rehydrating in pb jar

Click me

And me

One more

You may have run into some of these sites already, but there is a lot of good information and recipes.

I usually limit myself to one hot meal a day, usually dinner. I use a ziploc twist-n-loc container with thin quart size bags inside. I find the ziploc container is wider and easier to get in than a peanut butter jar.

Think of items you can pair with the food your rehydrating: tortillas, pita/tortilla chips – these things are like a plate for the food you’ve rehydrated which makes the meal complete.

An example: for lunch I like couscous (which you don’t even have to dehydrate), sun dried tomatoes, red bell pepper and olive oil with some hard cheese.

Another idea: quinoa, black beans, corn and tomatoes wrapped up in a tortilla. All these items rehydrate very well in cold water.

For your stoveless trips I did a few experiments, and most dyhydrated/freeze dried meals (not just couscous and the easy stuff) can be cold rehydrated. This is probably old news to the experienced dehydrators on here, but it was a pleasant surprize to me. I have started avoiding the commercial stuff and have started dehydrate my own trail dinners now (mostly). Just give it 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 hours and plan accordingly. The time it takes usually is limited by that one thing in there that takes 5 time longer to stop being crunchy. This is a very useful thing to know as it will allow you to dehydrate (with a $50 dehydrator) almost anything pre-cooked you want and still go stoveless, not to mention allow you to fearlessly stop worrying about having backup fuel, or even enough fuel, if you go with a stove.

So take-home answer is that with some pre-planning (mix an hour and a half before, you can rehydrate virtually EVERYTHING cold – provided it is dehydrated beforehand. You can try it out at home first to get a feel for the times and results.

3 cups (24 oz) is what you probably want to fit most dehydrated meals + water. 1-2 cups water. FWIW I went through a lengthy and rather obsessive search. I have been using these for the last year or so:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00GWQW0ZE/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o05_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Food grade plastic, heat resistant. Intended for "restaurant" storage use. They are about perfect IMO, and are lighter and cheaper than any screw top. They are close to a cylinder so easy to make a refletix cosy (leave at home of course for stoveless) – circle for the bottom rectangle for the side, and super glue another disk to the lid. The lids are very tight and waterproof. Weight with the cosy addition 1.4 oz (0.8 oz without). Also doesn't hurt that a lot of pots will nest inside this one – including the regular sized Jetboils and some of the mug shaped pots. Fits in the hand nicely and (more of a personal factor) feels more like a regular bowl/eating vessel than a bag – or pb jar. I could go out on a limb (as is the custom on here) and assert that this one's minimal surface-to-volume ration in comparison will keep your food warm longer, in addition to the cosy. :-)