Vegan food on the go

I too had a hard time thinking of stuff to take on trips, so I ended up buying a dehydrator. Now I can dehydrate whatever ingredients I need: veggies, cooked beans, rice, noodles, quinoa, homemade hummus, pasta sauce, etc. I usually put the dehydrated ingredients in a ziploc w the spices and whatever other dry stuff goes in the recipe. Take some oil in a separate container to add after rehydrating if needed along w the some salt and voila! I've also taken some fresh stuff too like baby carrots and bell peppers. Instant oatmeal is good and easy for breakfast.

+1 on a dehydrator and taking your own food, the way you like it.

I've never had a commercial meal that compared with what comes our of our kitchen.

+1 to Kiel. Cook good stuff, then dehydrate at home. I've made a few tasty backpacking meals that way, and continue to experiment with more.

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Lizz,

I was using these last week two hemispheres away (South vs North and East vs West) – they work well, I carried no water weight and they rehydrated in less time with less fuel than normal dry beans would have.

http://www.amazon.com/Harmony-House-Foods-Dehydrated-Beans/dp/B0039QORG0/ref=sr_1_sc_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1421037231&sr=8-1-spell&keywords=dehydareated+beans

Quinoa, instant rice, etc, are other options. You can also mail-order dehydrated peas, carrots, spinach, etc.

What really makes it all work is to bring some concentrated tomato paste, curry, and/or pesto to add some flavor and interest to the carbs and protein that these grains represent.

I also saw a wonderfully white-trash use of store-bought food (and not nearly as gourmet as my wife insists on). An Aussie family stopped for lunch on the track and they each unwrapped a package and started munching on the contents. I looked – was that a prepackaged white-bread sandwich of some sort? Rice crackers? It was pale. And crunchy. I looked closer – they were all eating "two-minute noodles" ("Top Ramen" in the USA), raw, uncooked and unrehydrated. Brilliant! As light, easy, no-cook, no-fuel, quick, eat-as-you-hike, and cheap, cheap, cheap as you can get. 380 calories in 84 grams, all for 44 cents! I razzed them a little about whether they sprinkled the flavor packet on their tongues before or after eating the noodles, but I loved the simplicity and economy of it.

Edited to say not $0.44 – that's Cup of Noodles. Top Ramen is $0.25. $0.20 on sale.

Thank you everyone for your helpful input, I haven't committed to a dehydrator yet but I think I'm going to – I live in the UK, so any suggestions for brands?

We had a vegan and a few vegaquariums (veggies + seafood) along on two 4-night tramps in NZ two weeks ago. Dehydrated beans, dry hummus mix, quinoa, dry coconut-milk mix all worked well and were store-bought. But tiny green "French" lentils we just put in a water bottle with water in the morning so they cooked up more quickly at night. Anything like that is cheap by the pound.

Edited to add: Tabouli!!! Sold in boxes or in bulk anywhere. And bring olive oil in a water bottle. The tabouli tastes better with it and the oil is more calories/ gram than anything else.

Can you bake a vegan oatmeal cookie? If not, use google. All the things you'd put in an oatmeal cookie – oatmeal, resins, nuts, chocolate chips, etc are things you'd put in hot oatmeal at breakfast but gives you a no-cook option that saves time and fuel. I warm up faster in the morning by nibbling my breakfast as I hike than shivering around a stove waiting for tea and hot cereal.

Thanks – hadn't thought of dried hummus – I've never seen it here but then I hadn't seen dehydrated peanut butter until two weeks ago. So I will have a good look.

I've made super Gorp this afternoon:

Brazil nuts
Macadamia nuts
Almonds
Hazelnuts
Crystallised ginger
Five different kinds of vegan chocolate in squares
Sultanas
Raisins
Cranberries
Blueberries
Sour cherries
Cashews
Peanuts
Chopped figs
Chopped dates

What else could I add?

"vegan oatmeal cookie?"

Quinoa cookies!

–B.G.–

miso soup packets.

if you get the ones w/dried seaweed, that gets you some veggies too.

Ya, + 1 on the miso soup packets with seaweed. Boil a cup of water,pour in miso packet contents, all's good, especially on a cold day.

