sepandee wrote:
I see at MEC there's a lot of dehydrated meals, some of them stuff you can find in restaurants (butter chicken, for example!). Are those any good? What do you guys think is best for someone who doesn't want to eat just bars and nuts but also doesn't want to carry a ton of frozen food in a cooler?
If you want easy but reasonably tasty the current Meal In A Bag options are a good but somewhat expensive option. This summer I did a 46 day solo trip and had MIAB for 36 nights. Keep in mind that a "2 serving" MIAB really only feeds one hungry paddler and even with that you need to supplement with other stuff since these meals only run 500 - 700 calories per bag. Things like wraps/flatbreads are good as they keep well, don't weight too much and are high in calories. They are also multi-purpose, can be used with a dinner, or with cheese/sausage, jam or tinned fish/meat.
Backpackers Pantry, Mountain House and Alpine Aire are my preferred brands, the latter having improved quite a bit from the original versions of the 80's/90's. Personal opinion....avoid Harvest Foodworks, dehydrated not freeze-dried and thus require "cooking" rather than just boiling water.
The key to a good meal in a bag is timing, most should sit quite a bit longer than advertised, additional seasonings for some also improve the taste although in recent years manufacturers do a much better job in this area than back in the day when they were very bland with just a ton of added salt.
The other option are the myriad semi-prepared meals you can find in any grocery store.
I do enjoy cooking more complex meals when paddling, things that include some fresh and some packaged ingredients but I pretty much do this only for shorter trips with a (small) group where the effort is worthwhile.