More dried food tests...

First on the list was a lunchtime snack I had at work - Batchelors (again) Super Noodles!.. and the flavour was Mild Mexican Chilli ... easy to make with half a pint of boiling water ,, add the noodles & sachet and stir and heat for about 5 minutes.. at the end of it - these things had a pretty salty taste but were nice to eat and as I said - easy to make.. Now for the important stuff:
Weight: 100g in packet.
Calories: 528!!
Protein: 4.6g
Fat: 11.8g
Carbs: 38.8g




Moving on I thought I'd try some pasta.. this recipe was harder to knock up though as it required milk.. (take powered milk?...hmmm)
Batchelors Pasta'n'Sauce - Mild Cheese & Broccoli



300ml milk & 100ml water... recipe asks for butter (15g) which i didn't use... Boil the liquid - add the packet, mix up and then continue to simmer for 5-10 mins.. it took about 10 ALL ROUND to cook this.. annd mighty tasty it was too.. not very salty though - which is to my taste - but we are doing this in the desert and salt is important.. as i have said.


Looks nice eh?... well ok - ish :) ... here's the run down:

Weight: 123g in packet.
Calories: 454
Protein: 18.6g
Fat: 5.8g
Carbs: 81.8g!

nice for a change but not that high in calories - I also don't feel as full after eating it compared to the chili con carni OR the super noodles...

.........
Snacks:

2 snacks on offer:

Olvaltine Buscuits : small packet of 5 buscuits
weight: 37.5 grammes
Calories: 180
Fat: 7g
Carbs: 27g
Protein: 3g

milky taste - certainly fill you up but make you very thirsty!... hmm.. maybe not take these!

Beef Jerky :
now I could not eat a whole pack of this stuff but its ok as a snack as you are going along... I tried the Wild West All Natural Beef Jerky which tastes like dried up pieces of meat you would usually through away.! However.... PER 100 grammes... there are 300 Calories, 41.5 % protein!! 24% Carb & 5% Fat... very salty too! great :)

...ok, I need a beer now.. more to come on this!

1) Chilli & Noodles

TEST 1:
Batchelors Beanfeast Mexican Chilli.. the whole packet weights 120g and serves 2 people.. Recipe is very easy - put 575ml of water in can and mix in the packet... Yes, I used the lot.. However, I only mixed in 500ml of water.. The burner was great and the mix quickly came to the boil and got thicker and thicker... when it was spitting I took it off the heat and let it rest while I cooked the noodles..



I used a titanium t-cup to heat 125ml of water for the noodles...

Sainsbury's Instant Noodles: I used half of the 85g packet. However, I added the noodles BEFORE the water was boiling and a few uncooked noodles were found when eating.. take note ;)

As soon as the noodles were done I mixed them with the chilli.. they didn't absorb all the water but then I may not of divided the packet in a true half?? Yawn...... let's eat.....



Basically the whole meal took about 12 minutes to prep and cook - very easy too.. The food tasted great! Apart from some uncooked noodles.. my fault there. There was enough food to fill me up but if I was hungrier I think I could have eaten the whole pack of noodles too... ;)

Calories: Noodles = 309 (half pack) Chilli = 378 (whole pack)

Total = 687 Calories (if whole pack noodles = 1000 Cal)

protein= 7.5(n) + 30(c) = 37.5 grammes
fat=11.4(n) + 6.6(c) = 16 grammes
carb= 43.8(n) + 25(c) = 68.8 grammes

Chilli contains lots of fibre too and both are rich in salt - which is good.

Verdict.. Weighting in at 205g for both packs, these two mix up and very filling but also tasty dish.. Bonus point for the protein and fibre too.. Happy about this combo!

Dried food testing...

So this is very important testing.. food :) Basically in the desert I am required to carry ALL my provisions with me.. excluding water and tent. Obviously this includes food and lots here has to be taken into consideration. Calorie intake must be as high as possible - but the weight is a factor too... taste very important... so these three things I will be testing out before throwing myself into the unknown.. this will be a little more known then.
Basically it goes like this - I have bought the above foods and will test them for taste first.. I'll post a blog about my results for this and then when I am happy with flavours etc - I want to try a few days living off these products to see how i fair with nutritional value... that's the plan anyway!
The food I have bought is all dried and needs to be reconstituting with water and or milk.. some of these may turn out to be impractical to make in the desert. I won't know until i have tried them.. Snacks as well and really important so I'll be testing a few of those too. Any heated food will be heated as it will in the race - using a butane gas stove...