Fiesta Rice with Corn and Chicken - The Yummy Life

This meal is something very different for our family that we had never done before. Hubby and his dad are planning a week-long backpacking trip this summer to The Wind River Range. They are excited about this and hope to catch some fish for some meals, but know they will have to take a lot of meals in with them. They will not be able to keep things cold with a cooler either, so many times people purchase packaged freeze-dried meals to rehydrate and cook over small stoves. Often times these pre-packaged meals can be very processed and can also be expensive.

Hubby decided he wanted to see if we could make some of these meals more cost effective, more healthy, and maybe even taste better by putting them together ourselves. I was supportive and excited about this because I like trying to help all of us be more healthy and save money. Hubby started looking through some recipes online that he thought he would like and the first one we decided to try was here.

I found when looking at this recipe that many of the items used were freeze-dried. When I was looking for freeze-dried ingredients I found that they were very expensive. We own a dehydrator that we have used periodically, but not very often. So I got it out and cleaned it up. I found another blog Backpackingchef.com that has come in very handy when determining how to best dehydrate ingredients. I used it specifically to learn about dehydrating chicken here. The picture is of dehydrating carrots.

I felt that it was very easy to follow the directions to dehydrate all the ingredients. It took very little time to get things ready to dehydrate, it just takes forward thinking to make sure there is time to dehydrate all the components of the recipe. Once everything was dehydrated it was easy to put it all together. It took very little time to actually prepare the dish. We felt the meal was rehydrated well and had good flavor. The chicken was a little chewy, but we knew that it wouldn't be like a freshly prepared meal overall. We were all very happy with it.

Timing: Recipe States: , My Actual Timing: a few minutes to put together, several days of dehydrating
Servings: Recipe States: 2 servings, Servings For My Family: We doubled the recipe and it served the 5 of us, plus made a leftover lunch for Hubby at work.
Leftovers: It reheated better than the first time, some of the sauce had more time to soak in and rehydrate.

Family Ratings:
Me: I was thrilled with our first attempt at a dehydrated backpacking meal, there were good flavors and it didn't taste processed.
Hubby: He thought it was good, but wants to try some other cheaper chicken options.
Big Man: He thought it was pretty good and told us so.
Bear: Bear was just excited that there was no broccoli in it, that has been his least favorite lately.
Mr. T: Mr. T enjoyed it and had seconds.

Will I repeat: Yes.

What will I change: I will try a different type of chicken, but it is not necessary.