Miso soup is delicious, but I wouldn't count on it providing much in the way of calories. I love it, but it's not much of a meal; I think of it more like tea. You'd be lucky to get 150 calories out of a large bowl….

Traditional miso is also made with dashi, which is fish based, so its usually not vegan depending on the brand. Most instant versions I've seen contain powdered bonito flakes.

I'd second the purchase of a dehydrator. I was vegan for a stretch years ago and found that it increased my backpacking food options immensely. Every vegan backpacking suggestion I have revolves around prepping your own food… Any vegan food that you can cook dehydrates and stores easily and quickly due to the lack of animal fats.

I've had several kinds of miso soup. Shiro-miso, aka-miso, etc.

One is soy-based. One is fish-based. One is more tomato-based.

I used to see dry miso soup base in the grocery store for about $2.50 for 3-5 servings. Then the other day I found some at the Daiso store for $1.50 for 5 servings.

When I drag into camp, I am often tired and thirsty. Hot miso gives me the water, some salt, and some vague nutrients, so that suits me. I think it is supposed to make my hair black as well.

–B.G.–

Thats the same way I use it Bob…more of a hot elctrolyte boost to warm me up than a meal. It's a good substitute for coffee or tea in the morning as well.

Here's an excellent article from the golden days of BPL by Mike Clellend!, all vegan food. There are some great ideas in here, such as the high calorie sauces.

http://www.backpackinglight.com/cgi-bin/backpackinglight/quick_healthy_meals_with_an_ultralight_cook_kit.html#.VLwbwC5JN8E

Yesterday I dehydrated some cranberry vanilla quinoa to use for breakfast on an upcoming trip. Tomorrow I'll be dehydrating some Caribbean mango black beans and some red-hot white bean chili. Maybe some pumpkin pie oatmeal while I'm at it. All of this is vegan.

Dehydrating is the way to go!

"more of a hot elctrolyte boost to warm me up than a meal. It's a good substitute for coffee or tea in the morning as well."

+1 and also works well added to mashed potatoes, cous cous, etc. Wonderful stuff.

I love Mike Clelland's book even though I have been unable to snip my go lite jam! I've made his sauces and stored them in platypi (is that the plural? I feel like it should be) in the pantry cupboard. Labelled carefully, as my lovely husband like everything I cook as long as it involves no hot spices.

Having been inspired by you lot I've spent a happy afternoon mixing things into little bags eg quinoa, onion flakes, garlic powder, dried mushrooms, spices for supper with a little bag of felafel mix with non dairy cheese, a bit of dried peanut butter, sun dried tomatoes, and some engevita. Plus a spicy sauce or a lemony tahini sauce, or a tomato basil oily sauce.

Pudding is some vegan custard with a crushed nut, vegan eggnog, spices, berries, crushed flax or hemp or other superfood thing, goji berries, cocoa nibs and dried banana chips. Late night drink hot chocolate with ginger, (or mint) dried coconut milk, two vegan marshmallows and some dried cardamom.

Breakfast is a porridge mix of coconut milk, oats, chocolate orange, some hemp, some ground almonds. Plus tea and dried soya milk. Lots of tea, I'm a tea fan. Lunch is indeed vegan miso with wakame and that weird soya stuff which is basically skimmed soya bits which I bought separately and combined, plus couscous and lentils with tahini sauce. Or another kind of thing like rice, dried potato, pasta etc as a base with something chucked in with it. I am aware this lot is possibly calorie light but you should see the Gorp! Actually I will sit down and work out the calories.

I've been on a walk this last week – two days with a night in a B and B but I found it hard to eat the full calorie load that I'd expended – until I ate the Gorp I made up after a visit to a supermarket. I call it a supermarket that's a bit generous, it was the grocers in a small Welsh town. I shared the Gorp with a bloke waiting at the same bus stop as me – it was throwing it down and he was old, cold and miserable, and surprised and grateful for basically a lot of nice dried fruit, marzipan balls, chocolate, and nuts… It's good to share. In the end there were four of us at the bus stop, it rained, the bus was late, we were all wet, very wet. But cheered by the Gorp and various tales of dreadful weather we could all share in….

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