BPL Forum-Created Paleo Cookbook

I'd be willing to contribute, help with editing, design, photography, etc too. Just let me know what I can do.

I’m in the middle of end-of-the-year test correcting, grading, counseling, and test proctoring right now at my university, so I have to wait a bit before I can lay out some things to get started with. I think it’ll be necessary to put out some material first for everyone to see and evaluate before anyone is willing to jump on the bandwagon. Let me write up an outline and get people’s input on that. In the meantime I’m going to start posting recipe ideas, ingredients lists, descriptions of cooking techniques, etc. here. Anyone who likes, please feel free to post whatever information you have that you’re willing to share. I’m pretty new at paleo for backpacking and so have a lot to learn myself.

I was also thinking to put this project under a Creative Commons license, so that it is understood and set from the beginning that this will remain a community project and no commercial interests shall usurp what we do here.

My wife and I started the paleo/primal thing a couple of months ago and she's had great success thus far. I'm still eating carbs some since I don't need to lose any more weight (I still lost 4-5 pounds since I only eat carbs when she's at work).

Anyway, I'm willing to contribute and have even thought about starting a small biz selling prepackaged meals catered to backpackers following this lifestyle.

To start things off here's a pretty easy freezer-bag compatible breakfast:

Nuts (almonds, macadamias, pecans, etc.)
Berries (freeze dried preferred over dehydrated and blue, black, rasp, straw, cran)
Powdered coconut milk (or coconut cream powder)

Add water in camp (cold or hot)

I've been eating the non-dried version some and love it. I also put banana in mine. You can use whatever nuts or fruit you want really and I find I prefer chopped pecans and slivered almonds (over whole). Also, note that powdered coconut milk will have casein in it so this won't work for those with allergies related to that.

I've just started following a Paleo diet, and would certainly be interested in the recipes. Being a noobie, I don't yet have any new recipes yet….but if the project takes 6 months to assemble, I be glad to contribute as I go.

FWIW, twenty some years go, I spent six years living and working with a northern aboriginal group in Canada ("First Nation" there, "Native American in USA). They were 1 to 3 generations from living a hunter/gatherer lifestyle and still continued with many of the dietary traditions. The traditional diet was nearly all animal based plus wild berries. They ate just about all the animal, including the internal organs.

Dry meat ("jerky" but with no salt or other flavoring) was an always popular food, and always eaten with fat. You break off a piece of dry meat, and grab a piece of dried, hard fat (taken from the internal organs) much like chip and dip. If no dried internal fat was available, you'd drag it through a tub of lard. At the time, I didn't care for the combination at all, and thought it pretty nasty. However, in light of the endocrinology of metabolism I've been reading with the Paleo stuff, it sounds darn near perfect!

I would LOVE to help out if I can. I'd probably be best at recipe ideas / development, as well as menu planning.

I've been moving toward paleo for the past couple of months, but coming off a long-term vegetarian diet I've had to work at developing a taste for (and gut flora that can deal with) meat. Oh, and the psychological shift that must come after 31 years of not questioning the Food Pyramid.

This is probably a whole 'nother can of worms, but I'm greatly interested in foraging & on-trail protein sourcing. Would it be feasible to have a section devoted to this? Or at least, tried-and-true resources?

I'm delighted that this is beginning to catch some interest. I thought it had died peacefully in its sleep! :^)

This is probably a whole 'nother can of worms, but I'm greatly interested in foraging & on-trail protein sourcing. Would it be feasible to have a section devoted to this? Or at least, tried-and-true resources?

I, personally, am not going to be doing any soap boxing here. All ideas are welcomed and might actually be quite interesting. I can offer some unusual ideas that the Japanese have long used, like catching and cooking small fish. There could even be a section on eating insects if you guys want. Insect eating is a big part of paleolithic human diet and modern hunter gatherer diets.

“I can offer some unusual ideas that the Japanese have long used, like catching and cooking small fish. There could even be a section on eating insects if you guys want. Insect eating is a big part of paleolithic human diet and modern hunter gatherer diets.”

I’d certainly love to hear more. I too imagine smaller game and insects made up a good amount of the diet. But I’m no expert.

