Favorite Meal

I thought it would be fun to share a favorite brand or meal entree you have eaten in the backcountry. For me it was probably the Jamaican jerk chicken from Backpacker's Pantry.

Mountain House Raspberry Crumble - we buy this by the big can and eat it year around, it is that good!

Chili, served over brown rice. Off the trays of my dehydrator into a bag into the bear can. Cheddar cheese stick for melting over the top is a must.

I don't do fake food.

Mine is a recipe called "Spicy Mexican Lentils," cooked on my stove, then dehydrated and reconstituted. (Lentils do very well for this food preparation method.) Actually, I tone down the spicy part a bit (using mild salsa) since my stomach no longer tolerates highly seasoned food. Rice and sundried tomatoes go well with this dish.

Freeze-dried sawdust dinners are not for me, especially with all the artificial ingredients and extremely high sodium content. I strongly recommend reading the label before eating any of that stuff! There are freeze-dried foods without all the chemical preservatives; I especially like those from Packit Gourmet.

I had a failed attempt at dehydrating my own meal. I tried to dehydrate some chicken breasts and ended up leaving them in dehydrator a lot longer than I was suppose too. I was helping a neighbor and forgot all about my chicken dehydrating until I came home. Anyway, I tried to rehydrate with boiling water and after 10 minutes it was still hard... Maybe I need re-read how to do it and keep trying.

I have better luck with cooked shredded or ground meats for dehydrating and rehydrating. Canned tuna and shrimp do well, as well as pre-cooked mock crab and shrimp (previously frozen), and pulled BBQ pork. I'd guess that pulled/shredded chicken or beef would also do well, based on how well the BBQ pork did.

CM

Chicken needs to be pressure cooked before dehydrating or it becomes chicken jerky or worse. In other words, start with canned chicken. Any meat needs to be in very small pieces.

Lots of dehydrating info on trailcooking.com

AHHH. I grilled my chicken before dehydrating.....I see.

Food should be in small pieces before dehydrating, and yep, chicken does best if it's pressure cooked...

But a whole tuna casserole comes back like magic... even the little broccoli trees looked like broccoli, tasted like broccoli.... it pays to set up the dehydrator in a corner out of the way and use it to "store" leftovers, as long as you're going to be using the meals within a month or so. Some things don't completely dehydrate but will definitely be trail worthy. Spread the dish thin as you can on a tray or parchment paper and go.

I've taken frozen steak and/or "Cornish Game Hens" for the first night out lots of times. Usually bring a foil wrapped potato to toss in the coals of my campfire to go with them. Frozen breakfast burritos are great too, and they'll last a couple days in my pack if insulated well.

After that I'm using off the shelf dehydrated meals, usually Mountain House. I don't really have a favorite one of those, but they keep me from starving and keep my pack weight down. Oatmeal with dried fruit is always good for breakfast.

Tanya's Taqueria Carnitas Burrito, sliced like a loaf of bread and dehydrated here at home.

Heaven in a plastic bag!

Any meal supplemented by a pan full of fried fish!

I do not have favorite meals, but do have favorite "treats"- dark chocolate, Rio coffee candies, Bengal Spice tea.

Now there's something I never considered - slicing and dehydrating a burrito! It DOES sound like heaven...

Yes, indeed!
Only improvement to be made is supplementing it with fresh wild raspberries when you are camping near some.

I have actually had a couple of reasonable freeze-dried dinners, but I've enjoyed C-rats (and found some MREs to be an improvement), so that's not exactly a ringing endorsement.

These days, my favorite is couscous curry. Approximately equal proportions (for one person that's about three tablespoons) of couscous, red lentils, nuts (I use mostly cashews), and dried fruit (I use either chopped dates or chopped apricots -- a few extra calories with the dates), plus a tablespoon of your favorite curry powder. Put in a freezer bag and at dinner time add about three quarters of a cup of boiling water. Yummy.

best, jcp

JPete, that curry sounds yummy--I'm going to have to try it!

One of my favorites is an avocado (yes it's heavy,but it gets eaten quickly),a couple or three salsa packets, and a couple of rice cakes. Cut the avocado in half, remove pit and in each half mash the flesh, add salsa and scoop onto a rice cake, serves 2. Pack out skin and seed. I like this on a weekend overnighter when weight isn't really an issue.

Breakfast: favorite granola, powdered rice milk, and freeze dried fruit, just add cold water.

Crayfish and rice
If we are near a water source in Michigan that has crayfish that are accesable we will catch a a few (6-10 per person depending on the size) Get a decent size pot of water boiling (we use our aluminum perkalator) with a cajun spice blend, drop in your crayfish and let them boil for until they turn bright red. Add your seasoned minute rice, cover and remove from heat. In two minutes you will have a feast. Yum. My mouth is watering just thinkning about it.

It was once Ramen and a can of Chicken. Now I'll dehydrate some refried beans and a bunch of mild salsa (dehydrating seems to concentrate the spice IMHO)add in some cheese and a tortilla and you have a quick and easy bean burrito. I also like the Cowboy Pasta from Hawk VittleS

reviving a dead thread here, but a frequent favorite from my days as a young Scout just came to mind:
Wild mushroom and smoked duck risotto.
It's pretty straightforward, but the lynch pin is the smoked duck leg. In Chinese markets in SF you can find a salted smoked duck leg that's cured and shelf-stable. The other items are also off-the shelf bits, boxed risotto mix and a small handful of dried wild mushroom blend available from the bulk section of many grocery stores.
The first step is to first boil and soak the duck leg for a bit, pitch the first change of water to free up the excess salt. After that you boil it again for a few minutes, add the mushrooms and risotto mix and let it simmer for a few minutes before just letting it rest in a pot cozy.


In recent years, I've found it hard to find the duck legs so I'm in the process of learning how to cure and smoke them from home in my smoker.

You'd be hard pressed to find anything better outside of Mountain House anything... but My fav's are

Beef Stroganoff
Breakfast Skillet
Raspberry Crumble
Apple Crisp

Packit Gourmet.

None of which I will touch. I prefer my food without preservatives, and I have to be on a low sodium diet. YMMV, of course.