Thursday, July 18, 2013
Fire!
You may remember that I'll be doing a solo backpack up Mt. San Jacinto in a couple of weeks. Well, that area is currently on fire! The fire covers an area of about 23,000 acres and evacuations are in progress in Idyllwild. The Pacific Crest Trail is closed up to Saddle Junction, which happens to be right where I need to walk through! Temperatures in that area are in the high 90's with very low humidity and they expect high temps through the weekend. Looks like 7 houses have burned down and it's only 15% contained. Hopefully the wind will keep pushing it east toward the desert. Hope everyone stays safe! Yikes!
I'll be keeping my eye on it because it could potentially affect my trip.
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-as-mountain-fire-20130718,0,639278.story
Sunday, July 14, 2013
Let's Eat Jerky!
Remember how I said I was going to dehydrate quinoa first? Well, plans have changed. I realized that quinoa is teeny tiny and would slip through the slats in the drying trays so I had to order sheets to place in the trays to prevent that from happening. So while I wait for those to come in, I decided to dry other stuff on my list instead. I could not find cranberries or apricots so I opted to do cherries, apples, and papaya. For the meat, I went ahead and did salmon jerky as well as beef jerky. I also did green beans and sweet potatoes.
Fruit
I pre-treated the fruit so it would maintain it's color- especially the apples. Pre-treatment merely involves soaking the sliced up fruit pieces in a water and lemon juice solution for a few minutes. When I started on the cherries, I realized I did not have a cherry pitter so I had to manually remove the seeds, making my cherries look a little mangled- but they are still delicious! The apples came out great but I'm a sucker for dried apples. Just ask my mom :-) The papaya was surprisingly tasty but Dennis didn't like it. He said they tasted like cardboard. He prefers the store-bought dried papaya that you get in a Hawaiian seed shop that still has quite a bit of moisture in it. The cherries will be good in my quinoa hot cereal which I am mightily looking forward to. Fruit drying was very successful and I definitely will do more apples for backpacking and want to try some berries next time as well.
Vegetables
I blanched the green beans before drying to break down the tough exterior and, in retrospect, I should have done it with the sweet potatoes as well. Next time I will because the sweet potatoes didn't turn out exactly how I wanted them. They are chip-like but still retain a raw, almost grainy, flavor which is not what I wanted. I will also add salt and maybe some paprika to them next time for additional flavor. The green beans turned out great. They look like shriveled little unappetizing pieces of crap but they are very tasty and I can see that they would be very good in a one pot meal.
Jerky
I soaked both the salmon and the beef in my super special teriyaki marinade overnight. I've been using this recipe for years on every kind of meat you can imagine but it's actually specified as a Korean Beef marinade. I can't remember where I got it- online somewhere. So I'm sorry but I can't give credit where credit is due. I tripled the recipe for the amount of meat I had.
For each pound of meat, I make the following marinade:
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup chicken stock
2 TBSP brown sugar splenda
2 TBSP sesame oil
1 TSP black pepper
1 TSP ground garlic
1 TSP ground ginger
2 green onions (chopped)
1 TBSP sesame seeds
I sliced the salmon and beef into strips, soaked them overnight, and laid them on the trays for dehydrating. The beef is grass-fed so it's super lean (and frickin' expensive). Every few hours I patted the meat with paper towels to soak up the excess oils. I left the meat in the dehydrator for 10 hours and it probably could have been shorter but I wanted to make sure. It turned out SO SO GOOD! The salmon is unbelievable!
Temperatures and dehydrating times vary depending on size of item, humidity, fat content, etc so it's different every time. You just have to check the food periodically to see how it's going. If one tray is done, you can remove that tray and continue drying the other trays. For example, I took the papaya tray out well in advance of the cherries so that they wouldn't over-dry. The cherries took 14 hours-just for some perspective.
Next up- Quinoa (as soon as the trays come in!)
