One way to spice up the night is with a big bowl of chilli con carne. This dish is pretty versatile as you can serve it with some mountain bread, rice, cous cous or even some corn chips if you want to carry them, and it is really healthy for you.

Kidney beans are packed full of carbs, protein, fibre, magnesium, iron, potassium, folate and lots of other really good stuff. Black beans, or otherwise known as turtle beans are also packed full of carbs, protein, fibre as well and calcium, magnesium, iron and zinc just to name a few minerals.  So if you have chilli con carne with mince, make sure you add the beans.

Oh, by the way, if you are going to dehydrate this dish make sure you buy the beans already cooked in a tin. The tinned beans rehydrate much better than if you were to prepare dried beans yourself.

When I first did this recipe I soaked the dried beans then cooked them and used them in the recipe, then dehydrated the meal. But when it came to rehydrating the meal I found the beans were quite crunchy. The next time I cooked this recipe I used the tinned beans and they worked a treat. This quantity will serve around three to four meals, depending how hungry you are.

• Oil - 2 Tbsp

• Onion - 1 each

• Garlic - 2 cloves

• Ground cumin - 1½ Tbsp

• Ground coriander - 1½ Tbsp

• Paprika - 1 tsp

• Ground cinnamon - 1 tsp

• Ground oregano - 2 tsp

• Chilli - ¼ to ½ tsp

  Vary amount depending on how hot you want it.

• Salt, pepper - Few pinches

• Tomato paste - ¼ cup

• Vegetable stock - 2 tsp

• Red lentils - ½ cup

• Tin kidney beans - 400 g

• Tin black beans - 400 g

• Tin tomato - 400 g

• Coconut sugar or brown sugar - 1 Tbsp

• Water - 5 cups

  3 cups for cooking and

  2 cups for soaking lentils

• At home preparation

  1) Soak the lentils in 1 cup of water for 10 minutes, drain and soak again for 10 minutes, then drain again.
  2) Drain and rinse the cans of beans.
  3) Chop the onion and garlic and fry in the oil.
  4) Add the spices to the frypan and fry for 2 minutes.
  5) Add the water, vegetable stock, lentils and beans and cook for about 5 minutes.
  6) Now add the tin tomato, tomato paste and coconut sugar and simmer for about 20 to 25 minutes.
  7) Dehydrate according to your dehydrator's specification.
  8) Place the dehydrated meal in a container to condition for a few days then pack in a bag. 

• Method at camp

  1) Bring a pot of water to the boil.
  2) The amount of water depends on how big the serving size is.
  3) Add the dehydrated mix to the water, cover and let sit for around 10 minutes till the meal is rehydrated.

This recipe is from the awesome Xtreme Gourmet book. You will find many more recipes and really helpful information on nutrition for your adventures. https://xtremegourmet.com/