When I'm on the trail I only eat stuff that can be made by adding boiling water to a pouch. Mostly because I hate cleaning pots and pans. But I'm not a freezerbag gourmet. I use freezerbags for morning oatmeal with raisins but that's it so far. I've been buying the Mountain House or Backpackers Pantry stuff. Usually that's fine but lately I've had some really bad experiences there so I'm going to try some freezerbag dinners. So far I don't have a dehydrator. I've been hoping to just use ingredients I can buy right off the shelf, combine in a freezerbag, and take with me.

So I'm going to try this weekend when I go out with my oldest daughter. I've got a tuna packet and I was planning on doing this tuna casserole thing I've heard about where you add the tuna to mac and cheese. I was looking at freezerbagcooking.com and they suggested cooking the macaroni and then dehydrating it. Is that necessary? It seems redundant. Perhaps they were talking about some special kind of macaroni? It seems like the box stuff ought to work just fine if you add boiling water.

Also does someone have a favorite flavor or brand of mac and cheese that they use with the tuna?

Oh, and a few more questions. Mac and cheese requires butter. Is olive oil the thing to use instead? I've heard people refer to single-serving pouches of oil. Where do you get those?