Next hike- Mt. Woodson
 |
| Prepping |
Fruit
I pre-treated the fruit so it would maintain it's color- especially the apples. Pre-treatment merely involves soaking the sliced up fruit pieces in a water and lemon juice solution for a few minutes. When I started on the cherries, I realized I did not have a cherry pitter so I had to manually remove the seeds, making my cherries look a little mangled- but they are still delicious! The apples came out great but I'm a sucker for dried apples. Just ask my mom :-) The papaya was surprisingly tasty but Dennis didn't like it. He said they tasted like cardboard. He prefers the store-bought dried papaya that you get in a Hawaiian seed shop that still has quite a bit of moisture in it. The cherries will be good in my quinoa hot cereal which I am mightily looking forward to. Fruit drying was very successful and I definitely will do more apples for backpacking and want to try some berries next time as well.
 |
| Fresh papaya, apples, cherries, sweet potatoes and green beans |
 |
| After dehydrating |
Vegetables
I blanched the green beans before drying to break down the tough exterior and, in retrospect, I should have done it with the sweet potatoes as well. Next time I will because the sweet potatoes didn't turn out exactly how I wanted them. They are chip-like but still retain a raw, almost grainy, flavor which is not what I wanted. I will also add salt and maybe some paprika to them next time for additional flavor. The green beans turned out great. They look like shriveled little unappetizing pieces of crap but they are very tasty and I can see that they would be very good in a one pot meal.
 |
| After dehydrating |
Jerky
I soaked both the salmon and the beef in my super special teriyaki marinade overnight. I've been using this recipe for years on every kind of meat you can imagine but it's actually specified as a Korean Beef marinade. I can't remember where I got it- online somewhere. So I'm sorry but I can't give credit where credit is due. I tripled the recipe for the amount of meat I had.
For each pound of meat, I make the following marinade:
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup chicken stock
2 TBSP brown sugar splenda
2 TBSP sesame oil
1 TSP black pepper
1 TSP ground garlic
1 TSP ground ginger
2 green onions (chopped)
1 TBSP sesame seeds
I sliced the salmon and beef into strips, soaked them overnight, and laid them on the trays for dehydrating. The beef is grass-fed so it's super lean (and frickin' expensive). Every few hours I patted the meat with paper towels to soak up the excess oils. I left the meat in the dehydrator for 10 hours and it probably could have been shorter but I wanted to make sure. It turned out SO SO GOOD! The salmon is unbelievable!
 |
| Fresh salmon and grass-fed beef |
 |
| Soaking in the marinade |
 |
| Ready to dry! |
 |
| Finished product |
Temperatures and dehydrating times vary depending on size of item, humidity, fat content, etc so it's different every time. You just have to check the food periodically to see how it's going. If one tray is done, you can remove that tray and continue drying the other trays. For example, I took the papaya tray out well in advance of the cherries so that they wouldn't over-dry. The cherries took 14 hours-just for some perspective.
Next up- Quinoa (as soon as the trays come in!)
Next hike- Mt. Woodson
Thursday, July 11, 2013
Time to Dehydrate!
I got my new dehydrator! I'm so excited. I have a list of food stuffs I'm going to start working on this weekend. I've been racking my brain trying to come up with some good carbohydrate sources for backpacking that can be dehydrated and reconstituted easily. I think I've decided on sweet potatoes and quinoa (pronounced KEEN-wa). Although I probably won't reconstitute the sweet potatoes. I would just eat those like chips I think. Quinoa will be good because I can make one pot meals with it. I'm still thinking about the actual meals and haven't decided on those yet. You may ask, why not couscous instead? Couscous definitely cooks faster but it's actually a pasta and I'm trying to stay away from that. Quinoa is usually called a grain but it's actually a seed and it has all 9 amino acids thereby making it a complete protein. It's nutritionally superior to couscous as far as I'm concerned. The cooking time is longer than couscous but if I cook it at home, dehydrate it, and reconstitute on the trail, the cooking time will only be a couple of minutes. I can use this as my cereal in the morning instead of oatmeal as well with some dried fruit, walnuts, and cinnamon. YUMMO!
My initial list of food to dehydrate are the following:
Sweet potatoes
Salmon
Quinoa
Green beans
Cranberries
Apricots
I was going to do salmon jerky first but I'm really excited about the quinoa so I think I'll do that first so I have time to figure out what to do in case it doesn't work out.
Now I need to get to the store and buy some food to dehydrate!
