Cooking and dehydrating the pasta makes it cook up a little quicker in camp, but not a huge difference. I've found for some of the denser pastas (whole wheat or corn, etc) it helps a bit more. Before I got my dehydrator I made lots of good meals with readily-available ingredients.. after a few years I wanted to dehydrate some of the produce from my garden so it was a natural progression to buy a dehydrator.

For a change from tuna packets, I also like to take 2oz packs of smoked salmon. Toss some asiago cheese (keeps for a week), crumbled smoked salmon and a bit of tomato soup mix with your pasta.

Make sure to keep your camera handy if you use smoked salmon, it's like a bear magnet!