For solo and small group hiking of like minded folks, I'm a devotee of freezer-bag cooking, see the book and website at http://www.freezerbagcooking.com/. Boil and add water. Lots of tasty recipes, light weight, super simple to prepare, very little if any waste, all that's required at times is the forethought to run your dehydrator for ingredients and bag them into meals. The Freezer Bag Cooking book is first rate, the ongoing discussion on BackPacker forums is very good too. http://www.backpacker.com/cgi-bin/forums/ikonboard.cgi?act=SF;f=512107219.

For first meals on the trail, car camping, and hikes where I'm not so weight conscious, I like to splurge and eat old style, by which I mean old recipes for fry bread, biscuits, and other meals prepped over open fire (where permitted) as opposed to boiling water. One really good source for recipes is something called the Lookout Cookbook, compiled years ago by the Forest Service from the folks manning their fire lookouts. They tended to eat very well, if alone. Lo and behold, there's a free online version of Lookout now - http://www.foresthistory.org/Research/usfscoll/publications/Cookbook/Lookout_Cookbook.html.