Dehydrated (freeze-dried) foods are very nutritious. In contrast to their water-packed, canned counterparts, these foods retain much more vitamins and nutritional content. They are excellent for everyday cooking as well as long-term food storage. Freeze dried foods have 98% of their moisture removed, but they retain nearly all of their fresh-food flavor, vitamins and nutrients. Dehydrated foods keep their nutritional value because the vitamins have not been cooked out in the initial process.

Aside from nutrition, dehydrated foods are desirable for food storage because they are so light weight. With pits, peelings, and nearly all of the water removed from these foods, they are very light and convenient to store or take with you in an emergency. They are also economical. Generally, dehydrated foods have double the yield of regular canned food, which makes them a smart buy.

Dried foods, however, do lose nutrients due to the use of heat to dry them. They also become concentrated calories. For example, one cup of fresh apricots contains about 74 calories, while one cup of dehydrated apricots contains more than 4 times that amount: 313 calories! The good news is, dried fruits do retain all of their fiber and iron. Drying foods slowly with a home dehydrator is the best method to retain the most nutrients during drying (much healthier than commercial drying).

PIZZA CRUST

1 C. warm water

1 Tbsp sugar

1 Tbsp. yeast

1 tsp. salt

1 Tbsp. oil (I use grapeseed, but you can use olive or canola)

1 C. whole wheat flour (I like the hard white wheat for milder flavor)

1 1/2 C. all-purpose flour

In mixer or bowl, combine water, sugar and yeast.  Let stand for 5 minutes to let yeast foam.  Add salt, oil and sugar.  Stir in wheat and white flour and knead until smooth and elastic.  I like to let the dough rest for about 15 minutes before rolling, but you can roll it out immediately if you like.  Roll the dough into mini pizzas or one 15 inch pizza on a cornmeal dusted board.  The cornmeal works much better than flour on the board because it doesn’t dry out the dough and it gives a nice crispness to the finished product. Let everyone top their pizzas to their liking, and bake at 400 degrees for 15-20 minutes.  I bake my pizzas on a pizza stone, but a cookie sheet works fine.

Here’s a picture of last night’s topping selections:

Our almost vegetarian toppings: fresh garden squash and zucchini, mushrooms, purple onion, tomatoes, rehydrated red and green peppers, and turkey pepperoni

In the kitchen at home or in the great outdoors, my husband and I believe that having the right tools makes all the difference (i.e., “fun” versus “frustrating”).  We like to use dutch ovens, a Camp Chef 3-Burner Stove, and the new toy, a Camp Chef Outdoor Oven.  We have added a “dutch oven table” to our supplies and really like how it makes it easy to cook with dutch ovens at home as well as in the campground. If you’re interested in any of these items, be sure to check www.amazon.com or www.costco.com first since they tend to have significant savings on these things. 

Here are some menu highlights from this campout:

For lunch one day, we baked individual pizzas.  I brought homemade dough (with part whole wheat flour) from home in a ziploc bag, and then rolled out crusts at the campsite.   Everyone was able to customize their own crust with toppings of their choice, including cheese, pepperoni, sliced mushrooms, pineapple and red and green peppers.  The peppers were dehydrated and easy to pack in a plastic bag for the campout.  I just rehydrated them at the campsite and they cooked up beautifully.  We cooked the pizzas in the Camp Chef Oven and they turned out great. 

After a successful day of fishing, we grilled trout on the propane stove (with grill box on top). 

Don’t be too impressed, fishing in Pine Valley is cake! It’s perfect for kids and impatient adults.  If you fish from the middle of the dam and use Velveeta, the fish will bite as soon as the bait hits the water (literally!).  Anticipating a catch, I brought along a plastic bag with a mixture of 1 cup flour and 1 cup cornmeal seasoned with Garlic Pepper  to dredge the fish before grilling.  We served the fish with instant brown rice boiled on the cooktop of the Camp Oven. 

We used the dutch oven to cook up traditional Dutch Oven Potatoes (we used fresh, but could have used dehydrated potatoes and onions)  that we enjoyed with grilled barbecue chicken and salad.  For dessert, we tried a dutch oven apple cobbler for the first time.  I used a quart jar of home-canned apple pie filling and topped it with a box of white cake mix, some whole pecans and a cube of butter sliced over the top.   This was a surprise hit.  We all thought it was delicious.  Another night, we used the dutch oven to make a pot roast with carrots and onions, and used potato flakes from food storage whipped with cheese and Garlic Supreme for a simple side dish.  I’ve decided Garlic Supreme is the third essential seasoning with salt and pepper.  I am keeping a shaker of it in my camping supplies because it is so handy for adding flavor to so many recipes.  We had Dutch Oven Peach Cobbler for dessert that night. Yum!  I love the dutch oven cobblers because they are so simple, but they make a special camping treat that I look forward to as much as s’mores. 

As we prepared these meals, I thought about how food storage ingredients and the right tools can really make an unexpected situation much more bearable.  Food storage items are very versatile.  Think of what the pioneers could do with just flour, cornmeal, salt, and oil.  For camping, I love how easy dehydrated foods are to pack and transport.  Camping is a fun excuse to play with what you are storing and find new ways to use these ingredients.

Camping helps us to assess our preparedness supplies as well.  Dealing with an emergency or disaster situation can be a lot like camping.  There may be no electricity for cooking, light, or warmth.  So preparing for a camp-out helps you to think about whether the batteries still work in the flashlights, or if the propane tanks are full.  We store charcoal for dutch oven cooking as an alternative fuel also. Check your storage of water, blankets, rope, mantles for your lantern, first aid supplies, etc.

Take time this summer to get away and enjoy nature’s peace, and use the experience to plan for peace in the time of an emergency.

Most people are familiar with the fabulous can-rollers offered by Shelf Reliance to organize and rotate canned food storage, but you may not be aware that this company also offers a line of food storage products now.  This line is called THRIVE.  I love these products for several reasons, but especially because Shelf Reliance shares my philosophy that food storage should be EATEN (why does that seem like an oxymoron to some people?).  Every can includes at least one delicious recipe for its use, so there is no excuse not to incorporate these products into your family menus.  The cans are color-coded for the basic food groups, which makes finding what you need in your storage room even easier. 

Another factor that I love about THRIVE is that their products contain no MSG (an additive often included in long-term food storage items that gives my husband and many others headaches).  Per the Shelf Reliance website, the ingredients that are included are top quality.   I like that THRIVE offers more food variety as well, with #10 cans of sweet potato dices and freeze dried berries.  They also offer basics like brown sugar, which I am often asked how to can.  Shelf Reliance was kind enough to send me samples of the sweet potato dices and brown sugar.  As a baker, I had wondered how I could store brown sugar for my favorite chocolate chip cookies, so I was thrilled that THRIVE had figured it out for me.  The sweet potato dices can be used for any traditional Thanksgiving recipe, but THRIVE included a yummy recipe for sweet potato muffins on the side of the package, which provides an easy-to-rotate alternative. 

The Shelf Reliance website offers a link to help families customize and calculate their food storage needs and at present is offering a coupon for 20% off through January 3rd.  (Use coupon code SAVE20 at checkout).  Shipping is free for orders over $99, and if your order doesn’t total enough you can gather your friends to total up a bulk order that is at least that amount.  Shipping is often the factor that discourages online shopping for food storage items due to their weight, so I think the free shipping offer is really nice.  And, my samples arrived nicely packaged in sturdy packing boxes. 

If you have any questions about THRIVE products, check out their user friendly website, and start planning your food storage additions for 2009!