Let’ start with some background about me and my style:

– Cooking style – I started freezer bag cooking a couple of summers ago, but have decided I no longer want to cook in plastic, although I do rehydrate (cold) in baggies. I now prefer one-pot cooking.

– I personally cook (but don’t bake) a lot in my daily life, and really prefer a hot dinner and some hot breakfasts when on the trail (OTT). I also tend to lose my appetite for the first couple of days at altitude, and try to go for meals with lots of spice, aroma and flavor so I’m actually motivated to eat.

– I’m *really* new to Paleo, and coming off a majority vegetarian diet means I’m working on incorporating meat into my meals. Intellectually I’d like to get to the point where I can eat stuff like tallow and organs and bone broth, but I’m not there yet.

– I really enjoy playing around with my dehydrator. I credit a few of the authors who post regularly on this forum (and in this thread – thanks Laurie Ann March!) with inspiration in this department.

– I don’t care for meals in bar form. That may change down the line if I decide to magically become a baker and make my own. I’m also squeamish about pemmican.

Onwards with meal ideas! A lot of this will not be new to most out there.

Breakfast:

– Powdered eggs, salt, pepper, butter powder w/ whatever veggies you have on hand rehydrated with boiling water, rehydrate some salsa and/or guac for topping, done. My dad gifted me with powdered eggs from Honeyville Farms last year and they worked great. In an ideal world I’d like to find a source for pastured butter powder and free-range / omega-3 enriched egg powder. I’d also like to win a million bucks without purchasing a lottery ticket, we all have dreams, you see.

– I recently made a Paleo Trail Mix that was AWESOME as a cold cereal when mixed with coconut milk bulked up with coconut cream. For OTT I’d just stick with the coconut cream & water, which I *believe* is safe to bring along opened and unrefrigerated for a few days… yes?

– Primal Hot Cereal – I bet one could hack this by buying ground almond and pecan meal, perhaps blitzing a handful of dried banana chips and carrying along dried coconut cream. Put all in one baggie and heat with water over the stove. Maybe add some flax meal for extra ‘go’ value .

– Try steam-baking some kind of paleo muffin or frittata, recipe links to come later

Lunches/snacks :
Like a lot of backpackers on this site I usually opt to just eat snacks when hungry while moving along. Occasionally I like to stop for a rest at a pretty place and have more of a true lunch spread with crackers and dips and whatnot. I’d like to try out the following:

– Zucchini Hummus & Flax Crackers (there I go promising to bake). Dehydrated at home. I’ll probably leave out the olive oil for dehydrating and just add OTT. I’m also interested to see if the tahini dehydrates well in the recipe or if it’s something I should also pack separately. I guess then I’d be down to dehydrating spiced zucchini mush :-).

– Avocado-Walnut spread with Lemon & Garlic. Dehydated at home, again add olive oil OTT.

– The trail mix mentioned above. I’d also welcome ideas for spicy/salty mixes for variety.

– I wonder if mixing tuna into guac and dehydrating it all would work?

Dinner:
I prefer soups/stews for dinner OTT. And they really boil down (er, boil up?) to a basic formula of: Flavor base, dehydrated or pouched meat, dehydrated or freeze-dried veggies, add a fat in camp, add optional dehydrated starches. Some of my old favorites that I’ll try adapting for the trail:

– “Tortilla” soup is really easy using a flavor base of a simple taco meat seasoning packet. Dehydrated ground beef or chicken would be good, and I like adding onions, zucchini and bell peppers as the veg. I bring along extra packets of this seasoning to add extra spice to anything, or in case I add too much water. Good with olive oil added, and cheddar cheese if you eat dairy. Extra good topped with fresh diced avocado or dehydrated/rehydrated guac!

– Sweet Potato soup would probably be easy – dehydrate baked, mashed and seasoned (maybe a nice lavender, rosemary and lemon mix) sweet potato at home for the flavor base. I bet broccoli, onions and kale would be nice for this, with pouched chicken. Good with butter/ghee or coconut oil added.