I got my new dehydrator! I'm so excited. I have a list of food stuffs I'm going to start working on this weekend. I've been racking my brain trying to come up with some good carbohydrate sources for backpacking that can be dehydrated and reconstituted easily. I think I've decided on sweet potatoes and quinoa (pronounced KEEN-wa). Although I probably won't reconstitute the sweet potatoes. I would just eat those like chips I think. Quinoa will be good because I can make one pot meals with it. I'm still thinking about the actual meals and haven't decided on those yet. You may ask, why not couscous instead? Couscous definitely cooks faster but it's actually a pasta and I'm trying to stay away from that. Quinoa is usually called a grain but it's actually a seed and it has all 9 amino acids thereby making it a complete protein. It's nutritionally superior to couscous as far as I'm concerned. The cooking time is longer than couscous but if I cook it at home, dehydrate it, and reconstitute on the trail, the cooking time will only be a couple of minutes. I can use this as my cereal in the morning instead of oatmeal as well with some dried fruit, walnuts, and cinnamon. YUMMO!
My initial list of food to dehydrate are the following:
Sweet potatoes
Salmon
Quinoa
Green beans
Cranberries
Apricots
I was going to do salmon jerky first but I'm really excited about the quinoa so I think I'll do that first so I have time to figure out what to do in case it doesn't work out.
Now I need to get to the store and buy some food to dehydrate!
 |
| This is my new Nesco Dehydrator! |
Saturday, July 6, 2013
Happy 4th of July from William Heise Camp!
Dennis and I went out to Julian to camp for a few days over the 4th of July. It was hotter than the hinges of hades! We did not get in all the hiking I wanted to do at all but that's okay. Better to avoid heatstroke! We had a much better campsite than we did at Mt. Laguna. Nice and secluded but no trees that were good enough to string up the hammock. I like this campground better than Mt. Laguna but I like Mt. Laguna trails better. We got camp set up the first evening and then walked a couple miles on a nice shaded loop trail. I BBQ'd up some hamburgers for dinner and Dennis got a fire going. It cooled off nicely as the sun set. I read my kindle for a bit in the tent when we went to bed but it was a creepy book so I had to put it down. I started freaking myself out with the sounds in the woods. LOL. Dennis was snoring within 10 seconds.
The next day we hiked before it got too too hot but it was still hot. Very humid. We did 2.5 miles and Pico was done within the first 10 minutes so I carried him most of the way. Then we lazed around in the heat for the rest of the day, reading, listening to music, chatting, eating, and chilling. Here's an excerpt from my hand-written journal that shows just how much we sat there examining our surroundings: "I got mesmerized by the trees swaying in the breeze as we sat around. They seemed to be whispering their secrets to me. I wonder what they would say if they could talk." Not much to do but daydream about stuff!
While we were lazing around, we took some videos of our campsite with Dennis's iTouch. We'll see if I can post them here. Dennis said mine was boring so he did one that was silly. I'm pretty sure he's mocking my monotone weirdly-accented voice in the beginning of his. LOL.
My video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=M3UEqzfYa54
Dennis's video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_CdGadpOPs&feature=player_detailpage
We got packed up the next day and headed on out so we didn't have to pack up in the heat. We stopped off at the 7-11 in Ramona and got a sugar-free slurpee. YUMMO.
Good trip with a good hubbie!
The next day we hiked before it got too too hot but it was still hot. Very humid. We did 2.5 miles and Pico was done within the first 10 minutes so I carried him most of the way. Then we lazed around in the heat for the rest of the day, reading, listening to music, chatting, eating, and chilling. Here's an excerpt from my hand-written journal that shows just how much we sat there examining our surroundings: "I got mesmerized by the trees swaying in the breeze as we sat around. They seemed to be whispering their secrets to me. I wonder what they would say if they could talk." Not much to do but daydream about stuff!
While we were lazing around, we took some videos of our campsite with Dennis's iTouch. We'll see if I can post them here. Dennis said mine was boring so he did one that was silly. I'm pretty sure he's mocking my monotone weirdly-accented voice in the beginning of his. LOL.
My video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=M3UEqzfYa54
Dennis's video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_CdGadpOPs&feature=player_detailpage
We got packed up the next day and headed on out so we didn't have to pack up in the heat. We stopped off at the 7-11 in Ramona and got a sugar-free slurpee. YUMMO.
Good trip with a good hubbie!
Monday, July 1, 2013
Pics not showing up
Looks like the pictures Michelle took are not showing up in the previous blog post. I think if you right click and then click Show Picture it will bring those up.
