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.

mango chipotle jerky

I got the dates wrong on the Yosemite trip. It's this weekend, not the following. As per the request of a group member, I will be preparing beef. We may be bringing a bigger stove, but regardless, I did pretty good to keep this close to instant. I think it will need to have boiling water added, let sit for 10 minutes, and then bring to a simmer for two or three more minutes.

Since beef is nearly synonymous with jerky on the trail, I made some at home for the trip. I wanted a tasty jerky for eating on the trail, and a sweet seasoned meat for cooking dinner. I settled on a onion, garlic, and red pepper for eating, and mango-chipotle for cooking. I am planning to make some black beans with caribbean spice to pair with the mango-chipotle beef. On the trail, I'll toast some crushed nuts for topping, or use toasted nuts, and finishing the dish.

Over the weekend I aquired a 3lb london broil and had it sliced 1/4" thick. Half of the meat was put into a mango-chipotle marinade, and half was placed into a garlic, onion, and pepper marinade. The meat was incubated over night in the refridgerator before being dried in my oven at the lowest setting with the door propped open.

I wish I would have taken pictures of the preparation, but I had already put the meat in the marinades before it occurred to me to go get my camera. I hope that as I continue this blog, I will become more familiar with using the camera to document the process.

The mango jerky is awesome in both texture and flavor. Nice chew, soft, an upfront sweetness countered by a soft smoky heat on the palate. If I was making this again, I would add some Cayenne or more chili to boost the heat slightly. I like the subtleness of the smoke flavor.
My roomies both liked it a lot, and appreciated the ginger, mango, and pepper flavors. I think we all found it shockingly good, and a nice start to a dinner this weekend.

I wasn't thinking that the different marinades would affect drying times that much. I had to throw the onion-garlic jerky in the trash. Apparently I managed to only check the mango jerky for dryness. I way over dried the other. I ate a few bites, and wasn't enjoying myself. I wouldn't want that experience on the trail, and I certainly wouldn't want to share that with my friends.

Mango-Chipotle Marinade
2 extra large mangos, diced
two palm fulls of turbinado sugar
4 chipotle cleaned of adobo sauce
1 medium white onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, crushed and rough chop
3tsp Salt
Crack black pepper
1/2 tsp fresh ground red chili
a healthy dose of minced ginger
--toss diced mango with sugar to coat
--collect sweet water that is released from the fruit
--add salt, black pepper, chipotle peppers to juice and puree
--add diced onion and garlic, ginger, cayenne and ground red chili

Onion-Garlic-Pepper marinade
two onions diced fine
8 cloves chopped garlic
3Tbls cracked black pepper
1Tbls crushed red pepper
1/2cup soy sauce
a good shaking of the worcestershire sauce
1tsp liquid smoke
1 tsp Salt (optional)

--Mix everything together

Here are some pictures of the jerky preparation

This is the mango-chipotle marinade with the beef in it.


Here is a close up shot of the marinated meat before drying


This is my own idea. By resting the over rack on cans, I can create enough space to dry hanging slices. I use toothpicks to hang the slices.


Here is the dried jerky