Dehydrating

To the amusement of our friends, T and I are the very proud owners of a food dehydrator! We bought it in 2011 after trying to work out how to live healthily and cheaply when hiking. I was concerned that some shop bought dehydrated foods were high in salt, not very filling and really expensive so we thought lets make our own! Since then all our camping food has been home made and its delicious - even if I do say so myself!

We bought the machine from Juiceland, finally deciding on the excitingly named Excaliber! When it arrived I must admit I was slightly disappointed. It is basically a black box with a few shelves and a very low power heater with a timer. But that's all we need because dehydrating is really just drying food slowly, you could do it in the oven if the temperature was low enough (around 50-60 degrees C).

Our dehydrated food!

So, how do we do it? Its simply a case of making up a batch of something yummy like chili, making sure to minimise the amount of liquid added (strain off any excess when its ready), split into portion sizes and then spread thinly on a dehydrating tray. For foods which are a bit sloppy we use the Paraflexx sheets on top of the trays. Then set the thermostat at 50 degrees ish and leave for around 12 hours, checking every so often and rotating the trays. When the food is totally dry we store it in double layer plastic food bags. They can then last for a couple of months or about 6 months in the fridge or about a year in the freezer.

We don't make up any fancy recipes, just normal stuff we'd eat everyday - chili, curry, bolognaise. Mince is a pretty good basis for a dehydrated meal and chicken works well. We add lots of beans and lentils for extra calories - but choose smaller beans, they re-hydrate better. And to make the dehydrating quicker, chop everything super-fine. This book, Backpack Gourmet,  is pretty good  - we've adapted a couple of soup recipes from it and it gave us the idea for amazing fruit leather - see below - but mostly we just cook up a normal dish and dehydrate it! Even though pasta and rice doesn't take long to cook, it takes long enough and our aim was for the quickest possible meals using the least amount of fuel. So we cook and dehydrate pasta and rice too. For some meals we have noodle or couscous accompaniments, neither of these need dehydrating. For soups we sometimes at a bit of Smash to the packets to bulk them up a bit.

In the field all we do is add water (enough to cover the food), leave for a while and heat to boiling. In theory, meals could be eaten with cold water in an emergency - we did this once when I forgot the gas in the Lairig Ghru... I wouldn't say it was the best meal I've ever had but it worked!

Probably the coolest dehydrated produce are our fruit leathers - strawberry and apple. For strawberry leather I mush down a load of strawberries, add a little sugar and some cornflour and then spread thinly to dehydrate. For apple leather I stew the apples with some sugar and then dehydrate. It produces an amazingly concentrated flavour. Our fruit leather breaks are one of the most anticipated part of the day!

And while we're on about food - for breakfasts we use 'Oat so Simple' - just need to add hot water and comes in some great flavors.

 We loved the dehydrating lifestyle so much we told the in laws and they bought one - we're a two dehydrator family!!! I'm slightly embarrassed to say that out loud...

Two weeks worth of food - breakfasts, lunches,
dinners and snacks

Buggy friendly walking

One of the biggest weekly decisions in our house is where to go walking at the weekend. Yes, we have the wonderful Mountain Buggy Urban Jungle but there are still obstacles - stiles, narrow paths, fence lines, thick vegetation. But we've discovered some great places nearby. The below are mostly upland sites as that's our preferred habitat - I'll add others as we find them. Of course with the child carrier now in use, the sky is the limit but I expect there will still be times we choose to take the buggy.


1. Fourlaws Forestry Commission, near Ridsdale, Northumberland - up to 4 mile round trip on ok forestry track, bumpy in parts. NY926835


2. Derwent Reservoir, County Durham  - 7 mile round trip along one half of the reservoir edge. All flat walking on cycle path.


3. The Waskerley Way, County Durham - 9.7 miles one way on a good cycle path. Potential for shorter hops.


4. Slaley Forest, Northumberland - potential for several miles depending on exact route taken on ok to good forestry tracks.
5. Prudhoe Country Riverside to Newburn - a lowland walk along the Tyne, 8 miles round trip.

Outdoor gear for babies

What to dress B in when going walking is always a bit of a dilema. We have good kit for ourselves which we've built up over the years and I feel prepared for all weathers and seasons on the hill so we need to make sure it's the same for our daughter. She is worse at regulating her heat than an adult so I feel she needs as good a set of outdoor kit as us but as she's so little and growing so quickly this could get expensive!  We're on a tight budget now I'm not working but by choosing items carefully that we'll get a lot of wear out of (perhaps even with subsequent babies!) I see it really as an investment rather than a big expense. And after all if B isn't warm, she's not happy and it'll make our trips out a bit tedious!

Luckily there are some great online stores catering for little ones now. I really like Viking Kids, Muddy Puddles and Little Trekkers. And Polarn O. Pyret do great stuff which is also now available in John Lewis.

So what have we chosen so far?

