Backpack Gourmet: Good Hot Grub You Can Make at Home, Dehydrate, and Pack for Quick, Easy, and Healthy Eating on the Trail

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Amazon rating of 4.0 out of 5, Amazon sales rank: 202443

Meals on the trail can be as delicious and varied as meals prepared at home. You can create meals to suit your tastes or diet--vegetarian, low fat, Asian, Italian. Meals prepared and dehydrated at home are compact and lightweight, perfect for the backpacker, and safer than packing perishable foods. The author shows how to prepare the meals so that they will travel well and will be easy to reconstitute in camp. The easy step-by-step instructions detail how to cook and dry lightweight, satisfying meals at home and then prepare them easily in camp--truly complete, instant meals. Includes over 160 recipes for soups, stews, pasta, casseroles, and breakfast and snack ideas as well as tips on drying food in a dehydrator or oven.

Reader Reviews:

This was the first backcountry cookbook I bought. I was looking for recipes that could be mostly assembled at home, would be lightweight to transport, and were easy to cook over a backpacking stove.

On first glance, this book appeared to fit the bill. Most recipes are assembled at home, dehydrated, and then rehydrated as a one-pot meal. However, I tried several recipes this past summer while canoeing and camping in the BWCAW and found the texture and taste of most of the meals to be disappointing. Many of the same ingredients are used over and over in "different" recipes, so many meals taste the same. Also, since the recipes are twice-cooked, the texture is often mushy.

Shortly after purchasing this book, I also bought Lipsmackin' Backpackin'. I ended up using this book for almost all of our camping meals, supplemented by hummus and candied walnuts, and a few other random recipes from Backpack Gourmet. I don't think that the purchase of Backpack Gourmet was offset by the few recipes that we regularly use.

I would recommend buying a different backcountry cookbook if you are intersted in eating something with flavor and texture. If, however, you aren't interested in flavor, but are simply looking for a meal that can be made quickly at camp and has all the calories and nutrients you need, then this is probably the book for you.
I found Drying food kind of hard until I got this book. I found it to be very informing to beginners. Its great and good to get kids to eat apples when they will not eat them normaly. Like my kids will not eat apples much but if they were dried they would have them GONE IN THE WIND.. I think you should buy this book and any other book as long as it has how to then you need to type of thing..Lots of good and simple meals when time and space are at a minimun.I noticed this book at the library and checked it out because I really liked Ms. Yaffe's previous book of recipes High Trail Cookery. Now I'm going to buy it. This book provides even more great recipes that you can make ahead and dehydrate - making camping meals carefree and delicious.
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