Pasta Bark
Why should you pack Pasta Bark instead of regular pasta? Ramen noodles and the thin pastas used in macaroni & cheese dinners cook up easily on the trail with minimal water and fuel. Thicker pastas, such as Penne or Spaghetti, require that you bring a quart of water to a boil and keep it boiling for twelve minutes, which burns up a lot of fuel. I solve this problem by pre-cooking pasta at home, running it through a blender with Marinara Sauce, and dehydrating it into Bark. On the trail, my Pasta Marinara with Beef & Peppers cooks up in eight minutes using less than half an ounce of alcohol fuel. Pasta Bark turns into a thick, Italian-style sauce. Although you won’t have any pasta pieces big enough to spear with a fork, you’ll still have all the pasta flavor and tiny bits of pasta for your spoon to round up. Top with parmesan cheese and you’ll wish you packed that bottle of Merlo. How to Make Pasta Bark: Boil 14 – 16 ounces of Penne Pasta or Spaghetti for twelve minutes and drain. I go for the multi-grain pasta. Combine with 48 ounces of Marinara Sauce. Stick with Marinara Sauce… tomato sauces containing cheese, cream, olive oil, and meats will not dehydrate well due to the fat content, and may spoil. Run the mixture through a blender or food processor in small batches. It may take a few trips through the blender to reduce the pasta and sauce to a mashed potato-like consistency. Small bits of pasta will remain. If the mixture is too thick for your blender to handle, add a little water or more marinara sauce to help it along. Cover your dehydrator trays with Paraflexx® sheets from Excalibur, or you could use parchment paper or plastic wrap. Place a big blob of the pasta marinara mixture in the center of each tray and spread thinly (about eighth inch) with a spatula. Dehydrate at 135° for 14 hours until brittle. When the pasta has substantially dried into a sheet, employ the flip-trick to thoroughly dry the bottom side. Flip-trick: Place a spare dehydrator tray on top of the bark and flip the two trays over so the bottom side of the bark becomes the top. The pasta sheet will easily break into smaller pieces when dry.
Pasta Marinara with Beef and Peppers
Ingredients:
At Home: For more information about dehydrating food, see dehydrating meat and dehydrating vegetables. Adding Italian style bread crumbs to your ground beef before dehydrating will improve tenderness and give the ground beef an Italian meatball flavor. Pack parmesan cheese in a 2 x 3 plastic bag and enclose with other dry ingredients in a 4 x 6 plastic bag. On the Trail: Combine dry ingredients, excluding parmesan cheese, with water and soak for ten minutes in covered pot. Light stove, bring to boil, and continue cooking for an additional minute or two. Place pot in insulating cozy for ten minutes. Stir vigorously before eating to complete the breakdown of the Bark into sauce. Top with parmesan cheese. More Bark Recipes...
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