One Pan Wonders

As the weather turns colder and prime hiking season is slowly drawing to a close, my thoughts start to turn to hearty fall and winter dishes. I eat a lot of soups and stews in the winter. Mmmm... comfort food.  The crock pot is an awesome way to make these without a lot of effort. It is especially nice on days when you don't have time to cook dinner. You can come home to a house full of lovely smells and a meal waiting for you.

An added bonus is that many soups and stews lend themselves very well to being dehydrated after cooking, especially bean and other thick stews. By making a few different soups and stews over the winter months and drying them, you will quicky amass a variety of backpacking meals for the future. A nice easy way to start stocking your hiking pantry for future trips.

This time around I made a lentil stew. The recipe can be converted to be vegetarian and can be served in many different ways; over rice, over couscous, over polenta, as a stew with some good toothy bread...

The recipe (which I've made I don't know how many times now...) comes from RecipeZaar, my favorite non-hiking cooking website. It also freezes well for instant heat-and-eat dinners. Use vegetable broth or water (or white wine?) in place of the chicken broth to make it vegetarian/vegan.

Lentil Stew over Couscous
Serves 12

3 cups lentils, rinsed

3 cups water

1 (14 1/2 ounce) can diced tomatoes, undrained

1 (14 1/2 ounce) can reduced-sodium chicken broth

4 stalks celery, thinly sliced

1 large onion, chopped

1 green bell pepper, chopped

1 medium carrot, cut lengthwise into halves,then cut into 1 inch pieces

2-3 cloves garlic, chopped

1 teaspoon dried marjoram

1/4 teaspoon black pepper

1 tablespoon cider vinegar

1 tablespoon olive oil

4 1/2-5 cups hot cooked couscous

Combine lentils, water, tomatoes, broth, celery, onion, bell pepper, carrot, garlic, marjoram and black pepper in the crockpot. Stir; cover and cook on low for 8 to 9 hours. Add vinegar and olive oil, stir, serve over couscous. Garnish with carrot curls and celery leaves.



Once you've got your stew made, and had a lovely dinner, it is time to put it in the dehydrator. I intended to dry the entire recipe, so I filled 6 trays on my dehydrator. This is a LOT of stew. You might want to eat and/or freeze more of it than I did.

I spread the lentil stew as thinly as I could on fruit roll trays. Parchment paper would work fine as well. This is a thick stew.



I set the dehydrator at about 140* and let it run for about 5 hours. Times will vary, depending on your dehydrator. Just make sure there are NO wet spots. When everything was dry, it was easy to slide the stew off the trays and into a zip lock bag. I intend to package this up into individual servings before they go into more permenant storage.



6 trays is a LOT of lentil stew! LOL.



Enough lentil stew to fill a gallon freezer bag. The number of servings you get out of this will depend on how you serve it. If you serve it as written, you can 12 servings out if the recipe. If you just eat it as stew, I would divide the number of servings in half. I'll package this up in 1/2 cup portions and add rice/couscous/quinoa when I am packing for my trip. I love flexibility!



To rehydrate, start with a 1:1 ratio of hot water to lentils. Use more water to make a thinner stew/soup. Enjoy!