[Slugman]

MHM is my term for the over-full, over-salty, over-sauced feeling I get after eating a Mtn House dinner. I mean I like them, but they are too soupy, too much sauce, per the amount of other ingredients. Adding less water doesn't help, it just turns the whole thing into thick stew instead of thick soup. Plus they aren't cheap. Yet making my own food from scratch is just too darned much effort for a slacker like me. So, here's what I do now: I take the basic ingredient of the dinner, be it noodles or rice (that covers most of their dinners), and I add a large amount of that to the dinner, then split it in half, and now I am covered for my typical three day/two night trip. I open the meal, dump it into a large mixing bowl, add enough pasta or minute rice to almost double the size of the meal, and sometimes other dehydrated ingredients from my Harmony House Backpacker's Kit (a whole selection of basic dehydrated ingredients like dried peas, or beans, or other vegetables), mix it all up good, then split it in half, and put it into my seal-a-meal machine, with extra room in the S-a-M bag, so that I can still make the meal right in the bag by adding boiling water. Man, it is so much better this way. When I eat a pasta dish, the sauce should be far less than the noodles, not be a bunch of noodles drowning in sauce. The amount of fat, sodium, etc is also reduced in half, since one dinner lasts two nights instead of one. And since rice and noodles are relatively cheap, the cost is about half as well. Another bonus is the dinners pack smaller in the S-a-M bags.

[Allison]

That's a great idea if you like the idea of grocery store food but don't want to go that far in terms of hassle.

[justaddfuel]

I buy dried/fd food from mary jane's farm in bulk. Really really good food, i even eat it at home. And it's pretty healthy. http://shop.maryjanesfarm.org/store/c/78-Backpacking-Food-Samplers.aspx You don't have to get the sampler, if you click on each individual item, on that page, there is an option for bulk. happy trails!

[Slugman]

Yes, this is not the method for do-it-yourselfers or gourmets. This is for lazy slackers who are also cheap. But compared to regular Mtn House dinners, mine are easier to pack, cheaper, taste better and are better for you. I've tried some of the Mary Jane's Farm stuff, and it was indeed good. But as I recall it was kind of pricey.

[Burke M]

[justaddfuel]

Hi Slugman, If i am understanding you correctly, you still have to purchase the mountain house packages, and then add in additional rice/noodles, right? Price wise in bulk - 1lb bulk mountain house chili mac is $25 3lb bulk mary janes chili mac is $44 I like your idea, wasn't trying to discount it, was just looking at the economics as well. Bon appetite!

[Slugman]

I didn't realize they sold in bulk so reasonably. My GF once bought me a couple of MJ'sF dinners, and I liked them, but they were a dollar or two more per dinner than Mtn House. Mixing 50% plain "mac" with prepared chili mac would in essence halve the price of anyone's chili mac, Mtn House or MJ'sF. The "mac" is the cheapest part of the chili mac. I think I will buy some bulk foods from MJ's Farm. I like organic foods, when I can get them semi-reasonably. And then mixing in my own extra macaroni will make them very reasonably priced. Freeze dried foods always seem expensive by the pound. But if you made up their whole 3 lbs of chili mac all at once, then weighed it, it would weigh 11-13 pounds (assuming 16 ounces of water to each 5-6 ounces of freeze dried food.) That's only $3.60 per pound, and that's before I "dilute" it with extra macaroni. With a dinner for me being about 1.3 lbs (a pound of water plus the 5 ounces or so of food), that works out to $4.70 for a meal. If you assume the extra macaroni, at standard grocery store prices, I come up with just under $3 for my dinner using MJ'sF chili mac as a base. Bingo! I'm on that, dude.

[Dayhike Mike]

Does normal macaroni get soft enough when simply hydrating from boiling water? I was under the impression that most off the shell mac and cheese involved boiling the noodles for a certain amount of time to soften them up before actually eating them.

[Slugman]

Hmm, good question. So far I've only actually done this with minute rice added to rice-based meals. One work-around could be to toss the macaroni in the water pot and simmer it a few minutes, then dump everything into the chili mac, then wait the ten minutes. Should work. I guess this is why you should always try something at home before taking it out into the wilderness. I also have some egg noodles that only call for five minute's boiling. They'd probably work without the extra simmering. You could also use the noodles that come with Top Ramen, they rehydrate quickly.

[grannyhiker]

Instead of the macaroni, use cous-cous. It's pasta, too, but it is a very small form and rehydrates instantly without having to pre-cook and dehydrate. Far less bulky, too.

[Dayhike Mike]

Probably something to check out before you either head out, or mix up 20 pounds of the combination.

[sarbar]

If you want to try out the instant beans just go buy them in the grocery store by Fantastic Foods As for pasta...unless it is couscous or a few other choices it needs boiling water to be at its best. But - if you bring the pasta (say the 5 minute type) to a boil with the cold water, then take off the stove and cover tightly for a couple minutes that will work. Just don't do this with 13 minute cook time pastas!

[Slugman]

Couscous would definitely work well for this, assuming it was the right kind of dish to have couscous in it. The stuff I buy at Trader Joe's says "add boiling water and wait five minutes". In any event the whole theory is to dilute the flavor and the cost of pre-packaged meals with bulk items. Maybe it's just me, but every pre-packaged meal I've ever had was over-seasoned, over-salted, over-sauced, and over-priced. Yet I still crave the convenience of them. Mike, you make an excellent point: I need to buy a couple of regular packets of MJ'sF chili mac, etc, doctor them up, and see exactly what results, before having a barrel of the stuff delivered.

[sarbar]

The regular couscous (not Israeli couscous which is big pearls) works great, and TJ's is great to use! And yeah, couscous is perfect for sopping up those sauces.....the MH stuff has way too much sauce!

[ChrisM]

The tub-o-couscous available at most grocery stores is pretty good too.