Ingredients into fancy mac and cheese

A staple of my backpacking diet is fancy macaroni and cheese – simple, easy to diversify, delicious. For this particular batch I used:

• Macaroni and cheese – of the Trader Joe’s variety
• Dried salami – tube form holds up well on the trail
• Green pepper – cubed and dehydrated
• Avocado – cubed and dehydrated
• Dry milk – to be honest I always forget to add this

At home: Pick your favorite veggies and prepare them. Before I had a dehydrator I ate this for the first night’s dinner so the veggies would still be fresh. I also packed in a whole avocado; but I don’t like the trash I’m left with so I tried dehydrating it, the cubes don’t look as pretty but it was great for packing and tasted fine. Anyway, if you have the means, dehydrate your veggies.

On the trail: Bring water to a rolling boil, add the macaroni and dehydrated veggies, boil for about eight minutes or until tender. If veggies are fresh, add them about halfway through, unless it’s avocado – add that when you add the cheese. While the ingredients are boiling cut the salami into bite-size pieces. Drain most of the water, but leave enough to absorb the dry cheese and (if you remember) dry milk. Honestly, at 9,000 feet it tastes amazing with or without milk.

Depending on how close you are with your cooking buddy, grab a spork and dig in or dish out servings. I’ve found one box equals two servings, but you know your appetite better than I do.

Enjoy!
Trails