Good post Woo, sodium poses so many health risks when consumed in excess, espec later in yrs ie. over 50.

Make it from scratch yourself. It's just a basic white sauce with cheese added. On low heat melt 3 tablespoons butter. Stir in 3 tablespoons of flour & cook stiring contantly for about a minute. Add one cup of milk ( 4 tablespoons powder to 1 cup water) Add 1/2 cup diced or shredded cheese of your choice & stir untill thickened. I like to add a pack of Grey Poupon or 1/4 teaspoon of dry mustard to give it a little zing. Pour over already prepared pasta. Yes it's alittle more work but you get cheese of your choice & so much healthier.

I do a similar thing with instant meals (add rice to stretch one box into two serving with less sodium). Would work for mac and cheese too. I wonder if something like rotini would could faster than macaroni?

BTW, when cooking pasta based dishes, how to you figure the water to add? The traditional instructions is to boil with excess water and then drain and then add the cheese mix. Assuming you don't do that with mac and cheese, what is your recipe/process?

i love mac and cheese when its sitting next to a piece of fried chicken. but as an entire meal it doesn't work for me.

ramen, nido, parmesan, bacon.
done.
no mac and cheese.

I've got dehydrated pasta and cheese powder. How should I put it together to make mac and cheese? Mix it all together and add water or rehydrate the cheese separately? I was thinking about adding dehydrated broccoli, mushrooms, and Nido.

I mixed up some cheese sauce with pasta today. I think I'm going to put 3 portions of dehydrated macaroni in one bag, add the boiling water, and let it rehydrate. In a separate bag, I'm going to mix up cheese sauce/nido/olive oil and add it to the macaroni when it's finished rehydrating. I think I'll use 1/2 cup of cheese sauce ... does that sound about right?

TrafficJam wrote:

I mixed up some cheese sauce with pasta today. I think I'm going to put 3 portions of dehydrated macaroni in one bag, add the boiling water, and let it rehydrate. In a separate bag, I'm going to mix up cheese sauce/nido/olive oil and add it to the macaroni when it's finished rehydrating. I think I'll use 1/2 cup of cheese sauce ... does that sound about right?

I never used powder cheese before, but hey, you can't have to much cheese in my book....it just isn't possible.

In fact, the new name is Kraft Cheese and macaroni

My daughter loves cheese, I've decided her trail name will be Cheesy, until she decides on something else. I wanted to name her Easy, because she's been such an easy kid to raise, but she nixed that idea right away.

TrafficJam wrote:

socks wrote:

TrafficJam wrote:

I mixed up some cheese sauce with pasta today. I think I'm going to put 3 portions of dehydrated macaroni in one bag, add the boiling water, and let it rehydrate. In a separate bag, I'm going to mix up cheese sauce/nido/olive oil and add it to the macaroni when it's finished rehydrating. I think I'll use 1/2 cup of cheese sauce ... does that sound about right?

I never used powder cheese before, but hey, you can't have to much cheese in my book....it just isn't possible.

In fact, the new name is Kraft Cheese and macaroni

My daughter loves cheese, I've decided her trail name will be Cheesy, until she decides on something else. I wanted to name her Easy, because she's been such an easy kid to raise, but she nixed that idea right away.

yeah I guess so

...cheesy works.

WiseOldOwl wrote:

TrafficJam wrote:

I mixed up some cheese sauce with pasta today. I think I'm going to put 3 portions of dehydrated macaroni in one bag, add the boiling water, and let it rehydrate. In a separate bag, I'm going to mix up cheese sauce/nido/olive oil and add it to the macaroni when it's finished rehydrating. I think I'll use 1/2 cup of cheese sauce ... does that sound about right?

sounds about right, are you practicing for backpacking today?

Yep. I'm dehydrating the macaroni right now... I'm planning on 6 cups macaroni with 1+ cup cheese sauce (1/2 cup powder to 1 cup liquid).

Also, I just tried the Bear Creek broccoli cheddar soup. I put 1/4 cup in a nalgene, added 3/4 cup water, and put it in the cozy for 15 min. The broccoli was chewy and it was really salty.

12trysomething makes this; maybe I'll do this for the girls and Rasty's jambalaya for me.

