I’ve noticed there are shards of pasta on the floor… Food containers are everywhere. One friend definitely thinks I’m crazy for cooking pasta then dehydrating it, to later cook again. I write out a list of all the meals/drink mixes/desserts I have to make and feel a fraction overwhelmed at the enormity of the task. What was I thinking?? Luckily another friend enthusiastically lays out individual pieces of endless macaroni, one by one, on sheets to go in the dehydrator!

When I decided I wanted to do Te Araroa low waste, I started searching for tramping recipes online to try and figure out if it was doable. Being able to eat nutritious meals that matched my energy needs was really important me. I stumbled across http://www.backcountryfoodie.com which the more I looked at, the more I liked. Aaron has designed all sorts of meals that are as light as possible to carry, nutritionally sound, don’t require a lot of water to rehydrate, and most importantly taste good!!

Helpfully, the site membership also included planning tools. I figured out roughly how many calories I might need, what ingredients were available in New Zealand, did some rough costings, and created a possible menu for 5 days. Testing out the recipes was critical, and I did rule out a couple.

The next step was getting all of the ingredients together, and involved a shopping list (handily generated from the website) that listed things like 2.4kg of dehydrated pasta. My awesome friend Hadassa came along on the big shopping trip to GoodFor and helped me with the many containers. The staff were also really helpful, and enjoyed seeing me a lot over the next fortnight as I popped back a lot to get “the last few things” 😂 I had the dehydrator running a lot, but slowly and surely made everything I needed.

Over the course of a fortnight, and with Hadassa helping again, 50 days’ worth of food took shape. Sadly it wouldn’t all fit in one picture, but here’s what 35 days looks like:

Here’s what’s on the menu:

Most of the food is being sent to places I’ll stay along the way, in 5 day blocks. Big thanks to Mum who is in charge of sending a lot of it!