AUSTIN COMPANY COOKS UP FOOD TO GO

From chicken and dumplings to banana pudding and margaritas, company’s food hits the trail.

Lunchtime at Packit Gourmet headquarters today takes place outdoors, on a sawed-off stump that doubles as a table.

Sarah Welton and her mother carefully pour boiling water into what looks like a bowl of confetti but quickly blooms into a piping hot bowl of chicken and dumplings. In 10 minutes, they dig into a dish that tastes surprisingly like something Grandma would make — which is why it’s named Dottie’s Chicken and Dumplings, after Welton’s grandmother, who made the best on the planet.

This version, though, is designed for campers, backpackers, paddlers and other outdoor adventurers who need lightweight, prepackaged meals to take into the back country. And yes, we k nowwhatyou’rethink- ing: Freeze-dried and dehydrated camp meals taste like heavily salted cardboard, or worse. Hold that thought. Welton, 36, grew up spending time in the back country with her parents, self-described hippies and wilderness paddlers Jeff and Debbie Mullins. They didn’t eat those prepackaged meals. Mullins made her own.

“She’s amazing,” says Welton of her mother. “Our meals were always delicious.”

But making them was labor intensive. Mullins spent days slicing and drying fruits and vegetables on screens, then combining those ingredien tstomakedishes that could be easily rehydrated on the trail.

“It was a lot of prep and dehydrating things on our own,” Mullins says. “I worked really hard.”

What Mullins really needed was a grocery store where she could buy high-quality, already freezedried or dehydrated ingredients to make her own meals. And what Welton, who admits she’s not much of a cook, really needed asshegrewupandstartedtraveling on her own was prepared meals that tasted like the ones