PACKING UP & ON THE ROAD AGAIN

JUST BEFORE HEADING TO FLORIDA this past fall, my wife and I consumed a gourmet lunch consisting of scrambled eggs, a half jar of olives and 10 pizza rolls. Let me tell you how we got there.

I am the chief cooker and shopper in our household. I am an extremely messy cook and my wonderful bride has assumed the role of executive cleaner-upper and organizer of all things messy. In our household it seems to work out well although she might have a different opinion. We don’t starve and we seldom run out of clean dishes, it’s a win-win kind of thing.

Each fall (and again in the spring) as we prepare for our annual 3- day trek between homes, I try to carefully pare down the amount of food in our refrigerator and cupboards so we don’t waste anything and we don’t have to haul a lot back and forth. It can lead to an interesting combination of items for that last meal.

We do have a fridge in the camper and as long as there is not a lot of  inventory, it will usually fit nicely. Cupboard space is extremely limited though and we cannot fit more than a cardboard box or two of groceries. And yes I am aware that there are Walmarts all along the way, but the point is to NOT haul too much stuff. 

Also there are a gagillion restaurants between homes (I exaggerate, there’s only 2/3s of a gagillion) and it’s easy to stop for a quick bite so there is no need to pack excessive food. Our kids are always asking what we want for Christmas and I tell them Cracker Barrel gift certificates. We enjoy overnighting in their parking lot and we like the food. What could be better? It’s also kind of fun to sit in the rockers out front and enjoy a “sasparilla” after a long day’s drive.

In the old-timey wagon train days, a party of hunters would be sent out ahead of the main body to see if they could find any fresh meat. The day’s kill might include anything from goat, pig, dog to the occasional lame horse. Beans and bacon were the staples though and the wives struggled to find creative ways to cook them. I’m not sure I could make the 3-day journey on nothing but bacon and beans although it might cut down on the times we have to stop for gas.

We do have a tiny kitchen in the motorhome and as long as I’m not cooking anything bigger than a Cornish game hen we make it work. It came with a magnificent microwave conductive heater oven thing and we can pretty much cook anything in there. It’s not all that big though and I could probably not roast a filet of Flicka however. 

So last year, as we prepared to head north we had a ½ jar of mayo, one suspicious looking hotdog and a bag of old trail mix.
Any suggestions how I could make a meal out of that?