1-2 tsp Paprika
• 1-2 tbls fresh coriander
• "1/2 amount of coriander" cumin seed
• 1/2-1 tsp cinnamon
• 1-2tsp garam masala spice blend
• 1 inch minced ginger root

1. toast whole coriander and cumin seeds till fragrant and aromatic before grinding with mortar and pestle.
   
2. puree tomatoes with Jalepenos, seeds and ribs included
   
3. Cook onion in butter over medium -medium high heat 3-5 minutes
4. add spices (parika, coriander, cinnamon, cumin, garam masala blend ) and cook 45s-1:30, till fragrant
5. add tomato-jalepeno puree and minced ginger
6. cook 10 minutes
7. dehydrate on parchment paper till dry . I use my over on the lowest setting with the door propped open. I flip the sauce after 8 hours to dry the other side of the slap.

**NOTE: If you are making this at home, you could puree the tofu in with the tomatoes and jalepenos, or whip it in by hand during the cooking. **

On the trail, rehydrate the dried tomato sauce in boiling water, and add mori-nu silken soft tofu to cream up the sauce. I recommend mashing the tofu up right in the box with your knife or spoon before adding it to the sauce. This sauce is delicious with rice, noodles, dumplings, falafel balls, breads, and eaten plain with a spoon.

I'll be posting an update on my fake meat recipe soon . . . Thank you for reading my blog,
Cayenne


Tofu and Tomato sauce with masala spices (below)

Mango Chipotle Beef with Caribbean spiced beans

I don't send untested meals into the wilderness. I like to eat too much for that type of adventure, so I tried the dried dish for dinner last night. Honestly, it was much lighter on flavor after being dried, and if I made it again, I would make some fresh spice mix to toss onto the mixture right before it goes into the dryer. It was flavorful and tasty, but not as bold as I thought it should be. I would increase the cumin amount in the spice mix too.

I'm off to Yosemite, I'll let you know how the trip was when I get back, Cheers !

Enjoy some pictures while you are here :

Fresh out of the oven, the beans and two types of rice are visible. Nice bright green spots of cilantro.

A stick of mango jerky for the dish

chopped into little pieces,

added to the dried food in bowl

Which was tossed into this boiling water, (mix:Water 1:2)

removed from heat, and allowed to stand 10 minutes

here it is after the 10 minutes are up

I simmered it for two minutes, but really it needs to go 10 minutes. The beans were a little bit tough.

Put into the dish after simmering

and topped with some crushed nuts and parsley.

Caribbean Sauced Beans

I made this seasoning sauce to use with beans, lentils, or pasta. I have paired the sauce with black beans I made yesterday. I'll use the seasoned beans with the mango chipotle jerky and some smoked nuts on the trail. This sauce has a spice blend similar to what I would use in my dahl, but there are some notable differences. I avoided cardamon, fenugreek, and mustard seed to avoid tasting indian, and added Allspice, and lots of it, for more Caribbean flavor. Onion and garlic were left in big chunks to keep texture after rehydrating.
The tomatoes were sauteed to remove moisture and increase flavor before being put into the blender. Doing this step will improve the drying time of the sauce quite a bit. I probably cooked them for around ten minutes. I deglazed the dutch over with broth in which I had the black beans resting overnight.

The sauce was mixed with organic black beans I prepared from dry in beef broth. I soaked them in water for five hours, and simmered them in broth until almost done. They were chilled under running cold water, and then left to sit in cold beef broth until I prepared this seasoning sauce. The beans were drained and added to the sauce and simmered for ten minutes. A layer of organic brown basmati was spread on a cookie sheet covered in parchment paper. The beans were then layered on, and covered with white basmati rice. The food was dried in the oven, with repeated flipping and breaking up of chunks to ensure complete dehydration.

I ate this for dinner last night before assembling the drying apparatus. I really liked the way it explodes in the mouth with sweet, hot, and savory flavors. The cilantro and nuts finished off the dish with hints of citrus and smoke.

Here is the recipe, gratuitous pictures at bottom post.

Caribbean Beans Seasoning Sauce

• 1/4c brown sugar
• 4 tomatoes
• 8 cloves garlic
• 1tsp coriander seeds
  
• 1tsp cumin seeds
  
• 1tsp ginger
• 2Tbls whole allspice
  
• 1tsp whole cloves
• fresh nutmeg
• ground cinnamon (prefer whole, but was out)
  
• 1Tbls paprika
  
• 1 red habanero
• some thick soy sauce / paste
  
• 1 red fresno chili
• onion
• celery
• salt
• pepper
• cilantro
• smoked almonds

Prepare Spice Mixture

• Toast coriander, cumin, allspice, and cloves over med-high heat till aromatic
• grind to powder in mortar with pestle
• set aside
  

Prepare Tomato Chili Blend

• Core and Seed six tomatoes
• dice two tomatoes and set aside for later
  
• brown in dutch over over med-high heat, no oil
• seed and rib habanero and red fresno chilies
• puree tomatoes and chilies till no chunks remain

Build Seasoning Sauce

• sautee chiopped onion and celery till well sweat (3-6 min)
  
• add 3 cloves chopped garlic, cook 30 sec
  
• add spice mixture, parika, and pinch of salt. Cook 30 sec
• add tomato puree and diced tomatoes
• adjust salt
• add big palm full of brown sugar
• add tamari, or thick soy sauce + worcestershire, to taste (~1/4 cup)
• cook over med-low / low heat for ten minutes
• grate fresh nutmeg, and add four-five cloves of chopped garlic
• chill the sauce in the refridgerator until ready to mix with beans.