Fast food

Kentucky Dried Dinner

Sounding somewhat like an industrial exhaust fan, our Excalibur 9-tray food dehydrator has been one very busy machine over the last few months and our house now smells like a turkish spice market as the aroma of every new crispy meal seeps into even the tiniest nooks and crannies (I didn't know I had any crannies!).

The power company so generously offer us cheaper power after 8pm, so dehydrating is a nocturnal event in the Keniger house. Lain and I are somewhat independent (really?) and while we have enjoyed many a commercially produced dehydrated meal after a long day in the bush, for this trip we are taking on the food challenge ourselves to make sure we have the right amount of exactly the energy we need.

Tonight's blend is a gargantuan pile of food somewhat resembling chilli con carne - heart-smart beef mince (fat doesn't dehydrate so well), corn, kidney beans, with enough chilli and spice to blow the sombrero off a Mexican. Added to this is a mixture of rice and quinoa, and a generous pile of soya beans that have been soaked, boiled and blended to a grainy mush. When it is dry, probably 12 or 14 hours later, we'll mix in some extra bits - dried onion and garlic and perhaps a few dried peas to give it a little colour. Then the whole lot will get wizzed to smitherines in the food processor, mixed into an aromatic grainy powder and vacuum sealed in healthy meal-sized portions.

We will be dining on spaghetti bolognese, thai chicken curry, several versions of vegetable dhal, even banana bread all reduced to a crumbly mess. Yes, texture is the one ingredient we've removed from all our meals as storage space is extremely limited. The dehydrator removes a fair amount of flavour too (it is seeping into my sofa!) so each recipe has been made with more spice than normal in the hope our sloppy meals will actually keep our taste buds disguised into believing they are sensing something exciting.

We are hoping to avoid food drops up the QLD coast, and to take with us 6 weeks of rations for this section of the trip. Whatever we have left over, we'll send to Thursday Island and collect before heading into PNG although we expect we'll be able to find plenty of food along this more populated coastline.

During Archipaddlo we'll need huge amounts of energy just to keep the blades turning. High energy, easy to eat snacks that don't result in a sugar spike are challenging to make into compact portions, suitable for stuffing in while being blown across a choppy sea at 30 knots. That is where Juzzy's Super Bars come in. Based on fruits like pineapple, banana, raspberry, pears, dates, figs and apples, these densely packed mixtures of grains, nuts and fruit are like super powered muesli bars almost as powerful as Roger Ramjet's mysterious 'proton pills' (one for the Gen-Xers). We're expecting to stuff at least three of these down our gullets every day as part of a healthy, balanced lunch.

There'll be other gastronomic delights including pumpernickel, nuts, alfalfa for sprouts, lollies (sometimes we'll need a sugar spike) and no doubt plenty of coconuts.

Hopefully we catch some fish!