And we are back...

I changed nothing, but apparently TopTrailChef.com was experiencing difficulties over the holidays. I don't know what happened, but it might have been related to renewal, or something. Not sure, lots of people posting similar errors with blogger sites hosted on custom domains. Oh well, we are back now.


Hmm, the weather wasn't schedule to arrive for 36 hours


And yet, it appears like snow is sticking to the ground


Cuben Fiber in moonlight and snow flurries. 14F.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

Happy Holidays and thanks for reading my blog.

Whitney pt2

In no particular order, some analog photos from the Mt Whitney trip. Enjoy.

Here we go !


Linda taking photo.


In the clouds.


My shelter for this trip was a Mountain Laurel Designs "DuoMid".


hole in the rock


Trail Crest


Trail Camp


More clouds.


Summit

Looking down into the clouds.

Thank you for reading my blog.

Mt Whitney

Tony, Linda, and I took a short trip to summit Mt Whitney.
I have lots of photos to process for several trips, but here is a little video I shot from the summit.

Enjoy,

Green Beans

I took some green beans on my recent TRT thru hike.
To minimize rehydration problems, I prepared them french style.


Apparently, there are "frenchers" on the market that slice beans. I don't have one, I have a knife, and it works well. I chop off the stem end, and then split with the knife.


All sliced up and ready for cooking. I'm using red fresno chili peppers, garlic, and a little soy for my seasoning.


I just puree the chilis and some soy in a blender.


The chili sauce.


Quickly cook some garlic on high heat.


Add the beans and sauce, stir, cover, 30 seconds of cooking, remove from heat.


Prepared beans ready for drying.


Dried beans, packaged and ready to go.

Amaranth Pastas

I'm back from my TRT thru hike with fellow bay area hikers Jeremy and Tony.
We walked about 170 miles over 9 days, and had excellent weather the whole trip.
Jeremy did all the work figuring our resupply points, water supply points, etc. I showed up and walked. It was awesomely easy.

Part of my meal kit for the trip was pastas to go with the sauces and broths I made. I decided two shapes from a 30% amaranth dough, 60% semolina, 10% all purpose. This makes a very gritty pasta that survives the cooking and drying process, and a second round of cooking on the trail, without turning to a soggy bowl of mush.


310 grams of total flour, 30% amaranth


add 6 egg yolks, and 3 egg whites


mix it up


Wrap in plastic wrap, and let sit for an hour or so. I used the time to prepare the marinade for my jerky.


For the first shape, I did a spiral pasta, and it starts by rolling the dough thin, and cutting into 3 inch wide strips


The strips are subdivided into 1/4 inch strips


Each strip is hand rolled around a floured wooden stick, here I am using a chopstick.


The pasta is dried.


Then cooked, and seasoned.


Then dried again and portioned into servings of 120g.

My second pasta for the trip was a simple round shape.

It starts by rolling the dough into a log


Dividing and rolling the pasta in hand until it reaches the desired diameter.


The resulting pasta 'snakes' are cut into bit size chunks


and shaped against the thumb.


The result is a disk of pasta with a large dimple to hold sauce.


Repeat.


The pastas are dried.


Then cooked, and dried again, before being packaged. This is a turkey soup using the amaranth pasta, tomato sauce, and seasoning mix.

Thanks for reading my blog, I hope to get up more food and photos from the TRT thru hike soon.

Simple Tomato Sauce

Three weeks till I set out to circumambulate lake tahoe with some friends, along the TRT route, and I'm making my meals. I'll be using a very basic tomato sauce as my basic flavor jump off point for lots of meals, and adding in spice blends and herbs on the trail. I should be able to add a little onion, basil, and oregano for a pizza sauce, basil for a pasta sauce, and a mix of coriander, cumin, cloves, ginger, onion, and mustard for a curry.

This batch made four servings @ 30 calories each, 3 from fat, 5 from protein. This sauce is high in dietary fiber, manganese, magnesium, niacin, potassium, thiamin, vitamin B6, vitamin A, and vitamin C.


I'm using Cherokee tomatoes, a heirloom varietal, because they have lots of flesh, and I personally think they taste great.


These are cherokee tomatoes


I boiled them briefly to loosen the skins enough to peel them


Slice them like this


Grab each half, skin side against your palm, squeeze them while flicking out the juice and seeds, and remove the core with your knife.


I collect the seeded tomatoes and dice them, removing any stems or undesirable sections.


I collect 680 grams of diced tomato, and this will be used to make my sauce. All nutritional content is estimated on this value of 680 grams.


This is very young garlic, and I'm using about half of the head for the sauce


I crush the garlic, give it a few chops with the knife, and mix with a pinch of olive oil, and cook over fairly high heat in a dry pan for 30 seconds.


The tomatoes are added, with a pinch of salt, and cooked for 2 minutes over med-high heat. The mixture is treated briefly with a hand blender, and plated on parchment paper for drying in single serving aliquots.


FInished drying, the sauce looks like pretty much any other fruit leather.


peel it off the parchment paper


Roll it up, and store for the trip.

Thanks for reading my blog,
Cayenne

Yosemite

A picture show from my latest Yosemite visit :











Cheers,