Entrees

Testing dishes and drinking beer

The majority of the dinner food I'll send myself is produced by a California company called Fantasic Foods Inc. They offer a wide array of healthy, well seasoned, dehydrated products in bulk quantities. I found their stuff at City Market, Burlington's downtown grocery store. The following products have made their way onto my trail menu:

- Black bean soup mix and refried bean mix: Both come in a flakey powder form and rehydrate quickly with some hot water and stirring. Each will rehydrate with luke warm water and time but the consistency isn't as desirable. They're so well seasoned that I'd put them up against fresh made soups in blind tests.

- Nature burger mix: This chunky powder mix is combined with equal parts water and given time to rest. It can then be fried in oil for a few minutes and the result is basically a potato pancake.

- Cous cous: As far as I can tell this is the only starch that can be soaked to perfection rather than cooked. I add dehydrated vege mix and some nutritional yeast for flavor and it's a pretty good diah.

- Powdered hummus: This comes in a relatively coarse powder form and it dehydrates quickly with some water and oil. Below is a tried and true, calorie dense meal using it:

Sardine and Hummus Burritos


Calm down, it's not as bad as it sounds. I had my doubts so I only bought about 3/4 cup of the powder, but I'm sold on it now. It's spiced better than most ready made brands and after the olive oil addition it has a good amount of calories. I threw some sardines in, then put that in a whole wheat burrito and it was a solid no cook meal.