Thermal layer - merino vest and trousers or regular vest. We have this merino all in one from Mountain Warehouse.
Under layer - regular all in one or thin fleecy all in one - just standard baby clothes
Outer layer - thick fleece all in one or double layered fleece waterproof. I really like this fleece and this waterproof from Muddy Puddles.
Hats - merino balaclava and fleece hat with ear flaps
Gloves - too much hassle at the moment! We've chosen outer fleeces with turn over hand bits!

As our winter is very mild this year were doing without the merino thermal layer for normal days. Up until now she has usually been in the buggy so we could throw a few blankets on her too but in the carrier her legs and arms are more exposed.

Hopefully the kit we've got will last her until next winter. Although she's only 5 months old, she is big for her age so I've chosen large sizes and figure she'll grow into them. Next step, more trials out and about.

Macpac child carriers

We LOVE Macpac in our family. We have three MacPac rucksacks which have accompanied us on long treks and a brilliant Macpac tent. My husband was so excited to find a Macpac store on holiday in Australia last year, I think it was the highlight of his trip! So when it came to choosing a child carrier it just HAD to be Macpac, no difficult choices there! We actually inherited it from my SIL. Its the piece of kit we'd been really, really excited to get our hands on. To us it represented more freedom to go places we would have gone before B came along. After our poor success with slings and front carriers because B seemed to hate everything we tried (and I tried A LOT!), I was apprehensive. Would she like it, wouldn't she. I had everything crossed!


We have the Vamoose, which is basically the bees knees of Macpac carriers, if not all carriers. Currently it sells for just over £200 which seems expensive but what you're buying is a quality piece of kit which lets you carry your child until they're 20 kg. Outdoor types probably wouldn't think twice about forking out for an expensive well fitted rucksack - this is exactly the same thing.


The carrier itself is 4.25 kg so when we carry B at the moment we're carrying a fairly whooping 13.25 kg and she is only 5 months! But the great back system (Macpac's Explorer harness) and supportive straps make it seem much lighter. The carrier comes with a removable 10 litre rucksac and storage area for another 25 litres so the person carrying the child can also carry a few other things. There are also side straps for sticks, tent poles etc. My favourite feature is the integral mirror to keep an eye on the little one as you walk - brilliant idea Macpac!

As well as the carrier we have the Sleepyhead,  sun cover and rain cover to cover every eventuality!

Every time we pop her in it she seems happy. I guess being nosey, being up high is exciting. She's even managed to sleep in it so so far so good! I can't wait for her to be 6 months so we can start the long hikes.

The Mountain Buggy - a review after 2 months

We've been testing out the Mountain Buggy Urban Jungle on some pretty rough tracks and so far we're really pleased with how it copes. At the moment we're using either the main buggy flat or car seat adaptors for B, although she'll soon be too heavy for the car seat adaptors!




The Mountain Buggy Urban Jungle in the flat position with full hood

The car seat adaptors are for up to 9 kg. I suspect they are strong enough to last longer but B is now almost 9 kg and it makes the buggy very top heavy and potentially unstable when going up and down kerbs or on rough tracks.

The Mountain Buggy using car seat adapters for
up to 9 kg

A couple of the tracks we've been on are shown here. These were sandy and gravelly tracks through forestry and across moorland and a very wet and muddy, leaves covered riverside track.

A sandy, rutted track across moorland

A sandy, rutted track across moorland

Muddy leaf covered track

Forestry track with rutting and puddles

Although it seems bouncy at times, the Mountain Buggy has great suspension and handled them with no problems. When its really muddy or leafy underfoot there is no problem with debris getting caught up in the wheel and grinding to a halt like some buggies. Anything that does gather just drops as clods every now and then. We've even been on tracks in woodland where we've needed to go over fallen trees and roots and it has handled it no problem. Sometimes we need to lift the buggy over obstacles and this is easy and practical to achieve.

The lie flat option works well for B and combined with the full hood and a sleeping bag borrowed from the Bugaboo (MB do some great down sleeping bags too) she is very well protected. The rain cover (need to pay extra for!) covers the whole buggy and used magnetic strips to stay on. This hasn't really been tested fully yet but I suspect we'll need to adapt this and add ties to be really secure.

Storage area with pockets and buggy brake

The storage area is ok but it could be deeper. There are loads of straps you could add extra storage onto with karabiners though - we use dry bags for this. You can also get saddle bags which we might consider for the summer. To me the brake is a little bit of a let down. It is incredibly strong, which is the important thing, no complaints there, but I wonder about durability and it can be difficult to release when wearing walking boots. I sometimes have to lift the buggy slightly to release it.

Folding handle, safety strap, bottle holder
 and window in the hood for viewing baby

A really nice feature is the viewing window in the hood to keep an eye on the little one. The handle is also great to push - very sturdy and can go into 13 different positions so no problem finding the right height. I have also used the safety strap on steep hills!

I've accessorised the buggy to suit us. As we're often out at dusk I've added reflective tape to the foot board and parts of the frame. I also use the drinks holder for a torch rather than a bottle!

All in all I'm really, really happy with our choice. The buggy can go easily on rough tracks but doesn't look out of place in a shopping centre (not that we go to many of those!). Well done Mountain Buggy - its a joy to own and roll on many more walks 10/10.