Algonquin Adventures / Re packaging freeze dried meals

**Posted by Foxriderz** 9/11/2018 6:30 am

Has anyone ever tried to re package a freeze dried meal?
I usually dehydrate my own food but for simplicity reasons on my upcoming trip we have decided to go with the freeze dried mountain house meals...they sure make things simple at camp, but they are incredibly bulky items at take up lots of volume in our packs. Just wondering if anyone has experienced this same problem and possibly came up with a solution.
Thanks all!

**Posted by dontgroandaddy** 9/11/2018 8:16 am

I have, but not with a Mountain House. There are pros and cons to doing it. The pro of course is you gain some space, the con is that you eliminate the bag in which you rehydrate, so you have to have something with you in which to rehydrate, and whatever that something is has to be cleaned.

Most recently, I have used dehydrated soups by Alessi. I repackage those because I can get two meals out of one pouch/bag/whatever (and the pouch isn't a cooking pouch anyway). I double bag the portions in quart freezer zip-locks. I heat the water in a metal bowl, then rehydrate in a Sea To Summit Delta Bowl (with lid). It has to sit a good 15 minutes or more to really hydrate everything, and I eat right out of the Sea to Summit bowl. Getting the lid off is a bit of a pill after that time, slow and steady or dinner is on the ground.

The difficulty in dividing the pouches into portions is that the seasonings/salt settle differently than the main ingredients. When I divide the pouch into two portions at home, I use a sifter to segregate the seasonings from the main ingredients. That allows me to create two portions that are pretty close to equal in terms of main ingredients and seasonings.

**Posted by Methye** 9/11/2018 9:10 pm

I just pour them out into two bowls and then spend a minute or two making sure the salty powder, the pasta (or rice), and the protein are equally divided. Then pop into ziplock freezer bags (medium) and label with a sharpie, including how much water to use now that it is a half portion. Rehydrate in my GSI double layer bowl with the neoprene sleeve on it. Sit it on some cloth or closed cell foam so it's not on the ground, and cover with a scarf or glove. twenty minutes. Add olive oil (you need your fat and these have very little)mix, and enjoy.

**Posted by Foxriderz** 9/12/2018 9:53 am

Thanks for the olive oil tip, I would assume ghee would work as well?

I managed to poke a small hole in one of the packages with a pin, squeeze out the excess air and throw a piece of tape over the hole, it has saved enough room to at least get the meals packed into a 10L dry bag

**Posted by ATVenture** 9/18/2018 7:13 am

Foxriderz wrote:
Thanks for the olive oil tip, I would assume ghee would work as well?

I managed to poke a small hole in one of the packages with a pin, squeeze out the excess air and throw a piece of tape over the hole, it has saved enough room to at least get the meals packed into a 10L dry bag

That's a great idea!
I will e bringing a few for my upcoming trip and am considering opening them up as normal, getting all the air out and then using the zipper most of the bags have on them, roll up and put in another zip lock. Would surely take up much less space. My favorite part about these meals is the no dishes aspect.

**Posted by Foxriderz** 9/24/2018 9:46 pm

So the meals worked out pretty good. I went with mountain house for both breakfasts and dinner. Breakfasts were. Scrambled eggs peppers onion and ham. And scrambled eggs and bacon, as well as the breakfast skillet one. These were meh. breakfast skillet comes in first place but still could only handle 2-3 days of it on a 6 day trip. Dinners were (best to worst) sweet and sour pork with rice. Chicken teriyaki with rice. Lasagna with meat sauce and pasta primavera. Now my fav dinner was based on flavour and how filling it was, honestly each dinner was delicious but the rice meals seemed much more filling. The pasta primavera was absolutely amazingly good but it just didn't fill me up.
All in all the meals worked well. We had a 30km travel day then a 20km travel day, on those days especially, the ease of meal prep and clean up was very welcomed