Staying at home, dried mushrooms and backpacking camp soup

I have homemade beef jerky stored in my refrigerator for my camping soup, thanks to Alton Brown.

I want more ingredients for my dry backpacking soup than just jerky, 13-beans and rice, so I made dried mushrooms.

Dried mushrooms are extremely nutritious and button mushrooms are a complete protein, with all the necessary amino acids we can't make in our own bodies. One cup of fresh button mushroom - the same species as Crimini or Portabella - has more protein than a glass of milk or the same amount of soy.

Dried button mushrooms can be added to soups, stews and sauces, and are very flavorful.

I processed about a half pound of white button and brown Crimini mushrooms and got about 2/3 of a half gallon Mason jar of dried mushrooms, as they shrink quite a bit.

How to dry the mushrooms:

1. Preheat oven to as close to 150F/65C as you can, at least under 200F/93C.
2. To process mushrooms, lay them out on a cookie sheet to dry a bit in the air. Gently pat dry with paper towel if necessary.
3. Trim their stems and brush off any growing medium left on them.
4. Slice mushroom caps as thin as you can and space slices on parchment paper on the cookie sheet. 
5. Prop oven door open a few inches with a wooden spoon or something to allow air to circulate and pull moisture out of the mushrooms.
6. Dry in oven about two hours, longer. if necessary. Turn about half way through and continue to dry until mushrooms are completely dry on both sides and feel a bit like paper or dried leaves.
7. Store in sealed container in cool, dry place. Above, I used a Mason jar with a little rice in the bottom. They'll keep about six months.

Experimental backpacker soup

The base of this is 13-bean soup mix - a mix of 13 different beans that's sold in packages and in bulk at many stores, or you could make your own - navy beans, black beans, red beans, pinto beans, baby lima beans, large lima beans, garbanzo beans, great northern beans and kidney beans, black-eyed peas, yellow split peas, green split peas, and lentils.

Ingredients

• 1 C 13-bean soup
• 1 C basmati rice
• 6 strips of jerky, torn into bite-sized pieces
• 1 C dried mushrooms
• 2 oz dried seaweed sheets
• ¼ C sun-dried tomatoes, minced
• 2T garlic powder
• 2T dried onion
• salt
• pepper

Directions

1. Combine rice and bean soup mix in bowl with 4 C water, cover and leave on counter about 8 or so hours.
2. Pour off water, rinse rice and beans in cold water to remove starch collected in the soaking water.
3. Add to large pan with 4 C cold water and bring to boil, then lower temperature to simmer, or just below boil.
4. After about 15 minutes, crumble in seaweed sheets and add jerky, mushrooms, tomatoes. and cook another half hour, stirring occasionally. If the water has cooked down too far, add some more.
5. Add garlic powder and dried onion and cook another 15 minutes or so, until beans are tender and rice is well cooked.
6. Serve and salt and pepper to taste.

It came out very good and satisfying, everyone who tried it said it was delicious and cleaned out their bowls.

On the trail I would pack the rice and beans in one baggie and each of the other ingredients in their own baggies and all in the pot or can (or coffee pot) to cook it in.  If you're packing in your own water, you could bring a vacuum pack of chicken or beef stock (or just bouillon) to add even more flavor. If making this at home, I think I'd use fresh onion and fresh garlic, maybe add spinach.