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Friday, November 30, 2012

Experiment #5: Curried Pumpkin Soup

Last night I made up a pot of soup with the intention of drying it to see how it 1) dehydrated and 2) rehydrated.  This is a recipe I make for myself for lunches often when I'm home alone because it's fast and easy...and Chris doesn't like it because he doesn't like curry, so I can't make it for dinners.

Curried Pumpkin Soup

1 small onion, chopped (you want fairly small pieces)
1 tsp olive oil
1 1/2 tsp curry powder
salt and pepper to taste
2 cups vegetable broth
1 cup (half a large can) pureed pumpkin
1 potato shredded
pinch of cayenne pepper
pinch of red pepper flakes

Saute the onion in the oil for about 2 minutes.  Add the seasonings and stir to coat.  Add broth, pumpkin and potato.  Simmer 8-10 minutes.

Usually when I make this for home, I cube the potato, but for the sake of even drying and faster rehydrating, I shredded them.  You could use cubed and then puree the whole thing after it's cooled I suppose, if you like a smooth texture.

This makes a bit more than 2 cups worth of soup, which is one generous serving on the trail or 2 lunch size servings for me at home...okay I'd probably eat it all at home too...

Dehydrating: Ladle the soup onto a fruit roll tray, it should all fit on one, and dry for about 8 hours.  I slept in and mine went about 12 hours and it was over dried.

Rehydrating: Because I was doing this at home, I put 1/2 of the dried soup into a pot and covered water, brought it to a boil and let it sit with the lid on for about 20 minutes.  It didn't seem to be coming back fully so I added a bit more water and let it simmer for a few more minutes.  It might have been the pieces of onion and potato holding their shape that looked like unrehydrated bits though, but I wasn't sure.  It tasted the same as last night when I sampled a bit.

While this isn't a fully accurate test of the recipe (normal kitchen conditions rather than trail conditions) I'm convinced this will work well.  Next time I won't let it dry so long.

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