Cooking on the Road
We try to cook the majority of our meals while we are traveling in our van, the Red Tail Lodge. Cooking our own meals makes traveling more affordable. It also gives us control over how healthy and nutritious our meals are. How does cooking on the road differ from cooking at home? We'll share with you what that means for us. Your mileage may vary.
Let's start with how we cook at home. Right Buddy (RB) makes most of our meals from scratch, not processed foods from boxes and cans. However, RB mainly only cooks the evening meal. Everyone in our family is on their own for preparing their own breakfast and lunch, so they generally do not involve cooking other than heating up leftovers or frying an egg. We like to eat a variety of cuisines from around the world. In addition, RB likes to bake, mostly breads and desserts, but usually not really sweet stuff. However, she normally bakes during the winter, not during the hot summer months. The tools we have at our disposal at home are a large refrigerator and freezer, a gas oven with a five burner cooktop, a microwave, a toaster, a French press for coffee, a food processor, a stand mixer, an immersion blender, a crock pot, a large InstantPot, a large electric tea kettle, a propane grill, a large double-basin kitchen sink, and a dishwasher. RB plans out our evening meals a week at a time so she only has to make a trip to the grocery store once a week, especially during COVID.
How does that compare with how we cook on the road? We still plan out our evening meals a week at a time and grocery shop about once every seven to ten days. Most of the differences are a result of the different cooking tools we have with us. For our first two seasons, our van fridge was only 28 liters (about 1 cubic foot), a Domestic CFX28 (paid link), with no freezer. For Season Three, we are increasing our capacity to 65 liters (2.3 cubit feet) by switching to an Isotherm CR65EL (unpaid link). Four of those liters are a mini freezer. This still is only a small fraction of the 19 cubic foot fridge and 9 cubic foot of freezer space we have at home. In addition, we do not travel with an oven, microwave, toaster, French press, food processor, stand mixer, crock pot, propane grill, nor dishwasher. For cooking in our van, we only have a small electric tea kettle (paid link), a small Instant Pot (paid link) with a glass lid (paid link) and steamer basket (paid link), and a single burner butane camp stove (paid link). We also bring along an immersion blender (paid link). For washing dishes we have a small sink along with a plastic container to hold the rinse water.
So how does the different list of available tools affect our cooking? The biggest impact is the size of our fridge. We have to plan our grocery shopping carefully. To conserve our precious fridge space, we eat less meat and we don't buy milk. Canned chicken works great in soups, stews, quesadillas, and chicken salad. Pepperoni, summer sausage, and beef jerky do not need to be refrigerated, although we use these sparingly due to their high sodium content. A small amount of bacon adds a lot of flavor to a sauce or dish. Other sources of protein are beans & rice, quinoa, hummus, nuts, peanut butter, eggs, and cheese, although eggs and cheese do take up space in the fridge. Most fresh vegetables do not need to be refrigerated and we hang them in a net bag (paid link) instead, but they do not stay fresh as long.
For milk or cream, we use powdered milk (paid link). The powdered milk works great as a milk or cream substitute in recipes, in Left Buddy's (LB's) coffee, or in our hot oatmeal. We do not use it to drink milk, but we were not big milk drinkers to begin with. At home, RB drinks fruit juice for breakfast and fresh brewed iced tea during the day. She gave up both of those while we travel. She's hoping the larger fridge might allow her to have one or both of those back.
The usual items in our van fridge are a pound of butter, a single, large container of vanilla yogurt, a small container of blueberries, lunchmeat, cheese slices, six eggs (a dozen didn't fit in our Dometic fridge), a pound of bacon, carrots, celery, two cans of Coke, one can of beer (RB doesn't drink beer), a small bottle of mayo, a small bag of Dove dark chocolate (priorities!), plus whatever else was needed for that week's menu. If we run out of space in the fridge, we can pull out the blueberries and/or eggs for a while.
Not having ice bothered us more during Season Two than it did during Season One, mostly due to COVID. During Season One, we would stop often at gas stations, truck stops, convenience stores, or fast food restaurants to buy iced drinks. Because of COVID, we avoided going into stores and restaurants more than once a week. During Season Two, we mainly drank room-temperature water. The cold Cokes in our small fridge were a treat about once or twice a day. When we pulled a cold Coke from the fridge, we replaced it with a warm one. With the new fridge for Season Three, we will be able to make a small amount of ice. However, we don't know how long it will take to make ice and it may still be more efficient to put drinks in the fridge to cool instead of using the ice. RB is hoping there will be enough room in the new fridge for a container of fresh brewed iced tea. We'll keep you posted.
