My knife
Made by Bernie Garland in England
(woodlore)
How to Make Bark for Backpacking Meals & Snacks
How to Make Bark for Backpacking Meals & Snacks
What is Bark?
While working on food dehydrator recipes for mashed potatoes, I blended boiled potatoes and broth to a smoothie-like consistency and spread the mixture thinly on dehydrator trays. The potatoes dried into brittle sheets that easily broke into what I call, "Bark."
Potato Bark tasted pretty good as a ready-to-eat snack, especially Sweet Potato Bark, but with the addition of hot water, the Bark reconstituted back into mashed potatoes. I varied the flavor by blending the potatoes with vegetable, chicken, or beef broth.
One thing led to another, and soon I was blending and dehydrating other starchy foods like beans, creamed corn, pasta marinara, and
pumpkin into Bark.
pumpkin into Bark.
Why Bark?
- When you cook and rehydrate Bark with other vegetables and meat, your backpacking meal turns into a thick stew with flavorful sauciness.
- Because you make Bark from starchy foods high in complex carbohydrates, your hearty meal will power you up the next mountain with calories to spare.
- Bark makes a great backpacking food because it weighs in at a couple of ounces per serving dry. Ten pounds of potatoes barks down to just eleven ounces.
- If you run out of fuel or water, you can munch on Bark dry. Bark will reconstitute right in your mouth. Pumpkin Pie Bark goes in like a chip and down like pie!
Step-by-Step Food Dehydrator Recipes
Recipes with Tomato Sauce Leather
Recipes with Tomato Sauce Leather:
Unstuffed Peppers
Ingredients:
- ½ Cup dried or instant rice
- ¼ Cup ground beef, dried
- ¼ Cup bell peppers, dried
- ¼ Cup tomato sauce leather, tightly packed
- 2 Tbsp parmesan cheese
- 1¼ cups water
At Home:
Pack parmesan cheese and tomato sauce leather separately in small plastic bags. Enclose in a larger plastic bag with rice, ground beef, and peppers.
On the Trail:
Combine all ingredients except parmesan cheese in pot with water and soak for five minutes.
Light stove, bring to a boil, and continue cooking with the lid on for one minute.
Remove pot from stove and wait ten minutes. Insulate pot if possible. Stir in parmesan cheese before serving.
Salsa Rice & Beans
Ingredients:
- ½ Cup dried or instant rice
- ¼ Cup dried corn and bell peppers
- ¼ Cup dried black or red beans
- ¼ Cup salsa leather, tightly packed
- 1¼ cups water
At Home:
Cook white or brown rice in vegetable or chicken broth and dehydrate; or use instant rice.
Run salsa through a blender and dry like tomato sauce into leather.
Try mixing green, red, and orange bell peppers for a colorful dish.
Meat Option: Add ¼ cup or more dried chicken and increase water to rehydrate by same amount.
Pack salsa leather separately in a small plastic bag. Enclose with all ingredients in plastic bag.
Run salsa through a blender and dry like tomato sauce into leather.
Try mixing green, red, and orange bell peppers for a colorful dish.
Meat Option: Add ¼ cup or more dried chicken and increase water to rehydrate by same amount.
Pack salsa leather separately in a small plastic bag. Enclose with all ingredients in plastic bag.
On the Trail:
Combine all ingredients in pot with water and soak for five minutes.
Light stove, bring to a boil, and continue cooking with the lid on for one minute.
Remove pot from stove and wait ten minutes. Insulate pot if possible.
Seafood Raminara
Ingredients:
- ½ Cup ramen noodles (half package)
- ¼ Cup dried shrimp and/or crabmeat
- ¼ Cup dried vegetables – peppers, onions, mushrooms, tomatoes
- ¼ Cup tomato sauce leather, tightly packed
- 2 Tbsp parmesan cheese
- 1 Cup water
At Home:
Break noodles into small pieces. Pack parmesan cheese and tomato sauce leather separately in small plastic bags. Enclose in a larger plastic bag with noodles, seafood, and vegetables.
On the Trail:
Combine all ingredients except parmesan cheese with water in pot and soak for five minutes.
Light stove, bring to a boil, and continue cooking with the lid on for one minute.
Remove pot from stove and wait ten minutes. Insulate pot if possible. Stir in parmesan cheese before serving.
Spinach & Bean Raminara
Ingredients:
- ½ Cup ramen noodles (half package)
- ¼ Cup dried beans (any kind)
- ¼ Cup dried spinach
- ¼ Cup tomato sauce leather, tightly packed
- 2 Tbsp parmesan cheese
- 1 Cup water
At Home:
Cook beans from scratch or use canned beans. There is no need to cook canned beans before dehydrating. Simply drain and dehydrate at 125° for approximately six hours. Beans will split open when dried and will fall apart easily. You can use a single type of bean, such as white beans, or you can mix several different kinds together.
