Freeze Drying Spaghetti and Meatballs

Yesterday, the electrician put in the dedicated outlet for the freeze dryer and today I ran a test run. Now that I know it works ok, I wanted to try freeze drying.

I have yet to organize the table, but here is where I'm starting. The dryer came with a pulse sealer and a vacuum sealer and lots of mylar bags. Those will all be stored under the freeze dryer once I get it all unpacked. I also will put my dehydrator on that bottom shelf. (That big black thing on the floor is my patio hammock - just need to take it out and set it up for the summer)

Joe makes a mean spaghetti sauce from scratch but I had 4 cans of sauce in my food storage that were nearly outdated. So I decided I would put them together with some noodles and some meatballs I inherited from my son's divorce and make up some camping food. 

Yes, I see they are teriyaki meatballs with pineapple, but I'll never use them otherwise, so it might be an interesting combination and is something we would surely eat in an emergency or camping.

I got all my trays and dividers ready, put the sauce on to simmer (I added some spices) and got the water ready for the noodles. I'm going to use all three packages of spaghetti - thinking maybe it will take up 4 of the trays. 

Here are my spaghetti noodles, 

and I'm cutting my meatballs into 4 pieces.

And here are my trays

I'll have a total of 40 meals.

Mountain House is about $5 per serving:

Mine will be much less:
2 pounds angel hair spaghetti noodles = $3

4 cans spaghetti sauce = $5

Meatballs = $58

Total = 66

Divided by 40 = $1.65 per serving

More tomorrow when it's finished!

Love,

Annie