Things that we normally keep in the fridge at home that we keep outside of the fridge in the van include ketchup, mustard, some salad dressings, BBQ sauce, and soy sauce. These items can be kept unrefrigerated for long periods of time. There isn't much room in the fridge for lots of leftovers, so we try to only cook what we are going to eat that meal. When we do have leftovers, they are usually consumed the next day for lunch or dinner.
At home, we mainly use the freezer for ice, storing meat and ice cream. Our new van fridge has a freezer, but it's not very big. Making a small amount of ice may be about the only thing we use it for. Our plan is to only buy the meat we will be using that week on the road, so freezing meat is not necessary. The freezer is a little small to keep a significant amount of ice cream. Besides, we like to search for ice cream shops while we travel.
Not having an oven with us means we don't bake while on the road. However, RB does not normally bake in the hot summer months anyway. It's also an excuse to search out local bakeries for breads and sweets. Other items we might cook in an oven, such as white and sweet potatoes, cook nicely and quickly in our small Instant Pot using pressure cooking. The Instant Pot is also great for steaming fresh vegetables, like broccoli or corn on the cob. We have seen some people use an Omnia Stove Top Oven (unpaid link) to bake items as shown in a From She to Me video (thank you Deb!). Maybe we'll try using that in the future.
At home, we use the microwave for reheating leftovers or making popcorn. While traveling, we use the Instant Pot on the sauté setting or use a pan on the butane stove to reheat leftovers. For popcorn, we pop it the old-fashioned way in a pot on our butane stove. It takes a little more skill to know when exactly to pull the pot off the stove to prevent the popcorn from burning. When we were kids, our families did not have microwaves yet, so that is how our parents made popcorn for us.
Not having a toaster with us means we don't have toast or toasted bagels, but toasting bread in a pan on the butane stove is a good substitute. Spreading the bread with butter before toasting it in the pan adds a nice flavor and prevents it from burning.
In order to avoid dealing with the coffee grounds and filters while on the road and reducing the number of breakfast dishes we need to wash, LB prefers to use instant coffee (paid link) in the van instead of bringing along his French press from home or using his Hario Coffee Dripper (paid link). RB doesn't drink coffee and LB is willing to sacrifice flavor for the convenience. All that is needed to make coffee is to heat up the water in our electric tea kettle.
For blending things, the immersion blender is a great substitute for the food processor. The only difference is that we may need to blend things in smaller batches with the hand blender. For grating items, we use our box grater instead of the food processor. It takes a little longer to grate those potatoes for hash browns by hand, but the box grater is easier to clean afterwards. We know some people like to buy dehydrated hash browns to use while traveling. However, for just the two of us, we can hand grate a couple of potatoes in the same amount of time it takes to rehydrate the hash browns and we think the fresh potatoes taste better.
Since RB is not baking in the van, she doesn't really miss the stand mixer. She mainly uses the mixer for baking. If we need to whip cream, we can always get an arm workout by using a hand whisk, although we haven't done it so far.
Most items that we used to cook in our crock pot can be made in the Instant Pot instead. Pulled pork actually turns out better in the Instant Pot than the crock pot. Cooking a pork shoulder roast under pressure with a little bit of liquid smoke produces very tender and flavorful pulled pork.
Not having a grill with us is just a matter of sacrificing some flavor. Everything you can cook on a grill, you can fry in a pan on the stove instead. Although we do prefer the flavor of a hamburger on a grill over frying in a pan, it is not enough of a difference for us to take up space in our van for a grill.
Since it is just the two of us, not having a dishwasher is not a huge deal. For breakfast, we generally only have one or two bowls and spoons to clean in the morning, which is quickly done in our small sink without too much fuss. At lunch, we just wipe off our couple of bowls or plates with the same paper towels we used for napkins and store the dishes to be washed later in the day with the dinner dishes. So the major dishwashing happens after dinner, when we have dirty pots and pans along with the dinnerware.
