I make lots of my own jerky too which is so much better and cheaper than the store crap. A deer got hit near my house (south of dwight) and i cleaned him up and turned him into a summer worth of jerky. I am just now finishing up making jerky out of 1000's of Rainbow Smelt, a fish that spawns for a short spring window and you can net at night. Smelt are invasive so you are doing the world a favor by eating them.

My favourite resource for lightweight, comforting meals is Simple Foods for the Pack. I frequently have a commercially dehydrated meal in my back up pack but they're typically my very, very last choice. Throw a scoop of protein powder, flavoured or otherwise, into just about any meal to bulk it out. My fave snack is granola in a sandwich sized ziplock with the dehydrated cream available on Amazon from Hoosier Hill Farm, you'll never buy another dehydrated milk again. Just add water, hot or cold, and eat straight from the bag with whatever additions you fancy, nuts, raisins, etc. Ovaeasy dehydrated egg crystals are an excellent addition to any soup or stew, best dehydrated eggs ever. Bring some Bisquick to make biscuits, pancakes or dumplings on top of a soup. The best strategy for managing food weight is to count calories and pack whatever you feel you need each day. You will be sure not to over pack that way. 

Zemantics wrote:

My fav beef stew recipe:
http://chefmichaelsmith.com/recipe/beef-stew/

Dehydrate and you will LOVE it, imo. Best to make a batch for dinner at home, get an idea for how much you'll want as a meal at a campsite, and dehydrate 1.5x as much using the leftovers from that dinner. You won't need a whole batch for a meal.

You good also do powdered eggs, dehydrated ground beef+corn, and gravy packets to make a Backcountry shepherds pie. Search Maddy the goose on YouTube. He's got a good recipe that he walks you through.

The beef stew recipe looks and sounds good. I was surprised to read that it would dehydrate well, though. I've come  late to dehydrating, and have never tried dehydrating chunks of cooked beef, believing, probably mistakenly, that they wouldn't dry uniformly. Should the cooked beef chunks be cut up smaller before laying the stew out onto the parchment paper or sauce sheets?
 

Ramses wrote:

Steve E wrote:

It's gonna be hard giving up the pound of bacon each morning...I'm not going to lie...

Actually, bacon is one thing that you can keep with you pretty easily while still going for a lighter/simpler cook set-up.

Just buy pre-cooked bacon - it's usually sold alongside the normal bacon, but since it's pre-cooked and vacuum sealed, you don't need to refrigerate it.  You don't even need a pan for it - just lay it out on one of the ubiquitous grates, or use some sticks over the fire - its just needs to be heated up a bit, and it's pretty good to go.

We usually take a steak or sausage meal, with maybe a foil packet potato/pepper side in for the first night, and then just go dehydrated from there.  All the various brands have good and not-so-good meals, but generally, if you like lasagna, the lasagna meals will be fine, etc.

I see two huge benefits to using dehydrated meals (storebought or homemade): (1) super simple cook kit - you only need to boil like 2 cups of water for the meal - no pots, pans, kettles, tongs, spatulas, blah, blah - instant huge weight savings; (2) cleanup is waaaay easier - no pots to scrub, no camp soap, no making hot water for cleanup, no disposing of dirty dishwater - just boil a little water and put your tiny pot away.  Plus, any trash from the meal is easily packable - the storebought meal packets smash flat and ziplock shut.

For a break from dehydrated stuff and Cliff bars, we usually take tortillas for lunch.  Depending on weather, you can usually keep things like salami and cheese working for the first few days, and then switch over to peanut butter/jelly/honey (all in individual serving packets - not big jars).  No pots or pans required, easy cleanup, and tortillas - unlike bread - can't really get smashed in a food pack/barrel.

As for fishing - I'm a really bad fisherman, but I've found bringing all the stuff I'd like for a backwoods fish fry just isn't worth the weight.  But that is purely personal preference - I know people for whom the fish fry is the whole point!

Hope that helps!

 

Blasphemy, on two counts!  Commercially prepared pre cooked bacon is horrendous. Buy your own and pre cook it.  Then wrap portions in tinfoil and place into small freezer bags. At camp place tinfoil pouch on fire/coals and re heat. It easily keeps for over a week in the spring temps.

A small ultra light fishing rod and reel with a handful of spoons and spinners will not take up much room and weights very little. It can easily attach to your boat for portaging. And the bonus, eating fresh trout on an open fire. Priceless...unless you eat the head..*cough (Martin) cough*


 

I think for me, I just need to get my head around a different way of thinking when it comes to camp food.  I'm so used to bringing fresh stuff for most nights which obviously means weight and bulk.  Funny because at home I'm quite happy with KD, oatmeal etc...We've just got so used to having big fresh meals when camping that it will take a shift in mind-set to go with these simpler choices.

Have you tried the citrus lentil salad?

Alessi makes some dehydrated soups that are very good.  They come in a bag about the size of your typical Mountain House dehydrated meals, but they are intended for the kitchen rather than camp.  The whole bag requires 4 cups of water or thereabouts, waaaay to much for me, so I divide each bag in half, repackage it in ziplock bags and go from there.  I find the seasonings to be pretty strong, so I reduce those while I'm dividing them up.  What you end up with is a very compact and lightweight meal, just add about two cups of water, let it sit in a lidded container for fifteen minutes-ish, and you're good to go.  My favorite is their lentil soup, but they make several: white bean, split pea, neapolitan bean, etc.

There are a few reasons I like this.  One is that I have some dietary restrictions, so the lentil soup in particular fits the bill.  Another is that it is a soup, not a stew like so many of the typical dehydrated meals.  I'm getting some protein, etc., but I'm also getting some hydration to go with it, and a third, which is peculiar to the original post's question - it is a very lightweight option.