I’d suggest tracking how many calories you normally eat for dinner and on extra hungry (I.e. gym/skipped lunch) days, then adjust recipes proportionally to make sure you get the calories you need on your backpacking trip.

I realized we’re responding to this a bit late… If the rice is a bit oily, you can blot it with a paper towel. Otherwise, it’s ok as long as there’s no moisture. The oil mostly affects shelf life since it can go rancid, but it shouldn’t be an issue if you use it within the season.

That should work, especially if you wrap some kind of insulator around the pot, like a cozy or even just a jacket.

I haven’t tried it as a ziplock meal so I can’t say for sure. My guess is that the mushrooms and rice would rehydrated ok (assuming you’re using a cozy?). The peas are the things I’m not confident about. If you’ve had success rehydrating peas in other meals using that method, then I say go for it!

Peas shrink by about half their volume when dehydrated, so I’d start with 2 tablespoons of dehydrated peas for this recipe.

We generally find that if you add the dehydrated meal to your pot, and then add water to just cover it, that usually works. You can check in on it while it rehydrates and add a little more water if needed.