Besides the canned chicken, there are several other staples we usually have on hand in the van. These include:
Canned diced tomatoes
Canned tomato sauce (unseasoned)
Canned black beans
Boxes of chicken stock
Quinoa
Whole wheat pasta
Flour
Sugar
Brown sugar
Instant brown rice
Whole wheat bread
Flour tortillas
Tortilla chips
Jars of salsa
Peanut butter
Nuts (peanuts, pecans and/or cashews)
Container of popcorn
Granola bars
Quick oats
Granola cereal
Apples
Dried fruit (raisins, bananas, blueberries, and/or cherries)
Instant coffee
Large container of hot cocoa mix
Lemonade mix
Variety of tea bags
Spices
Oils and vinegars
We use most of these same items at home because they are quite versatile, don't require refrigeration, and keep for long periods of time. At home we use real ground coffee instead of instant, regular brown rice instead of instant, and old-fashioned oats instead of quick oats. Using instant items while traveling saves us time, saves butane fuel and/or battery power, and allows us to make coffee and oatmeal using just our electric tea kettle. Most of these items that we keep on hand are used for quite a few different recipes. Combining them in different ways gives us quite a variety of different meals.
So what meals do we make with all of that stuff? Breakfast is yogurt with granola cereal and blueberries, oatmeal with dried fruit, or granola bars. Adding the dried fruit to the oatmeal at the same time that we add the boiling water allows the fruit to rehydrate. Our breakfast drinks of choice are coffee, lemonade, hot cocoa, or tea.
Lunch can be cold cut sandwiches, tortilla chips and salsa or guacamole, tortillas and hummus along with sliced cucumbers, salad, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, chicken salad sandwiches, or bagels and cream cheese. We usually keep lunch pretty simple.
Here is a list of what we might prepare for dinner:
Pasta
Chili
Grilled cheese & tomato soup (diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, a little chicken stock, and fresh basil)
Celery soup
Roasted beet salad with feta, hard-boiled eggs, and pecans
Kielbasa, mashed potatoes, and steamed veggies
Egg scramble (with whatever is on hand such as onions, cheese, tomatoes, zucchini, summer squash, and/or bacon)
Mediterranean quinoa (onions, bell peppers, tomatoes, Italian seasonings)
Greek quinoa (cucumbers, tomatoes, feta, and fresh basil)
Cheesy broccoli quinoa
Quinoa tabouleh (cucumbers, tomatoes, green onions, carrots, parsley, and fresh lemon juice)
Chicken quesadillas with homemade tomatillo salsa
Southwestern chicken soup
BLT's and corn on the cob
RB's Spanish rice (rice, beans, tomatoes, bell peppers, and onion)
BBQ chicken or pork sandwiches with cucumber salad or slaw
Asian slaw with peanuts
RB's fried cabbage (with bacon, tomatoes, and white or sweet potatoes)
Baked sweet potatoes with butter and brown sugar
Hamburgers and potato salad or slaw
Thai cucumber salad with peanuts
Egg drop soup and wilted lettuce salad (not sure why RB usually makes these two items for the same meal)
Gyros
Cream of broccoli soup with Texas toast
Fried egg sandwiches
Scrambled eggs, bacon, and toast (toasted in the skillet)
Brats and sauerkraut with applesauce
Hash browns with applesauce
Tortilla pizzas (using flour tortillas for the crust, cooking the pizza in a covered skillet on the stove)
Gazpacho soup
Pork chops, fried zucchini or summer squash with rice or quinoa
Butter chicken and rice
French toast with fresh berries, cinnamon and sugar
Sloppy joes with salad
Thai curry chicken with rice
Baked potatoes with broccoli and cheese sauce
Reubens
A new item we are going to try to add for Season Three is making pancakes with dried buttermilk (paid link). We'll let you know how that works out. We've already made them at home and they tasted great!
As you can see, we are pretty much able to prepare on the road what we would normally make at home. How will cooking on the road look for you? That depends how you like to travel, what tools you want to bring along with you, and how much money you want to spend on food. If you make short trips instead of long ones, you can prepare items ahead of time. Some items you can freeze, let them thaw in a cooler, and just reheat them. A little planning and thinking about how cooking on the road will differ from cooking at home will allow you to have wonderful meals while you travel. Hopefully this post will get you thinking and give you ideas that you can use. Bon Appétit!
Check out our related video: Cooking on the Road
(RB)