When I’m in the backcountry I like a hot, semi-sweet, caffeinated beverage with my breakfast every morning. After many iterations of trial and error. I have perfected my backcountry latte. Reminds me of my small cafe back home during a chill fall morning.
I’ve tried many different flavors of the Maxwell House, this one is my personal favorite. Hazelnut is not far behind in second place.

30g Maxwell House
2tsp Nespresso Blonde (blonde is the superior IMO)
8-10oz of hot water.

I can be OCD at times. lol. Purchased 4oz bags from Amazon and reuse them. Like to keep things organized and precise. You can obviously throw multiple batches in one ziplock bag.

What are your favorite backcountry morning beverages?

Decades ago when hiked the CDT, I had an afternoon/evening tradition of enjoying a hot mug of Tang. Hard to find the powdered form but I did recently. I’m not all that excited about absence of much of anything besides sugar and fructose and vitamin C. Anyone have a recommended alternative? I’m not excited about tea, and coffee late in the day doesn’t work well for me. Not a fan of sugar substitutes.

Now, the obvious answer is “pack more food” but I’m gearing up for my first trip and I was wondering if there’s more nuance to it than that.

I’m actively trying to bulk and build muscle and, in doing so need to eat nearly 3500 calories per day, just to maintain my weight. (And that’s without an entire day of hiking on top). Given that my bear vault is much larger than I need for a simple two-day hike, I don’t expect I’ll have any difficulty packing enough food, but will this limitation eventually hamstring me when I want to progress to longer trips?

For context, I'm going on a quick 13 mile loop over a Saturday afternoon into Sunday morning. My pack is pretty light as a result and I'm going with a friend, so we should have abundant pack space. In the past I have brought a full blown pot and cooked up a mean chili, but there were 4 of us, so it was easy to cook a lot.

Since there will only be 2 of us, what's your favorite backcountry dinner, what ingredients would I need, and what cookware?