Camping/Hiking Mt. Laguna
Simone, myself, and our two friends, Diana and Michelle went camping up at Mt. Laguna this weekend. We had a fabulous time and enjoyed hanging out and catching up. It also happened to be hotter than the hinges of Hades with temperatures in the high 90's.
Friday night it was just Simone and myself. We got camp set up and then took a stroll out to the Big Laguna lake which isn't so big right now. The water level is super low and it looks pretty disgusting but ducks were floating around, quacking, and having a good old time. Maybe they were too hot to care.
We tried to use the pit toilet bathrooms but the flies were SO bad we couldn't handle it! I thought if I opened the door and stood to the side to let the flies out it would be fine but then I opened the toilet lid and millions more came whooshing up out of the toilet! I let out a scream and ran away. It was like a horror movie. It reminded me of the movie The Mummy when the mummy opens his mouth and hordes of locusts fly out. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Anyway, we copped a squat behind some trees at the side of our campsite instead.
We went back to camp and got our fire going, BBQ'd some hamburgers, and made smores. Then we sat back and chatted, looked at the stars, and chilled. About 9pm, the people in the next campsite rolled in and could not get their trailer backed into the spot for the life of them. It was a great source of entertainment for us. The chick was trying to direct the dude on how to back up and we got to laughing at them because their interaction was so comical. She says to the dude driving "I think they're laughing at us." and the dude says "Let them laugh! I only do this once a year!"
I found two good trees and strung up my hammock so I slept in that and Simone had the 2 person tent all to herself. I had gotten an insulating pad for the hammock which greatly helped the cold backside issue. I knocked out and didn't hear anything. Simone said the next day she didn't sleep because of loud music and kids screaming. I didn't hear any of it!
Here's some pictures from the first day:
The second day Simone was up at 5:20am and had already taken Pico to the bathroom and I didn't hear her moving about from hammock at all! We made up some eggs and sausage for breakfast and then headed out for a 3 mile walk before it got too hot. It was already too hot though. Oppressive and muggy and lots of flies and mosquitos. We walked up to the fancy bathrooms to take a crap on our hike out. No way were we going to poo in the fly infested pit toilets! By "fancy" I mean it was an actual toilet.
Here's pictures from that morning:
Michelle arrived about 10ish and Diana arrived about noon. We basically sat and laid under a tree, took naps, and chatted all afternoon. It was just too hot to do anything. About 4pm we got ourselves together for a hike. Fortunately, there was a nice cloud cover, so while it was still sweltering, at least we didn't have sun beating on us as well. We ended up taking a trail that I had never been on before which was stupid on my part with 7 month pregnant Simone in the heat. I incorrectly assumed the trail was going to loop around and spit us out at a junction that would take us back to the campground. Not so. The trail just kept going and going and going. I'm sure we were close, but not knowing for sure and not wanting to continue on indefinitely, we turned around and backtracked the way we came. I felt so bad for Simone and spent most of the time worrying about her. I'm a terrible mother subjecting her to this torture! Diana and Michelle were fabulous and very speedy. They were very patient as we made our way slowly back. I carried Pico most of the way - I was worried about him overheating too. We did a total of 6.66 miles in 3 hours.
Here's pictures from that afternoon:
Michelle took these pictures. Pretty huh?
Peeing behind a rock so we don't have to use the horror movie bathrooms!
At last we made it back to the campsite. PHEW!
We got the fire going and roasted hotdogs for dinner along with some chili. We had smores again too. Yes, I partook! Diana had brought some great snacks and petrone so we had petrone shots! (Not Simone of course) She brought Cheez-its and Twizzlers, trail mix, and sour candy! Diana drove us up to the fancy bathrooms in her air conditioned car and that was a nice reprieve from the heat. She said her version of hiking would be to drive the car around and around the campground with the AC blasting. LOL!
The temperature cooled off nicely as we sat around. The campsite next to us was having a birthday party and they were playing charades so we sat there guessing the answers and shouting them out.
I slept with Simone in the tent and Diana slept in the little 1 person tent. She said she felt like she was in a space ship it was so small. Michelle was in love with the hammock so she slept in that.
The next morning it was shaping up to be another scorcher. We made up some eggs and sausage and had all our crap packed up by 9:20am! It was good to get it done before it got too hot. I think it was really humid and that was sucking the energy out of us the most.
