Saturday, June 11, 2011

Have Bread, Will Travel...

As a family we love to travel.  We almost exclusively camp (real camping~ with a tent!).  We have been camping since before we had kids, we have camped during pregnancy, we have camped with babies/children, and we have continued to camp with food allergies.  Now some of you might think that pregnancy and babies would have been the most difficult time to camp; but actually, for us, it has been the whole food allergy thing.

I think what makes camping with food allergies so tough, is the trying to keep food from getting contaminated and the fact we have to pack it all.  We pack ALL the food because most places we go, we don't know if we can find the foods they can eat.  Plus, I make all the food basically from scratch.

There are a few things I do to make it easier on myself.  The first is planning the food, right down to the last bite.  Every breakfast, lunch, dinner, snack has been planned for.  Then, I over pack a bit.  I make lists, then check and double check that I have everything.  One time I forgot the boys' chocolate chips.  That was quite tragic!  Lots of tears.  There was no where near to buy them.

Another thing I do, is to buy all the none allergy food as we go (especially if it is a long trip).  This gives us more room to bring the hard to find food.

We bring about 4-5 high quality coolers with us.  We use one as a "freezer" and one as a "fridge."    The" fridge" can get opened as often as needed.  The "freezer" only gets opened to move something to the fridge to thaw out.  The rest of the coolers are dry goods.  I bake like a mad woman in the days before we leave to stock up on baked goods like bread, Indian Fry bread, muffins etc.  The baked goods usually are only good for about 7 days, even with the "freezer" method.

One last thing I do, is to google and search for all the stores along the way that might carry what we need.  I make a master list of them.  Sometimes I will even call to see if they carry some of our "basics."

Something new I am going to try this year is canned bread.  You did read that right.  Canned Bread.  It is a pretty simple canning method.  I simply mixed up my pumpkin bread recipe and my bread recipe.  I greased the inside of a couple wide mouth jars and filled them half full with my breads.  I baked the breads in the glass jars.  When they were done, I pulled them out, wiped the lip of the jar down, put on a fresh canning lid and ring and let them cool.  As they cooled, they self sealed.  I then put them on my shelf for two weeks as a trial.

The result was awesome.  Bread was fresh.  The canning seal was so tight I had to have DH pull it off.  It was just like fresh baked!  I will definitely bring some of theses when we go camping!  Next to try is chocolate cake!






8 comments:

  1. That's pretty cool! I wonder how long it would keep this way.

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  2. It will keep quite awhile. Longest we have let it sit was 4 weeks and it was still fresh!

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  3. I am so impressed!! Now these are yeast breads?
    Because my pumpkin bread does not have yeast in it?
    And you fill 1/2 way up in the jar? You bake regular baking temp and for about 25 minutes? Are the jars setting on a baking sheet? Then you put the lids on to seal?
    Thank you for sharing this. My husband is an Insurance adjusters for Catastrophes. And when we go out...they tell us to take 6 weeks worth of food. First there is limited ref. space in an rv..so I try to dehydrate as much as posible
    and can as much as possible.This would be awesome to do so I wouldn't have to be baking so much in the rv which would use up all our propane.Have you done cookie dough this way?

    Thank you Cindy

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  4. They are yeast and non-yeast recipes. The pumpkin and banana were orginally gluten recipes I adapted. I bake all my gluten free recipes at 400 degrees. Non-gluten I would guess you would use the regular 350 temp. I would guess 20-25 minutes. No, I did not use a cookie sheet, just put it in on the racks. Try your jars with a cool oven to make sure they don't tip. I used quart size jars. Make sure to use wide mouth for ease of getting the bread out. Hope this helps!

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  5. Great idea, thanks.

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  6. Your welcome! Hope it works well for you!

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  7. Oh...my...heck! I would never have thought of that! This would be great to do before the birth of a baby! That is one thing that I hate is getting store bought bread when I can't make it. I am not expecting or anything but I was just thinking of all the times when I wished I could make bread ahead of time without sacrificing freezer space. You are mad brillant, mad I tell you!

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  8. I forgot all about canning bread! My mom used to do little pint jars for Christmas gifts but she only did quick breads.

    I will use this idea for camping but I think I will use it mostly for Hub. We are trying a gluten free diet to help with his fibromyalgia. Any treats I make him seem to get consumed by one and all. If I make nice little jars for him, one "batch" will last longer and stay fresher. [and beside that, he'll feel specially treated]

    Thanks for the reminder.

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