Let them eat SPAM!

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grubworm

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Matt Hixson said:
why did you boil some of the pieces? If anything I would suspect that would render some of the fat out of it.
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exactly
for whatever reason...fats dont freeze dry very well. something about the cellular makeup prevents it from sublimation. i saw a vid where a guy freeze dried a fatty sausage and it just turned to a rubbery inedible mess.
long story made short...there was a place in town years back that bragged about their ham sandwich. it was very tasty and i eventually found out that all they did was boil the ham for a while and then made sandwiches out of it. i got a ham and boiled pieces of it and it did taste better, had a better texture and was less salty. my premise for boiling the SPAM...

on a side note...i have several different rices i use. i happened to use an organic brown sprouted rice for a dish a few days ago and i made extra to freeze dry. that type of rice is hard to reconstitute for whatever reason. some things are just made a certain way where they are not prone to freeze drying.

as for SPAM...we are NOT done yet! i'll slice it thinner and i might skip the pre-freeze on a batch. i will figure out how to make it work for an MRE...
 
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Dave in AZ

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I would think that scrambled eggs with spam pieces, green peppers and onions, made into a scramble, would be a great meal to freeze dry.

For proper texture, The key to all these, According to videos I watch, is to accurately measure original weight and then dry weight, and portion it accordingly so that you can add the correct amount of water. Not just let it soak in extra water. Are you finding the same thing? I would portion it so you add 250ml or 1c water per portion, so it's easy to get right and about a good portion size.
 
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Dave in AZ said:
I would think that scrambled eggs with spam pieces, green peppers and onions, made into a scramble, would be a great meal to freeze dry.

For proper texture, The key to all these, According to videos I watch, is to accurately measure original weight and then dry weight, and portion it accordingly so that you can add the correct amount of water. Not just let it soak in extra water. Are you finding the same thing? I would portion it so you add 250ml or 1c water per portion, so it's easy to get right and about a good portion size.
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yeah, that seems to be the most accurate method. i've been winging it and having decent luck...but i havent gotten to anything complicated yet. im sure when i get into things like casseroles with multiple ingredients, it would be best for me to weigh before freeze drying and then adding that much back to rehydrate.

im also experimenting with rehydrating with different liquids. im going to go get some apple juice and see how the ham tastes when rehydrated with apple juice instead of just plain water. lots of options with this
 
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grubworm

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Dave in AZ said:
I would think that scrambled eggs with spam pieces, green peppers and onions, made into a scramble, would be a great meal to freeze dry.
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reading that earlier kept me up all night waiting for breakfast...:grinning:

i did try doing it individually this morning since i know SPAM is hard to rehydrate and would mess up the other items if combined. i boiled some water in a skillet and set a couple slices of the SPAM in the boiling water...just a few tablespoons of water and drizzled water over it with a spoon as it boiled out. took 7-8 minutes and got pretty much back to normal texture. since i had the skillet hot already, i just added some water and threw in the dried peppers, onions, and a couple table spoons of powdered egg. since i didnt properly reconstitute the eggs by adding them with room temp water in a small dish and let them slowly rehydrate, but rather just sprinkled the powdered egg over the boiling water...the eggs turned out real gritty. still tasted good, but had a very weird texture. might come in handy for something else down the road, but for a normal breakfast...i need to hydrate the eggs seperately. these were RAW freeze dried eggs, so they need to be cooked before eating. later i will scramble some and cook them and THEN freeze dry them so all i have to do is add hot water to eat. freeze drying eggs raw is the preferred method for long term storage and it reconstitutes as a normal egg, so you can use in baking and other things where you need a raw egg. i dont mind cooking...i wasnt trying to go total MREs on trips. like the eggs...how nice to have a mylar ziplok bag with a dozen powdered eggs that wont get broken or need to be refrigerated. a lot of my freeze drying is just to have better food storage rather than trying to make everything a MRE.

i'm still figuring out the rehydrating issues im having with the SPAM, but im sure i will figure it out. ham rehydrates extremely well, so if worse comes to worse...i'll do the scrambled egg MRE with ham and nix the SPAM. i've been eating SPAM since the early 70s, and the only way i have ever had it was fried, so not a huge deal if i cant get it work right. it is canned, so i can still take it and use it without refrigeration. i'll freeze dry everything else and just pop a can open when i do breakfast if i cant figure it out
 
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grubworm said:
since i didnt properly reconstitute the eggs by adding them with room temp water in a small dish and let them slowly rehydrate, but rather just sprinkled the powdered egg over the boiling water...the eggs turned out real gritty. still tasted good, but had a very weird texture.
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I have never had any kind of instant or freeze dried scrambled eggs that I would consider remotely as good as cooked-from-raw scrambled eggs. They always seem dry and gritty and made of disappointment. If someone knows of a backpacking meal or something else that would deliver _real_ scrambled eggs while in the backcountry, without having to bring along raw eggs, I'd love to hear about it.
 
