We do a lot of tramping (or hiking , as you call it
). What we take depends on how long we're going for and how far we're walking - the shorter the time / distance, the nicer our food tends to be!
For a short walk, we'll often carry in pre-cooked shrink-wrapped sausages (the brand we prefer is Sizzlers, not sure if that's available in other countries), bread and fresh veges for the first night. On subsequent nights (or the first, if we don't feel like carrying that much weight!) we'll usually cook pasta meals (those ones in foil packets with pasta and powder - just add water) and a packet of dehy veges. We dehydrate cooked mince or stew ourselves sometimes; this tastes good, but we don't get round to it enough. Another favourite of my husbands (but not many of our tramping-mates!) is a packet of instand spud, a packet of dehy veges, and a packet of instant soup, all mixed together. It looks dreadful but is fairly tasty... if you've walked a 12-hour day beforehand. I don't know if I could eat it at home!!!
We don't often buy pre-prepared dehy meals. They taste great, but we find they are often too small for us, and they cost so much. I've heard army 'rat packs' are good, but haven't tried them.
For lunches, we tend to take crackers and something to put on them (peanut butter, usually, although it's pretty heavy). We've tried a lot of brands of crackers, and have pretty much settled on a whole-grain one which is fairly indestrucable and doesn't end up as cracker-crumbs as a rule!