Mountain House Freeze Dried Meals

As I wander into Dick's Sporting Goods drinking my coffee from the first blog I posted, I wonder to myself, "Why am I here?" Sports, are not my strong suit to play, as I was cut from the grade school basketball team in 6th grade. Yeah, that right, imagine an 11 year old being told that they are not going to play on a team of their peers by an adult. Why am I here? Cast iron and torches, that is why, cast iron cookware is actually cheaper in a place that does not market itself as a culinary store, that being said buy all your pastry brushes from Home Depot. I stumbled upon these...

I have had the standard freeze dried ice cream growing up, the stuff that feels like lava rocks until it melts in your mouth then it just tastes like sugar, but the astronauts ate it so it has to be the future and delicious? I had never seen full meals available to the public. I am obsessed with MREs, I have eaten hardtack, this should be the next best thing until I can get an actual one from the military but I am not really high on their priorities list. I picked up three of them that I thought covered the largest spectrum: Scrambled Eggs and Bacon, Spaghetti with Meat Sauce, and Chicken Teriyaki with Rice. Let us get started and remember I do this for you...remember these are neat.

Scrambled Eggs with Bacon

Remove silica gel pouch or I am pretty sure death happens

 Open them up. See the second reference to lava rocks in a single blog ever in a nice mylar bag. Speckled with little red flecks of bacon. Add 1 cup of boiling water, stir, seal, wait 7 minutes, DO NOT READ NUTRITIONAL INFORMATION as you will learn you are going to consume 170% of your daily value of cholesterol and probably reach for a cup of spiked black coffee and a much healthier cigarette for breakfast (thankfully for you I don't smoke but I did read the label). After waiting open bag and drain off excess water. I am not really a fan of draining my eggs so why not add less water so I do not have to, they actually do resemble real eggs and the bacon looks right, the smell is amazing. I pop one in my mouth, good salt, bacon has good chewy texture, the eggs have no creaminess they resemble sea sponges soaked in water. They are not dry just not creamy. They honestly taste better than any buffet egg you have had, if you're in the wild I guess they would do. So, I guess they were worth it....then I look at the receipt $7.99 for roughly 3 eggs and 1 piece of bacon and realize I can get all you can eat pancakes at IHOP for that and think "If I am in the wild, I brought my car, that car accessed the area somehow, there has to be a road, hmmmm if I start it and drive...I'm rambling, PANCAKES HERE I COME!" *starts car speeds off probably hitting a squirrel

Spaghetti with Meat Sauce

I will say, this actually looks promising

 I read the bag on this one, actual meat and tomatoes and pasta and no trans-fats and no lethal doses of LDL. Honestly, the other one did have real eggs and bacon in there. This is a two person meal, no chance, I'm boiling my water I am eating all of this. I fill it up and seal it. No instructions to drain, that is a good sign.  I open it up, it is soupy but again smells great. Kinda resembles my childhood room temperature Spaghetti-O's that I would eat right out of a can which I still do. Having revealed that do I seem qualified to critique food? Tastes of nothing and sadness. The meat has texture again, I am impressed by that. The pasta is a solid form of mush, only holding its shape out of what I am convinced is good intentions. It is floating in tomato colored slightly thicker than water goop. A cheese packet would be nice, and a hot sauce packet, and a garlic packet, and a salt packet. If I am in the wild and eating this, I am picking any mushroom I can find for flavor, if anything it will cure the sadness this has caused. Oddly, I actually find gristle in the meat sauce, I do find that impressive although not tasty. In short, bring Little Debbie Zebra Cakes instead...can those be freeze dried?

Chicken Teriyaki

Looks like food

 I have had the problem of too much water in all of these, I thought about it and came to this conclusion: MY STOVE IS TOO EFFICIENT FOR BOILING THE WATER, THINK LIKE A CAMPFIRE. I concluded I was boiling it too fast and not allowing it to have proper loss due to evaporation from a slower heat up, I set my burner to medium not high. Added the water and stirred it. Now would be good time to mention, you add water at 212F and seal it in a insulated bag, what temperature do you think it will when you open it, I read about 202F too hot. Open it, stir it, let it sit for 10 minutes, it is about 150F then. It was saucy, not soupy this time, it just looks wet, but not awful. It has a texture of congee, a rice porridge, and again it smells awesome. I taste...DOES SALT EFFECT THE FREEZE DRY PROCESS!?! Add a pinch of salt and stir it. Do this in the wild, steal packets of salt from the IHOP you went to for breakfast after you hit that poor squirrel, remember? After that it actual tastes like American Chinese food, I know teriyaki is Japanese so get off my back about it, The chicken has chew, the vegetables are discernible (the skin of the vegetables are actually evident), and the rice is not mush it is actually decently cooked. Of the three this is the best, it could also be the fact I changed my method. I enjoy this entree for 2, with a total of 570 calories that is not bad. This would make me a happy camper, if I camped.

In conclusion, these are neat, but not always good. Mountain House company has mastered the smell of freeze dried food, step 2 work on flavor. I do want a freeze drier and I want to play with it and make my own stock pile for the inevitable zombie apocalypse, aim for the head. I will also find a way to make them not $7.99 a pop and full of sadness. I promise my next venture will not be about IHOP.

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