Like many other things, I have an unnatural obsession with containers. I keep most sturdy, usable containers from products that I buy, and I will even admit to buying stuff [i]just so I can get the container it’s in[/i]. One feature I look for and rarely find is that the container is watertight. Watertight containers are usually big, bulky, and heavy, or crappy zip or press seal plastic bags. I kept on seeing these sweet little watertight containers in the food container section at WalMart, but couldn’t handle the ~$10 they were asking for three tiny little 1-2 cup containers. Enter Aldi, the quirkiest grocery store I have ever seen.

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While on a quest to find some cured bacon, I came across Patak Meat Products, in Austell, GA. I have been looking for a quality meat store for a while, especially one that offered some cured and smoked meats that I could take backpacking without worries of spoilage. I have been to many meat stores over the years, and have never really found one that was all that great. I submit PMP as the best meat store ever (yes, I know they are called butcher shops), for several reasons:

UNO - Location - PMP is in the middle of nowhere in Austell, which is already in the middle of nowhere. OK, Austell is right next to Atlanta, but Austell still feels like the middle of nowhere. We passed by a Marathon facility with a hell of a lot of petroleum products silos, several trailer parks, a few sketchy neighborhoods, and a junk yard or two. Mind you, PMP is a very nice, clean, neat looking group of buildings, with several high end German vehicles sitting out front, so their choice of locations was interesting. Maybe zoning laws do not take kindly to a buttload of meat. I know it does not sound like a good location, but it is maybe 10 miles from me, which makes it a fantastic location.
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I have had a nice Nesco dehydrator for close to a year now that has seen zero use until tonight. Last weekend, we went to a farm and picked 2 gallons of blueberries, which is more than even we can eat before they go bad. So, I decided to give the dehydrator a shot. We also had some bananas that were getting quite brown, so they were on the list as well.

I boiled the blueberries for about a minute as the instructions directed to remove the wax and break open the skin, creating a nice purple mess of myself and our kitchen in the process. Some of them became a pile of purple goo when I tried to spread them out on the drying racks. I will definitely have to come up with a better process for those.

The bananas were a bit easier, since all I had to do was slice them into 1/4″ slices and then dip them in a mixture of honey, water, and cinnamon. The dehydrator looks like it will be a sticky mess thanks to that plan and cleaning it up should be a fun task this weekend. I’ll let you all know how they turn out. If this try goes well, I have Rainer cherries, pluots, tomatoes, and all kinds of other stuff to experiment with.

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Here’s the pics from this week. We had tragedy strike today from what the wife tells me. A zucchini plant that I staked up has snapped in half, and she does not think it can be stuck back together and taped (yes, I do that, and yes, it works) because of the way it broke. Oh well, we still have two more. I had to cut all of the leaves off the bottom of the plants because they were starting to get downy mildew thanks to the 10 days straight of evening thunderstorms we have had. Thanks to that, they are awfully top heavy. The poor plants haven’t had the chance to dry out for over a week, so mushrooms and other nastiness are going crazy in the gardens and yard. I am hoping for a drier week this week so they can have a break.

Yes, those are pumpkins growing.

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I realized that I have been slack about posting my vegetable garden progress here on the blog when I have been posting about it regularly in the forums. Sorry!

Here are a million pics from yesterday. Everything is doing pretty well. I cut a few giant zucchinis off of the zucchini plants last weekend, and staked them so they could have better airflow. The vegetables on them do not seem to be doing all that great, so I am not sure if it is the heat or the staking that did that to them. Time will tell, I suppose.

The pumpkin vines are going crazy, but still no baby pumpkins. I am hoping my area’s constant heat is not too much for them.

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I took these on Sunday, but forgot to post them! These were right after I sprayed everything down with liquid fertilizer. I had waited a couple of weeks after planting everything before fertilizing, since most books and sites seemed to suggest that, but they all contradict each other, so who knows. All I know is that all of the plants are doing much better since the fertilizer, and the 500 onions (only a slight exaggeration) are going crazy.

I posted earlier about the pumpkins that were popping up in the front of our house. Here is what they looked like after I dug up half of them, then all of the seedlings minus the 12 or so that I planted, and the addition on the back of the raised garden that I made so the pumpkins could just grow all over the yard (they did not transplant very well, a few died the next day):

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My girl and I like to wander around Target on a regular basis, seeing what new goodies they have on clearance, and what new shiny things they have on their shelves. One of the things I discovered years ago was the Archer Farms line of trail mixes. Archer Farms is Target’s house brand of food, and most of it is premium quality, unlike a lot of the house brands out there. Their trail mixes are especially good.

I figured out a long time ago that I can buy trail mix already mixed for about the same price as if I made it myself, sometimes even less. I am lazy, so having someone else do the work for me is a bonus. The problem has always been that everyone has the same crap mix of M&Ms (or cheap knock-offs), raisins, peanuts, and maybe a couple of other things. I am fickle and crave more variety than that. Also, peanuts always seem to absorb the flavors of whatever they are packaged with and end up tasting stale or funny to me. Wal-Mart, Costco, and other places make decent mixes, but nothing worth writing home about.

Along came Archer Farms to the rescue. They make probably 20 different mixes of fruits, nuts, and various other ingredients in their mixes. I have yet to try one that is not tasty, and they seem to always use high quality ingredients. They are already packaged in a resealable plastic bag, so I’ll throw one or two in my pack for a day trip and munch as I walk along. If you haven’t already, give them a try. My personal favorites are Chocolate Monkey (chocolate covered peanuts, chocolate chips, coconut, dried banana, and cashews) and Chocolate Cranberry Crunch (chocolate covered cranberries, almonds, walnuts, raisins, pineapple, and soybeans). Yes, I do like chocolate quite a bit. The granola varieties are also quite good, and make for a good breakfast on the trail. Target has the mixes on sale every couple of months, so if you like them, wait for a sale and stock up.

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I have read in a few places about how good honey is in terms of a quick boost of energy and just being more healthy than most overly processed sugars. Taking a little honey bear on the trail is not exactly easy, so I’ve started collecting honey packets from restaurants. When I am on the trail, I can just eat one or two when I need it, and I don’t have to worry about a big mess. Plus, honey tastes much better than those horrid gel packets like Clif Shots.

A couple of places that I have found that will reliably have the packets are Starbucks and Chick-fil-A (woe to those that do not have CFA). Grab a few the next time you see them and try them out!

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Anyone else grow their own food? We’ve had vegetable gardens for a couple of years now, and starting working on this year’s a couple of weeks ago (seeds were planted inside months ago). We definitely could not subsist off of what we grow, but we try to grow the stuff that is either better or cheaper than the store bought vegetables. Lots of peppers and tomatoes, along with some squashes, onions, pumpkins, watermelons, cantaloupes, strawberries, and some other stuff I’m sure I’m forgetting are in there this year. I think it would be neat to have a thread where we post pictures once a week showing what the food we are growing looks like. We already have a little 3″ pepper plant that has a 2″ pepper on it! Craziness! Anyone else interested? If so, I’ll start things off this week once I finish up the planting.

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I ate dehydrated backpacker meals for several meals in a row for the first time on my BNR trip. I had always just carried the extra weight to avoid eating them, but figured food was an easy way to save me a bit of pain. Not that it mattered since we ended up canoing the whole way, but I figured I’d stick with them for the five people that read this site.
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