This easy meal gives the creative sense of preparing a home-cooked meal in the backcountry.

This lightweight meal changes-up the monotonous quick one-pot stews eaten on multi-day hikes. All the ingredients can be dehydrated at home before the trip and many of them can also be found at bulk-food stores or supermarkets. I prefer to take a variety of dried ingredients which enables me to prepare unique meals suitable to my desire at the time.

If equipped with the bush-pantry basics like dried onion and garlic flakes, as well as tomato puree dehydrated into a ‘fruit’ leather, coupled with a healthy selection of mixed spices, the options for a gourmet bush meal are endless.

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Prep Time: 10min
Cook Time: 20min
Serves: Two
Cost: $5-8

Ingredients
1 pack of penne pasta (for extra protein consider pasta made with quinoa or legumes)
1 tbsp dried Italian herbs
1 tbsp dried onion flakes/powder
1 tsp dried garlic flakes/powder
1 vegetable bouillon cube
2 tbsp dehydrated peas
½ pack of 50g of kumara powder (or ¼ cup of self-dehydrated kumara slices)
¼ cup dehydrated mushroom
1 sheet of dehydrated tomato passata ‘fruit leather’ equivalent to a half jar of 700g passata or tomato puree
Parmesan cheese topping (or nutritional yeast for a vegan alternative)

Method
Add the dehydrated marinara ingredients, except the pasta, into a small billy or drinking mug with approximately one cup of water. Soak for 5-10min as you prepare the pasta in a large billy on the stove. Boil the pasta per packet instructions, drain then set aside.

Heat the soaked dehydrated ingredients in the small billy or drinking mug until just before boiling, adding water as necessary. Once both the pasta and marinara are cooked, gently mix the sauce into the pasta.

Sprinkle on parmesan cheese and enjoy your ‘home-cooked’ vegetable marinara.

– Jessica Meyer