Great trip with great people!
Next up- William Heise camping/hiking in Julian with Dennis for 4th of July!
Friday night it was just Simone and myself. We got camp set up and then took a stroll out to the Big Laguna lake which isn't so big right now. The water level is super low and it looks pretty disgusting but ducks were floating around, quacking, and having a good old time. Maybe they were too hot to care.
We tried to use the pit toilet bathrooms but the flies were SO bad we couldn't handle it! I thought if I opened the door and stood to the side to let the flies out it would be fine but then I opened the toilet lid and millions more came whooshing up out of the toilet! I let out a scream and ran away. It was like a horror movie. It reminded me of the movie The Mummy when the mummy opens his mouth and hordes of locusts fly out. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Anyway, we copped a squat behind some trees at the side of our campsite instead.
We went back to camp and got our fire going, BBQ'd some hamburgers, and made smores. Then we sat back and chatted, looked at the stars, and chilled. About 9pm, the people in the next campsite rolled in and could not get their trailer backed into the spot for the life of them. It was a great source of entertainment for us. The chick was trying to direct the dude on how to back up and we got to laughing at them because their interaction was so comical. She says to the dude driving "I think they're laughing at us." and the dude says "Let them laugh! I only do this once a year!"
I found two good trees and strung up my hammock so I slept in that and Simone had the 2 person tent all to herself. I had gotten an insulating pad for the hammock which greatly helped the cold backside issue. I knocked out and didn't hear anything. Simone said the next day she didn't sleep because of loud music and kids screaming. I didn't hear any of it!
Here's some pictures from the first day:
The second day Simone was up at 5:20am and had already taken Pico to the bathroom and I didn't hear her moving about from hammock at all! We made up some eggs and sausage for breakfast and then headed out for a 3 mile walk before it got too hot. It was already too hot though. Oppressive and muggy and lots of flies and mosquitos. We walked up to the fancy bathrooms to take a crap on our hike out. No way were we going to poo in the fly infested pit toilets! By "fancy" I mean it was an actual toilet.
Here's pictures from that morning:
Michelle arrived about 10ish and Diana arrived about noon. We basically sat and laid under a tree, took naps, and chatted all afternoon. It was just too hot to do anything. About 4pm we got ourselves together for a hike. Fortunately, there was a nice cloud cover, so while it was still sweltering, at least we didn't have sun beating on us as well. We ended up taking a trail that I had never been on before which was stupid on my part with 7 month pregnant Simone in the heat. I incorrectly assumed the trail was going to loop around and spit us out at a junction that would take us back to the campground. Not so. The trail just kept going and going and going. I'm sure we were close, but not knowing for sure and not wanting to continue on indefinitely, we turned around and backtracked the way we came. I felt so bad for Simone and spent most of the time worrying about her. I'm a terrible mother subjecting her to this torture! Diana and Michelle were fabulous and very speedy. They were very patient as we made our way slowly back. I carried Pico most of the way - I was worried about him overheating too. We did a total of 6.66 miles in 3 hours.
Here's pictures from that afternoon:
Michelle took these pictures. Pretty huh?
Peeing behind a rock so we don't have to use the horror movie bathrooms!
At last we made it back to the campsite. PHEW!
We got the fire going and roasted hotdogs for dinner along with some chili. We had smores again too. Yes, I partook! Diana had brought some great snacks and petrone so we had petrone shots! (Not Simone of course) She brought Cheez-its and Twizzlers, trail mix, and sour candy! Diana drove us up to the fancy bathrooms in her air conditioned car and that was a nice reprieve from the heat. She said her version of hiking would be to drive the car around and around the campground with the AC blasting. LOL!
The temperature cooled off nicely as we sat around. The campsite next to us was having a birthday party and they were playing charades so we sat there guessing the answers and shouting them out.
I slept with Simone in the tent and Diana slept in the little 1 person tent. She said she felt like she was in a space ship it was so small. Michelle was in love with the hammock so she slept in that.
The next morning it was shaping up to be another scorcher. We made up some eggs and sausage and had all our crap packed up by 9:20am! It was good to get it done before it got too hot. I think it was really humid and that was sucking the energy out of us the most.
Great trip with great people!
Next up- William Heise camping/hiking in Julian with Dennis for 4th of July!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)