One of the local grocery stores here carries Vegemite, though I've never tried it. I'll have to pick up a jar sometime.


http://www.snopes.com/food/warnings/Vegemite.asp

Better pick up a small jar, Mate..... Unless you've got a lot of people you want to antagonise, lol.

Seriously though, it's good stuff. Just that you should only use a very small smear of the stuff, and be prepared for a salty taste, rather than something like a chocolate spread, which most newcomers think it is. Stateside, girls especially seem to take an instant dislike for it, though guys often don't find it too bad.

I've been experimenting with dehydration and vacuum packing. I have succesfully managed to dehydrate and rehydrate (in straight cold water) canned beans, corn, peas, potatoes and carrots. I have a cookbook entitled "Make a Mix" which has some very good mix recipes for chili, flavored rice, etc which should work good for the dehydrated meals. The next stage is to try and dehydrate ground meat (Elk in my case) then mix everything together, add the spices and rehydrate. Hopefully it has some semblance of food. Once I get some usable recipes I will start a new thread with instructions and the completed recipes. Don't expect it tomorrow tho, I has taken me about 2 weeks to get where I am now. What I'm headed for is Chili, vegetable soup, lemon rice, chicken rice, onion/rice soup. That's about all I can reasonably come up with but if anyone has a viable suggestion using what I have proven works PM me and I'll add it to the list.

Not a bad idea to add a few fruits such as apples apricots, bananas, tomatoes, etc. to your list of things to dehydrate, mate.
All can be rehydrated for use in cooking and some, such as apples and appricots, are good additions to a snack-pack/pouch, along with raisins and sultanas. These last two are probably not worth the time/effort/expense of dehydrating yourself as they aren't too expensive to buy. (Just go easy on using them as they do contain a small amount of sulpher dioxide as a preservative.)
What equipment are you using for the dehydrating and vacuum sealing?

I was planning on tackling the fruit thing after I got done with the main meals. I was thinking about making a mix of oat's, fruit, cinnamon & nutmeg as a breakfast. I am typically a meat eater and only eat the fruits/vegetables when I have to so for snacks I have a mix of approx 75lbs of jerky, snack stix and ground meat style jerky (Deer/Elk/Antelope). All vacuum packed in .25lb bags. As to the prep equipment I use here ya go.
Big Chief electric smoker for an initial prep of meats for the flavor.
American Harvest dehydrator with 12 racks
Cabelas vacuum packer for "clean" stuff and Sears Kenmore vacuum packer when there's liquids involved (blood usually). I'd rather have the Sears unit go down from liquid damage than the big Cabelas unit.
I use the vacuum packers for alot more than just food tho. I have matches, fire starters, my non-waterproof GPS unit (which can be operated when sealed), first aid supplies, ammunition, etc sealed up and ready to go.

A good technique for frozen storage that I learned from my Aunt.She would spend 2,or 3 days cooking many different meals for the month in giant portions.She'd then fill gallon ziplock freezer bags with a family meal portion sized amount.After each bag was filled she would take a straw and suck the air out as she sealed them.As each bag was finished she'd lay them out on cookie sheets an freeze them.Written on each bag was the date and what was inside.She would put them in the bottom of her chest freezer standing up and it made meals a sinch to prepare..Matt

A good tip on packaging DIY MRE's for long term storage is,to get a roll of"black"6mil visqueen,or if it can be found mylar coated bubble wrap,and make your final bag to put your vacu-sealed items in.The black visqueen protects your items from light,one of the enemy's of long term food storage.When you put your items in,and do the final seal,you want to blow a little air in the pouch and that will help pretect the items from heat.If you can find the mylar coated bubble wrap to make your pouches out of,it will pack better,protect from light,and heat better as well as protect thing like crackers from damage from being in a backpack.Matt

For making dehydrated burgers,make your patties out of your ground(beef,moose,raindeer,elk,bison,ect.)and grill it thoroughly(well done).Put it in a dehydrator(mines a Ronco).Once the burgers dehydrated,vacu-seal it.The trick of rehydrating and making the burger edible again is to take the burger and lay it on a saucer and carefully float the saucer in a pot with a couple if inches of water.Put a lid on the pot and heat the water till it starts to steam.Let the burger steam about ten minutes,and walla a half descent burger.If you over steam it,it will turn to mush.If that happens,throw it on a grate over the fire for a minute or two.Matt

Thanks for that one goinpostal, I am going to try that. I have a bag of cherries done, about 1/2 bag of apples done and 1/2 a bunch of bananas. One I have all of it done I'll start working on oat based breakfasts. I am about 90% on my buffalo/elk stew which I'll post once it's perfected.

What I do for an MRE stew is dehydrate the veggies,and vacu-seal seal them in one package,and the dry seasoning in another.Cube the meat,and then marinade in a sealed container overnite in a chardoney wine with some of the seasoning,and a little liquid smoke mixed in.Then take the cubes and jerk/dehydrate them.When done vacu-seal.I vacu-seal a cup of flour,then put them in a pouch as explained above,with a couple of packets of powered real dairy creamer and some salt and pepper's.In 30min I can make a delicious stew.The longer it simmers after that the better it gets.Add every thing to the pot with water,accept the flour,salt,and pepper.Bring to a simmer and add the flour,salt,and pepper till the wanted taste and texture is reached.Matt