– Chicken ‘Dumpling’ Soup would be fun to try, although the cook time for the dumplings is longer than I’d like. I wonder if I could make, cook and dehydrate http://realsustenance.com/flax-pasta-paleo-glutengraincornsoydairy-free/> Flax Pasta and add it instead of the dumplings. The cook time on the fresh flax pasta is only 15-20 seconds. I wonder if cooked and dehydrated it would actually take longer? In the past I’ve cooked and dehydrated regular dried wheat pasta…

– I’m going to try dehydrating this recipe for Lemongrass-Coconut Sauce . Really awesome, awesome flavor. Might be wise to leave out the coconut itself and just add creamed coconut OTT. I marinated then baked salmon in this the other day and it was SO tasty. As a soup base I think this recipe would lend itself well to pouched or even smoked salmon, with pretty much any veg.

Treats:

– Have you seen those microwave mug cake recipes that are the hit of the internet these days? I’ve found a few paleo adaptations that could be easy to make with powdered ingredients, and think they might be good and easy enough with steam baking.

– I’m going to try paleo-izing my favorite easy dessert, Lovely Lemon Curdy Pud. I’m thinking honey for the sugar and coconut flour w/ baking soda for the wheat flour. If it works, I’ll take it one step further with powdered versions of the ingredients for the trail (forgetting about whipping the egg whites, of course), and I think it’ll be good steam-baked as well. Will keep y’all posted.

– Pumpkin, Coconut & Maple Custard Cups made with powdered ingredients and steam-baked.

Ok, it’s like 60 degrees out, going for a short romp with the dogs!

I'd also be curious to hear about adventures in dehydrating meats. From what I've read it's possible to do pretty easily with ground beef and ground chicken (browned up, drained, rinsed of all fat). And that the canning process for canned tuna, chicken and seafoods helps those dehydrate and rehydrate well.

Does anyone here have direct experience with the above?

Another recipe that may be good for backpacking. I’m curious about dehydrating spaghetti squash…

Chicken Coconut Curry Noodle Bowl

Just found this selection of food based on Roald Amundsen’s food choices, including a very thorough recipe for beef jerky.

Dehydrating hamburger is easy, although it definitely does rehydrate better with 1/2 cup of bread crumbs/pound of hamburger–not Paleo. I've done it without the bread crumbs, and it was more like gravel, didn't rehydrate as well. Ground turkey also works well this way. I haven't figured out a Paleo substitute that absorbs water like the breadcrumbs do.

Lean ham sliced and dehydrated works really well too.

Diane – thanks, that’s helpful to know! I hadn’t heard that before about breadcrumbs helping with hamburger meat. And I’ve never dehydrated hamburger… hm.

Found a nice thread at Mark’s Daily Apple that could be helpful.

I suspect thst the spaghetti squash would not dehydrate and rehydrate well…. I have tried dehydrating zucchini "noodles" and they shrivelled to near nothing (goodbye to 2 lbs. of organice zucchini) and only partially rehydrated to much less than their original volumne. The zucchini "chips" do better.

I am curious to try dehydrating kelp noodles– I use these for Paleo spaghetti and it is excellent, but I suspect that this will be another failure similar to the zucchini experiment. The dehydrating/powdering of sweet potato was a success (for sweet potato breakfast stew).

Last year I made some pemmican, which is like jerky but with tons of awesome fat (read, energy).

Basically you take beef organ fat and render it down to tallow, and mix that with your shredded beef jerky and some dried cranberries/blueberries to make a fat/meat/berry bar. They're super calorie dense and keep well. Coconut oil by the tablespoon is also very calorie efficient.

I've also been reading about powdered coconut milk? I drink that stuff like it's going out of style. I can contribute some more detailed recipes as this idea takes shape though!

Grains are the devil.

OOHH OOHH I've head lots about pemmican recently, i think its a sign i need to make some. my question is though how long does it last?

also powdered coconut milk, where the heck you get that?

I've only found one brand that I like so far, but there aren't many to choose from. I'd imagine you could dehydrate your own fairly easily though. All coconut milk contains is dessicated coconut meat, water, and a binding agent (usually guar gum).

http://www.amazon.com/Coconut-Milk-Powder-1-Pound/dp/B000KEVI52/ref=sr_1_1?s=grocery&ie=UTF8&qid=1331498349&sr=1-1

That's the only kind I've found to turn into actual milk with blending/shaking.

