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,

Ravioli :: No Recipe

I haven't posted anything in a while. I got sick with bronchitis, and pretty much took a month off from life. I'm still a little bit depressed, but things are starting to look up again.

I am thinking about making a ravioli for the trail, a nice protein rich packet of flavor wrapped in a high carbohydrate dumpling. My gut instinct says I want beef stew inside a chewy dumpling, with a gravy type of sauce. I'm still thinking about the best way to go about doing such a thing for the trail.

While I don't have a recipe to share yet, I do have some gratuitous photos, just keep scrolling till you find them. I'm still playing with the fake meats, here as a ravioli filling.

Enjoy, and Thank You,
Cayenne


Four egg yolks, some egg white, and a splash of oil are massaged into one cup of flour, wrapped in plastic and set out to rest for an hour at room temperature.


roll it thin, and cut out ravioli halves with metal shot glass


add some filling


put another circle of dough over the filling, and seal with a fork


repeat until you have enough to cook


cook and serve. I ate these with browned butter and a carrot chutney

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)