Cashew Chicken with Yogurt

So a few years ago, Max's mom discovered that you can dehydrate yogurt!! for dinner like curries and things like that. It works amazingly well. A quart of yogurt dehydrates down to about a half cup or so of powder and is the perfect complement to spicy foods, serving the important role of breaking up food monotony on the trail. It tastes a lot tangier than it does when fresh, so it's better for adding to dinners than eating straight for breakfast (at least I think). On a recent trip, I paired it with a Cashew Chicken dish that I made up and it was so good.

Cashew Chicken 
Serves 2

1 small butternut squash

1 cup cashews
1 onion
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 1-inch piece of fresh ginger, peeled
1 tsp ground cloves
1 TB ground coriander
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1 TB cumin
2 TB coconut oil
1/2 cup coconut milk
1 cup water

3 stalks celery, diced
2 large carrots, diced
1 lb ground chicken

1/2 bag frozen peas
1/2 bag frozen spinach
juice of 1 lime

Heat oven to 350 degrees F. Cut squash in half, remove seeds, and place face down on oiled baking tray. Roast about 45 minutes, or until soft.

In a food processor, grind the onions, garlic, ginger, and cashews into a paste.
In a saute pan over medium-high heat, add the coconut oil and cashew paste. Cook for 4-5 minutes, stirring, until it turns golden brown.
Add the cinnamon, cumin, cloves, and coriander, and stir until well combined.
Stir in coconut milk and water and season with salt and pepper to taste.

In a deep pot, heat more coconut oil over medium heat. Add celery and carrots and cook for 1-2 minutes. Add ground chicken and cook until meat is cooked through, stirring and breaking up chunks often.

When squash is done roasting, let it sit until it's cool enough to handle, then scrape out the flesh. Add squash, cashew paste, frozen peas, frozen spinach, and juice of the lime to the chicken pot. Stir to combine. 

Let cool about 20 minutes, then spread on dehydrator trays covered in parchment paper and dehydrate 8-12 hours at 150 F, checking several times during this process to break up clumps and turn over. More dehydrating directions found here. 

Dehydrated Yogurt
Makes enough for 2 dinners for 2 people

1 quart grass-fed yogurt

Spread yogurt with the back of a spatula on parchment paper-lined dehydrator trays. Dehydrate at low temperature (or use yogurt setting if your dehydrator has one) for 6-8 hours. 
Once dry, use a food processor or spice grinder to grind flakes into a powder (rehydrates better if smaller).

To rehydrate - put powder in a ziplock or bowl and just cover with water. Start with less water because you can always add more. If rehydrating in a ziplock, you can just squish the bag until it starts to rehydrate (kind of takes a while). If doing it in a bowl, use a spoon to mix well.

Smith Rock Climbing Trip & Skout Backcountry Review

It's the end of January, but apparently spring is here in the Northwest. Last weekend Max and I took a trip to Smith Rock State Park to get in some winter climbing, on a 3-day trip which featured both tank top weather and snow as Oregon tries to make up its mind if it should be hot or cold right now. Well, I enjoyed both variations on the weather, and I especially enjoyed the snacks we had along with us. We were out with a friend who is a really strong climber, so we had a rope gun to set routes that we wouldn't normally try ourselves. It was fun to push myself harder than I probably have on other climbing trips, and as a result I was much hungrier.

To the rescue was Skout Backcountry, an Oregon-based company which makes organic and tasty pumpkin seeds and delectable trail bars. Their bars are one of my favorites of all the paleo-friendly bars out there...there's just something about their taste that is unique and satisfying. They use dates and pumpkin seeds as their base, and I appreciate how the date flavor isn't overwhelming like it sometimes can be. I sampled one of each flavor, and my favorite by far was the Peruvian Chocolate (no surprise there, I'm sure...). I was surprised by how much I liked the Washington Apple Cinnamon bar and the Oregon Blueberry Almond bar since I honestly don't usually like bars that don't feature chocolate in some prominent way.

It could have been that we ate them at the top of Wherever I May Roam, a fun 5.9 multi-pitch with unbeatable 360 degree views of the entire park...but either way I think they were pretty darn tasty. They're perfect for a small snack, or an addition to a lunch, with each bar being between 110-150 calories a bar, with about 3g of protein (from pumpkin seeds), and between 20-24g of carbs.

We also thoroughly enjoyed their pumpkin seeds. The Spicy Texas Chili seeds were the perfect mix between spicy and salty (an essential flavor boost to the sometimes bland and monotonous trail food options), but if you prefer sweet and salty, you'll love the Paraguayan Cane Sugar and Cinnamon seeds. They have the perfect crunch to them and are somewhat addicting after a few tiring hours of climbing. I can definitely say my muscles appreciated the pumpkin-powered pick-me-up. Skout is especially near and dear to me since the seeds they use are grown in the Willamette Valley, where I currently live and I think local food can connect you to the land in a really special way.

I told you there was snow!

Day 1
Breakfast

• Eggs at home

Lunch

• Leftovers in the car

Snacks

• Skout Backcountry Peruvian Chocolate Bar

Dinner

• Homemade Sweet Potato Chili (from our freezer) w/ lots of butter & a bag of plantain chips
• Theo 85% Dark Chocolate

Day 2
Breakfast

• Scrambled eggs & meat sticks

Lunch

• Salami, cheese, avocado, banana

Snacks

• Skout Backcountry Peruvian Chocolate Peanut Butter bar
• Skout Backcountry Spicy Texas Chili pumpkin seeds

And here comes the sun!

Dinner

Homemade Sweet Potato Chili (from our freezer) w/ lots of butter & a bag of plantain chips

Theo 85% Dark Chocolate

Day 3
Breakfast

• Scrambled eggs & meat sticks

Lunch

• Salami, cheese, avocado, banana

Snacks

• Skout Backcountry Washington Cinnamon & Apple bar & Oregon Blueberry Almond bar
• Skout Backcountry Paraguayan Cane Sugar & Cinnamon pumpkin seeds