Journal of Food Science
Volume 60, Issue 5, pages 913–915, September 1995

ABSTRACT
The degree of cholesterol oxidation in commercial sweet baked foods (biscuits and snacks) and in laboratory baked biscuits, all containing fresh or powdered eggs, was determined. 7-Ketocholesterol was used as index of cholesterol oxidation and detected by two analytical methods. The analysis of the biscuits showed higher levels of 7-ketocholesterol and a more marked oxidative instability of cholesterol when prepared with powdered eggs. The significant amounts of 7-ketocholesterol found in some samples of commercial biscuits were attributed to the use of powdered eggs. These data are of importance to industries using eggs in sweet baked products which are mainly consumed by children.

(Source: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2621.1995.tb06260.x/abstract retrieved 9 April 2012)

Researchers apparently use powdered eggs as a model for oxidized cholesterol formation in foods.

See: "Formation and Content of Cholesterol Oxidation Products in Egg and Egg Products" at http://www.crcnetbase.com/doi/abs/10.1201/9781439822210.ch7

I love eggs for breakfast — esp. those from hens who scratch for their food for a living — but I'm not real sure if I'd want to eat much oxidized cholesterol, which is used in research to cause atherosclerosis.

Study:
"Oxidized cholesterol […] produced more atherosclerotic plaque and worsened arterial function compared with nonoxidized cholesterol […]"

(Source: "Cholesterol in Fried Foods Worse for Arteries"
Primary source: American Chemical Society, Chen Z-Y, et al "Oxidized cholesterol is more hypercholesterolemic and atherogenic than nonoxidized cholesterol in hamster" ACS 2009; AGFD 23. http://www.medpagetoday.com/Cardiology/Dyslipidemia/15618 retrieved 9 April 2012)

Does anyone know a source for dried eggs which don't contained high levels of oxidized cholesterol?

I saw these on another forum post. I haven't tried them. I usually eat about 3 to 1 egg whites to whole eggs for breakfast and was thinking of trying the same OTT with these egg white crystals and whole egg crystals.

OvaEasy Egg White Crystals
http://www.nutriom.com/ovaeasy-egg-whites.html

These look like fun dehydrator experiments:

Roasted Red Pepper Leather

Caramelized Onion Crisps

If you are careful–real eggs in their shells keep wonderfully well. Do a little research. Eggs in their shells have been sold and traded without refrigeration for generations if not longer. Some say that it is best to start with fresh eggs, and then wipe the shells with vegetable oil, others say wax, but many others say don't use anything. Because the permeability of the shell is important. Depending on how long the trip is–I find eggs a great menu item. I wouldn't hesitate to use them for a long weekend trip. I would try to keep them cool as I could but I wouldn't be militant about it.

A reader-created cookbook sounds like a lot of work. I'm going backpacking on Thursday. I'll take some pictures of my paleo meals as I cook/prepare/eat them. This will be a fun project for a solo hike that could get lonely.

Did some googling using my subject line – came up with a few interesting ideas. One in particular – dehydrate thinly sliced pepperoni/salami/what have you until it's crisp. Use like a cracker.

I have found a few dip recipes that *may* dehydrate well (zucchini 'hummus' for one). Might play around with a few meat chip / veggie dip recipes, could be yummy for snackage.

Not sure it you are still working on this, but we would love to help and are looking forward to the finished product! We take a 1-2 week backpacking trip every year, and all of our food must be gluten-free and we try to stick with paleo. This year, we are taking 2 weeks to hike from Clingman's Dome in TN to Asheville, NC on the Mountains to Sea Trail. We have recipes for everything – some we have made before, and some we have not. Here is what our food is looking like for this trip:

Breakfast: Larabar, homemade beef sausage patty jerky (trying this recipe out this weekend), coffee

Lunch (all day): trail mix (my favorite is mango, almond, cumin, chili, oil, salt), beef jerky, salmon jerky, might do pemmican again, coconut macaroons, dehydrated apples and almond butter, dark chocolate, sweet potato chips, as much fresh fruit and vegetables as we want to carry out of re-supply

Dinners: spaghetti, beef stew, pad thai, lasagna, beef stroganoff

Drink: water, hot lemon water (water with dry mix of stevia, true lemon, pinch cayenne).

Does anyone use the "Let's do Organic Creamed Coconut"? It says refrigerate after opening on the box, but I've eaten it at room temp over the course of a few days.

My question is whether or not it will go rancid while eating a spoonful a day for one full week?