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Matt Hixson said:
I have never had any kind of instant or freeze dried scrambled eggs that I would consider remotely as good as cooked-from-raw scrambled eggs. They always seem dry and gritty and made of disappointment. If someone knows of a backpacking meal or something else that would deliver _real_ scrambled eggs while in the backcountry, without having to bring along raw eggs, I'd love to hear about it.
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Peak Refuel. The best out there.
 
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grubworm said:
reading that earlier kept me up all night waiting for breakfast...:grinning:

i did try doing it individually this morning since i know SPAM is hard to rehydrate and would mess up the other items if combined. i boiled some water in a skillet and set a couple slices of the SPAM in the boiling water...just a few tablespoons of water and drizzled water over it with a spoon as it boiled out. took 7-8 minutes and got pretty much back to normal texture. since i had the skillet hot already, i just added some water and threw in the dried peppers, onions, and a couple table spoons of powdered egg. since i didnt properly reconstitute the eggs by adding them with room temp water in a small dish and let them slowly rehydrate, but rather just sprinkled the powdered egg over the boiling water...the eggs turned out real gritty. still tasted good, but had a very weird texture. might come in handy for something else down the road, but for a normal breakfast...i need to hydrate the eggs seperately. these were RAW freeze dried eggs, so they need to be cooked before eating. later i will scramble some and cook them and THEN freeze dry them so all i have to do is add hot water to eat. freeze drying eggs raw is the preferred method for long term storage and it reconstitutes as a normal egg, so you can use in baking and other things where you need a raw egg. i dont mind cooking...i wasnt trying to go total MREs on trips. like the eggs...how nice to have a mylar ziplok bag with a dozen powdered eggs that wont get broken or need to be refrigerated. a lot of my freeze drying is just to have better food storage rather than trying to make everything a MRE.

i'm still figuring out the rehydrating issues im having with the SPAM, but im sure i will figure it out. ham rehydrates extremely well, so if worse comes to worse...i'll do the scrambled egg MRE with ham and nix the SPAM. i've been eating SPAM since the early 70s, and the only way i have ever had it was fried, so not a huge deal if i cant get it work right. it is canned, so i can still take it and use it without refrigeration. i'll freeze dry everything else and just pop a can open when i do breakfast if i cant figure it out
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I have made SPAM jerky a few times recently and it remains relatively soft so do you even need to rehydrate it? I guess the fat in it keeps it more tender than beef etc. but also would lower the time you could store it so not a long term keeper but for a shorter trip seems to work great, even as a snack stick.
 
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grubworm

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Ragman said:
I have made SPAM jerky a few times recently and it remains relatively soft so do you even need to rehydrate it? I guess the fat in it keeps it more tender than beef etc. but also would lower the time you could store it so not a long term keeper but for a shorter trip seems to work great, even as a snack stick.
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yeah, the freeze dried SPAM is hard and crispy and crumbles easily. i powdered up a few slices and made a SPAM seasoning like season salt...sprinkle the SPAM powder on eggs, potatoes, etc. worked really well

i did get the SPAM to rehydrate, but it took a few hours and it was good as new. i wanted it for MREs where i add hot water and then eat it in a few minutes. it didnt rehydrate fast enough to be used like that. ham, on the other hand (or hoof), rehydrated extremely well, so i just use it instead of SPAM in those dishes.
 
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grubworm said:
thats weird...you replied on here before as a member and it now shows you as a "guest" on those posts
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Yeah, I couldn't log in at all for a week or so. Couldn't even access the forums, took me to an error page. I emailed them, asked if my account was banned or something. No reply.
Yesterday, it let me access forums, but said no account existed for my username and email! So I made a new account for same username and email! And here I am, but it won't let me access my old posts, like that was a different person.

Any interest I had in OverlandBound App is now ZERO, as no response from forum owners and my account got deleted... no way in hell am I paying $$ for an app managed by same folks.
 
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grubworm

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Dave in AZ said:
Yeah, I couldn't log in at all for a week or so. Couldn't even access the forums, took me to an error page. I emailed them, asked if my account was banned or something. No reply.
Yesterday, it let me access forums, but said no account existed for my username and email! So I made a new account for same username and email! And here I am, but it won't let me access my old posts, like that was a different person.

Any interest I had in OverlandBound App is now ZERO, as no response from forum owners and my account got deleted... no way in hell am I paying $$ for an app managed by same folks.
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that's messed up...
you had some really good posts
 
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