Longer Trip Meal Planning

I recommend Tasty Bite or similar vacuum-packed indian food. Heavier than dehydrated, but needs no cooking or soaking or anything (warm up if desired). Tasty indeed and made with only simple ingredients. Much less expensive than the backpacker-marketed foods (especially at DK Market in Renton, probably other places too). I usually have it with couscous, which cooks very quickly.

Really rare to be out more than two nights for me  unless kayaking, so take this with a grain of salt, but I've adapted to fresh food for day one and smoked / cured day two.  Pack weight drops quick!  On the hoof beyond that it's dried but I'll carry a cabbage sometimes cuz it keeps well and reminds me of home  :'(  .  Chopped salami adds goodness to the dried noodle, potato, soup sides found cheaply everywhere - did somone else mention that??  I carry a jetboil, so can go either way but ok with adding water to pouches.  You can sometimes gather on a spring tour ~ I got some  morels on the last one.   Consider trapping?   

Oh, and by the way dehydrated beer

the NOLS Cookery book is a great resource for long-duration trip meal planning.   

I've done a handful of 2 and 3 week long backcountry trips.  Two meals that my wife and I make often are couscous & lentils with vacuum-sealed pre-cooked bacon and olive oil,  and burritos using instant rice & dehydrated bean flakes. We rely heavily on olive oil, landjager, vacuum sealed bacon, peanut butter, and halva to get enough calories.

I've got meal planning spreadsheet that is based off the NOLS cookery information that I've found pretty handy when figuring out how much food to bring on long trips- shoot me a PM with your email address if you'd me to send it to you.

Thanks for the replies, lots of good ideas here.

Get a dehydrator (they're cheap) and go wild. Just make chili, tomato meat sauce, taco meat with veggies, etc etc and dehydrate it. Done. Light, cheap, keeps forever. Been doing it for years and will never buy any of the salt-laden, expensive mountainhouse junk again.

I'll play.  I've been doing a couple 7- to 9-day high routes each year for 20 years, got the lightweight food thing nailed.  I budget around 1-2/3 lbs./day, but can get away with 1-1/2 lbs./day with the right stuff and careful rationing.

I never cook in a pot, boil water only, passively cook in insulated mug or cozy.  I quit freeze-dried years ago, never again!  Plenty of other boiled water-only (passive cooking) alternatives.  Insulated mug (mine is DIY CCF over Ti cup) or insulated freezer bag cozy is the key to passive cooking.

Uwajimaya is great!  At least 100 ramen varieties, some quite high quality.  Their shrimp/scallop thin noodles will also passive cook, tasty with cheese cut into them.  Friends don't let friends eat regular grocery store ramen.  Yech!  Uwajimaya is the answer!  Fun to try different varieties and figure out your favorites.

Olive oil = lots of dense high quality healthy calories.  Use on noodles, etc. with salt, pepper and garlic powder.  Olive oil is also great for cooking high lake trout (cut in steaks to avoid the dreaded curl).

Stove Top Stuffing can also be passive cooked but I can do it only once or so per week.  Same with instant mash potatoes: nice change from noodles, but couldn't do it more than each third night at most.