2 cups broccoli cheese soup
1 package ramen
2 cups water

appalachiantrailcafe.net/index…e0a4f3a18cae13ef70e808961

WiseOldOwl wrote:

TrafficJam wrote:

WiseOldOwl wrote:

TrafficJam wrote:

I mixed up some cheese sauce with pasta today. I think I'm going to put 3 portions of dehydrated macaroni in one bag, add the boiling water, and let it rehydrate. In a separate bag, I'm going to mix up cheese sauce/nido/olive oil and add it to the macaroni when it's finished rehydrating. I think I'll use 1/2 cup of cheese sauce ... does that sound about right?

sounds about right, are you practicing for backpacking today?

Yep. I'm dehydrating the macaroni right now... I'm planning on 6 cups macaroni with 1+ cup cheese sauce (1/2 cup powder to 1 cup liquid).

Also, I just tried the Bear Creek broccoli cheddar soup. I put 1/4 cup in a nalgene, added 3/4 cup water, and put it in the cozy for 15 min. The broccoli was chewy and it was really salty.

12trysomething makes this; maybe I'll do this for the girls and Rasty's jambalaya for me.

2 cups broccoli cheese soup
1 package ramen
2 cups water

Cozy for 20 minutes maybe try 1 cup and what are you using for a cozy?

I used my sunshade cozy

WiseOldOwl wrote:

odd man out wrote:

I do a similar thing with instant meals (add rice to stretch one box into two serving with less sodium). Would work for mac and cheese too. I wonder if something like rotini would could faster than macaroni?

BTW, when cooking pasta based dishes, how to you figure the water to add? The traditional instructions is to boil with excess water and then drain and then add the cheese mix. Assuming you don't do that with mac and cheese, what is your recipe/process?

The Glad Bags only hold so much product and water. I am somewhere about a cup and a half per bag.

TrafficJam wrote:

I've got dehydrated pasta and cheese powder. How should I put it together to make mac and cheese? Mix it all together and add water or rehydrate the cheese separately? I was thinking about adding dehydrated broccoli, mushrooms, and Nido.

Sorry for not checking the thread more often - how did this turn out - or did you add nido to smooth out the cheese?

The Broccolli heads I cut the very top with little stalk and make very tiny pieces - boil (blanch) and use a fruit tray - about two hours on the Nesco

I haven't tried it yet.

WiseOldOwl wrote:

OK have you considered doing this at home and using children in a torture test to see if it is edible....seriously.

Where is Mikey when you need him?

WiseOldOwl wrote:

OK have you considered doing this at home and using children in a torture test to see if it is edible....seriously.

There are no children at home.

TrafficJam wrote:

WiseOldOwl wrote:

OK have you considered doing this at home and using children in a torture test to see if it is edible....seriously.

There are no children at home.

Play time!

TrafficJam wrote:

WiseOldOwl wrote:

OK have you considered doing this at home and using children in a torture test to see if it is edible....seriously.

There are no children at home.

They'll be baaaaaaaack.

They'll be baaaaaaaack.

We thought our's was empty then the youngest, with new baby and wife, decided to come to upstate NY and go to school. We bought a large, old, victorian house with two of everything, had been owned by an elderly couple in their 70's with his 92 year old mom living in one side. I made a big, big, big mistake, installed a set of french doors to tie the two sides back together...guess which side they stayed on until bed time.

WiseOldOwl wrote:

odd man out wrote:

I do a similar thing with instant meals (add rice to stretch one box into two serving with less sodium). Would work for mac and cheese too. I wonder if something like rotini would could faster than macaroni?

BTW, when cooking pasta based dishes, how to you figure the water to add? The traditional instructions is to boil with excess water and then drain and then add the cheese mix. Assuming you don't do that with mac and cheese, what is your recipe/process?

The Glad Bags only hold so much product and water. I am somewhere about a cup and a half per bag.

TrafficJam wrote:

I've got dehydrated pasta and cheese powder. How should I put it together to make mac and cheese? Mix it all together and add water or rehydrate the cheese separately? I was thinking about adding dehydrated broccoli, mushrooms, and Nido.

Sorry for not checking the thread more often - how did this turn out - or did you add nido to smooth out the cheese?
The Broccolli heads I cut the very top with little stalk and make very tiny pieces - boil (blanch) and use a fruit tray - about two hours on the Nesco

I made the mac and cheese for lunch. I made the cheese sauce in a separate bag and it was too messy so next time I'll put the cheese sauce and the mac in one bag and rehydrate it together. I added enough water to cover the mac plus a little more and it was perfect, a little bland but nothing some hot sauce won't fix.

The portion size was too big but is probably perfect for a hungry hiker.

2 cups of cooked macaroni = 1 serving, before dehydrating.
The cheese sauce was 1/4 cup of cheese powder with 1/2 cup (plus a little more) of water and some Nido