Dehydrate spinach at 125° for approximately four hours until dry and crumbly. Spinach leaves can start flying around inside your dehydrator when they are almost dry. I cover mine with one of the mesh sheets from Excalibur Dehydrators.
Break noodles into small pieces. Pack parmesan cheese and tomato sauce leather separately in small plastic bags. Enclose in a larger plastic bag with noodles, spinach, and beans.
On the Trail:
Combine all ingredients except parmesan cheese with water in pot and soak for five minutes.
Light stove, bring to a boil, and continue cooking with the lid on for one minute.
Remove pot from stove and wait ten minutes. Insulate pot if possible. Stir in parmesan cheese before serving.
Macaroni with Cheesy Tomato Sauce
Ingredients:
- ¼ Cup ground beef, dried
- ¼ Cup mixed vegetables, dried (onions, peppers, mushrooms, tomotoes)
- ½ Cup macaroni
- ¼ Cup tomato sauce leather, tightly packed
- 1 Tbsp + 1 tsp cheddar cheese powder
- 1 Tbsp powdered milk
- 1½ Cups water
At Home:
Combine cheese powder (from the mac & cheese box) and instant dry milk in a small plastic bag. Pack tomato sauce leather in another small plastic bag. Enclose the smaller bags in a larger bag with macaroni, ground beef, and vegetables.
On the Trail:
Add all ingredients except the cheese/milk powders to your pot with 1½ cups water and soak for five minutes.
Light stove, bring to a boil, and continue cooking for two minutes.
Stir in cheese/milk powder, put the lid back on, and place pot into insulating cozy. Wait ten minutes for the meal to continue rehydrating and cooking. Buon Appetito!
Tomato Sauce Leather
Tomato Sauce Leather
Tomato sauce leather is my secret ingrediente italiano per deliziosi pasti. I use it to make Italian-style backpacking meals such as Unstuffed Peppers, Seafood Raminara, Spinach & Bean Raminara, and Macaroni with Cheesy Tomato Sauce.
Start with your grandma’s homemade tomato sauce recipe or buy a jar of Marinara Sauce. My favorite brand is Barilla® Spicy Marina. Run the tomato sauce through a blender to a smoothie-like consistency. Blending any chunks of tomatoes or other vegetables in the sauce thickens the sauce so it will make better leather. You will add back more dehydrated vegetables to these recipes later.
A little olive oil in the ingredients won't cause early spoilage, but avoid drying cheesy sauces like Vodka Sauce or Three-Cheese Sauce. The cheese adds fat which may shorten the shelf life of the leather. Cheesy sauces can be dried for short term use. The end product will feel greasier and more crumbly than cheese-less dried marinara sauce. A safer bet is to add cheddar cheese powder or parmesan cheese to the meal rather than to the leather.
Spread the sauce thinly on dehydrator trays covered with non-stick Paraflexx® sheets, parchment paper, or the fruit-roll sheets that came with your dehydrator. Don't use wax paper because the wax melts. I pour about eight fluid ounces onto each Excalibur Dehydrator tray and spread uniformly to the edges.
Dehydrate at 135° for six to eight hours or you may dry at 125° for eight to ten hours with equally good results. Drying times may vary depending on dehydrator model and humidity.
After about five hours, the sauce should be solidified enough for you to peel it off the trays and flip it over for the duration on the drying time. Remove the non-stick sheets during the latter drying stage so both sides of the leather are exposed to the hot air. If you start the drying process before going to bed or work, the leather will turn out fine if you don’t flip it. It just may take a little longer to dry and you can always flip and dry it for an hour or so to finish the job when you get to it. The finished product will be leathery and dry to the touch, not sticky.
Allow the leather to cool and then tear it into pieces. Store leather in a jar with a tight fitting lid until you are ready to pack it in plastic bags for a backpacking trip. I have packed sauce leather in mail drops for month-long hikes and it retained its full flavor and quality, although my daily rations were vacuum sealed. Leather which I have stored at home in jars in a cupboard was still in great shape when I ate it after six months. The color turns a little darker over time.
When combined with an equal part of hot water, leather will turn back into tomato sauce.
Salsa Leather
Blend and dry salsa the same way as tomato sauce. Create a tasty Mexican-style meal with rice, chicken and/or black beans, vegetables such as bell peppers and corn, and salsa leather.
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