Recipes
About
Having issues with gluten, I am always on the lookout for foods that can make a good, healthy substitute for bread, crackers, cookies, etc. I am a huge fan of Lundberg Farm rice cakes but when you are looking to pack more compact, calorie dense food for the trail, rice cakes don't work so well.
Recently I had the brainwave of trying to make oat cakes. There are a ton of recipes online for these things, so I found something that looked good and adapted some of the ingredients to make it a little healthier.
The recipe as it stands makes an oat cake that is fairly neutral in flavor and can be eaten with sweet or savory things, much like bread. However, by adding dried fruit, a little more sweetener, and even some chunks of chocolate, you can have a very delicious oatmeal cookie as well.
These things are very dense, packed with calories, protein, and fiber - A little goes a long way. They are also somewhat dry, not quite like a biscotti, but close. I think that it would also be fairly easy to prepare these right on the trail by pan frying instead of baking, but I haven't tried that yet.
Ingredients
- 2 cups rolled oats
- 1 tablespoon sweetener (we like to use date sugar)
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 pinch salt
- 2 tablespoons nut butter (almond, peanut, cashew, whatever your fancy)
- boiling water
Preparation
Preheat the oven to 350.
Mix all of the dry ingredients together.
Add the nut butter to the dry ingredients and mix it through as evenly as possible.
Add a little boiling water (approx. 1/2 cup at first) and knead it in. Gradually add a little more as you go, continuing to knead until you have a big ball of sticky dough (but not runny!). As you continue to knead, the oats will absorb the water and it will become less sticky. Keep doing this until the ball of dough no longer sticks to the bowl. Figuring out the right amount of water to use is somewhat of a trial and error thing but is easy to remedy by adding more oats or more water as required to get the right consistency.
Once the dough is the right consistency, pull off 1/4 cup size chunks, press them into a cookie shape approximately 1/2 inch thick and lay them out on a greased cookie sheet.
Bake for 7 minutes, then flip over and bake for another 5 - 7 minutes. When done, they should be lightly browned on both sides.
It's Memorial Day here in the United States, the traditional start of summer, at least for us northern states. In years past this was our first weekend camping of the season. This year we kicked it up a notch, took advantage of the early spring and did our first weekend of backpacking in April.
We're gone again this weekend to backpack in the Bigelow Preserve. Damien took today off work to finish getting us all packed up. Good thing too, it was a busy week of summer in the Tougas household. But we are almost all ready to go. Packs, food, gear and it looks to be gorgeous weekend to boot.
One thing we're packing is our favorite trail treat - chocolate chews.
About
We make these energy bars for most of our weekend hikes and bring them along for backpacking trips also. We snack on them during our breaks. The combined feel-good effect of the cocoa, the chewy texture and concentrated calories makes for a great little snack. Everyone who has eaten them - friends and family joining us on hikes, have loved them. All natural, all goodness.
These first appeared at FIMBY as truffles but for hiking we smoosh them into a plastic rectangle container and cut them into squares. Ideally we'd like a nice titanium container but for now we use what we have.
These are quite soft and do need to be stored and served from a container. If you put them into baggies they will just squish up and be less than appetizing.
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup dried fruit - raisins, prunes, apricots, cranberries or dates
- 3/4 cup almonds
- 1/4 cup tahini
- 1/4 cup soymilk
- 1/2 cup fair trade cocoa
- 1/2 cup unsweetened shredded coconut
- 1 - 2 tsp almond extract
Directions
- In a food processor chop dried fruit and almonds into a fine chunky meal.
- Pour in tahini and milk and mix well.
- Add cocoa, coconut and almond extract. Mix well, scrapping the sides of the bowl often.
- Transfer mixture into a small container and press down firmly with a spatula or your hands.
- Refrigerate till ready to pack.
- On the trail, cut into squares.
Notes
These can be made ahead of time and keep well in the fridge. They'll keep well on the trail also for a couple days. When they're not refrigerated though they will get stick-to-your-fingers soft in warm weather.
About
The design of this recipe was the result of some serious thinking on my part as to how we could meet a bunch of requirements for our winter outdoor lunch:
The food has to be hot. Eating hot food on a cold day can make all the difference between miserable and satisfying.
The meal has to be quick to prepare, both at home and on the trail. We don't want to spend a lot of time with preparation the night before and nobody wants to stand around long in the cold waiting for their food to be ready once on the trail.
The meal needs to promote hydration. We have found that it is easy to not consume enough liquids when exerting ourselves in cold weather. In the cold, we just don't drink as much or as often as we do in warmer weather.
The food needs to be energizing, delicious, and nutritious. Having food on the trail that everyone looks forward to is a huge benefit to family morale. Because this recipe is made with green tea, the extra kick really helps to perk people up for the afternoon.
This recipe has turned out to be a home run in our house. Everyone in the family now looks forward to our winter trips just to be able to eat this meal. The bonus for me is that I can have lunch prepared and packed for our family of five in about 15 minutes.
Gear Requirements
A backpacking stove, suitable for cold weather use in the conditions you will be out in. We currently use an MSR WindPro stove with the canister inverted.
A light-weight pot, big enough to boil about 1.5 cups of water per person. We have a GSI Halulite 2L Boiler.
A light-wight plastic food storage container (with lid) for each person, big enough to hold 3 - 4 cups. We've found Ziploc 4 cup storage containers with screw-top lids work great for this purpose.
A spoon/fork/spork per person. We like our color coded (one for each person) sporks.
A water container/bladder for carrying enough water to prepare the meal (about 1.5 cups per person). Our's is a MSR DromLite bag.
Ingredients
Cooked brown rice, 1 cup per person
Cooked beans, 1 cup per person (any bean will do, shelled edemame is absolutely delicious, tofu cubes work good as well)
Shredded carrots or cabbage or both, 1/4 cup per person
Dried nori, approximately 1/2 a sheet per person, cut into small strips
Miso paste, 1 teaspoon per person
Soy sauce, 1 teaspoon per person
Furikake, any flavor (optional), sprinkled to taste
Sesame seeds, 1 teaspoon per person
Japanese matcha or sencha green tea powder, or 1 green tea bag per person.
Preparation At Home
In each person's storage container, add all of the above ingredients in the amounts specifed except the green tea. If you are using green tea powder, add 1/2 a teaspoon of powder to each container. Close the lids firmly. If you are using tea bags, put all of the tea bags in a separate Ziploc bag.
Preparation on the Trail
Boil a pot of water, enough to prepare 1.5 cups per person.
If you are using tea bags: once the water has boiled, add all of the tea bags and make a large pot of green tea.
Open the containers of food and add hot water (or prepared green tea if using tea bags) to each one. Stir well, making sure all of the miso paste is mixed thoroughly.
Enjoy!
Notes
The standard recipe size is good for an adult, but may be too much for a child depending on how old they are and how well they can pack-it-in. You may have to adjust as appropriate.
This meal can be super-easy to prepare if you have the cooked rice and beans on-hand. We always make a little extra a couple of days before the weekend so that we are well prepared.
Green tea rice is a traditional japanese meal. It is typically made with white sticky rice, green tea, and furikake. This version has been spruced-up a little to make it more nutritious and add additional calories.
