Meals without a cooker

You can rehydrate food in cold water instead of hot water, it just takes longer. Think hours rather minutes. Use a leak-proof container (I've used a 750ml powerade container) and place dinner and water together in the container at lunchtime. Things that work well are two minutes noodles, freeze-dri, surprise veges, dehy rice and sauce. Also things like OSM's and other meal bars work well too. Another option is a lightweight meths stove with fuel and small billy weighs about 200g at most.

Ran into a couple at Mitre Flats a couple of years ago that had protein shakes and salad vegys. Museli and dehy milk for breakfast. They had already been tramping quite a few days and willingly accepted the offer of a hot drink. A few months ago we met a French couple at Triangle hut who were using a V can stove of a slightly different design with a large stainless steel cup of 2 dollar shop style as a billy. Worked well. I doubt that it came to 200 grams even with there weekends fuel which had to be rationed perfectly for each stove burn as once lit it had to run till out of fuel. Im going to try making one of these myself one day even if It will probably never be used in anger. It was quite funny watching them arrive at the other side of the river then remove ther boots before crossing but thats off topic. No cook food can be done and I quite like salads at home but to go complete cold turkey is not my idea of a good time. Each to there own on this though.

Biltong.

This is helpful, thanks.

Be interested in what you'f do for carbs on a longer trip (aside from crackers, which I eat a lot of anyway and sure wouldn't want to be replacing my instant spud and instant porridge with). Shorter trips bagets and pita would do you fine, no? I've got my 'cooking' down to only ever needing a cup of boiled water. One 500ml aluminum pot/plate/bowl/mug is all I take (hut log books make fine pot lids), and the smallest gas canister does me about a week.

Meusli & milk powder, milo & milk powder, instant pudding & milk powder. Tubes of condensed milk (tho I find them too sweet) ?. Flat bread. Toast, if you're desperate ?.

Earlier post didn't stick. Frozen chicken breasts travel for a few days. Hard boiled eggs ?. bell peppers stay crisp for days.

I conducted a very scientific experiment a couple of weeks ago with an OSM bar. I usually find rolled oats are the only breakfast that will not leave me hungry again an hour later, but as I was making a 5AM start on Mt Taranaki and didn't want to wake the relatives that early with porridge cookery I ate an OSM bar and a banana on the drive up. To my surprise that was enough to fuel the entire climb without any hunger pangs at all. I'm going to switch to an OSM and a coffee for breakfast on multi day trips - quicker, less cleaning up, good for hours of uphill fun and games.

One night in 2012 I shared Magdalene Hut with an Australian, who had a massive bag of pre made peanut butter and jam sandwiches for the WHOLE of the 4-5 day St James Walkway. He had 2 sandwiches for Breakfast/Lunch/Dinner, and a packet of Raro per day. That was it! No hot meals, no hot drinks. I said, "don't you get sick of eating that", he certainly did, but at least he didn't need to cook. Not my style of tramping at all, I like at least one hot meal a day and a couple of hot drinks.