RV Cooking So Easy Even Caveman Could Do It

Lee and I started this series of experiments on food and how to make things RV friendly. The biggest challenges are that we do not have counter space, at all! The table will have to work, no matter how small, as prepping area for our cooking. We also need to simplify our recipes. I like to every now and then try new things and sometimes the recipes are complicated. Well, complicated is not gonna cut it in the RV. I don't mind cooking complicated stuff, what gets me is the chopping and prepping. If I can't have a sous chef, I will have stuff that has been sous cheffed for me ahead of time. Ladies and gentlemen, we have a perfect solution: easy cooking and easy storing (does not mean it doesn't take any room, just no special requirements) and prepping all done for you. The solutions is freeze dried ingredients!!!

As I am typing this I just have my RV soup simmering and it was so easy to make. I was going to make just a traditional soup with veggies and meat in it, until I realized that we were out of potatoes, or had just couple that looked kinda suspicious. And the meat was still frozen. Since I needed to cook for my poor hard working hubby, I decided that I will go with what my conscious has always rebelled against, easy route. So I took all our freeze dried veggies, a can of diced tomatoes, freeze dried meat and tossed a bit of this and a bit of that into the pot with some water, those tomatoes, and some salt, pepper, paprika, all spice, chili sauce and oregano and let it simmer for an hour. Now we have healthy, delicious and most of all super easy soup. Nothing to clean except the bowls we eat from, the pot and spoons. I love this!

When you are snuggled up by a rock or a tree out in the boonies, with as small of a fridge as we do, and you don't have an option to go grocery shopping daily, this is the way to go. The simplicity makes it so effortless too, that even someone who has started to lean towards the take out pizza versus home cooking just for its easiness can not complain at all. All it took was couple of minutes to throw things into the pot and add some spices. Once it started to boil, I just put the lid on it and let it simmer for another hour and by the time all has stopped floating on the surface, was well re-hydrated and cooked. I just sprinkled a bit of cheese on my soup  bowl and gobbled it all up. How much easier can it get? And all the ingredients are high quality, dry stored and we don't even have to go to the grocery store to buy them, they can all be ordered online. Hah, I can see how people get extreme on all kinds of things, I am ready to see how far I can go. 

To our surprise this soup was yummy!

No refrigerator needed

No tears

No peeling and chopping

                                

Pecans And Baking

Well, we have lived for over 4 years in this house and this Monday our lawn crew came and they asked if they would be allowed to pick a little bit pecans under our huge tree after the mowing. Of course, why not, we never did. I guess we assumed that we got nothing this year since last year the shells were empty due to severe drought. And the year must have been tough for squirrels too, we have much less of them than we used to. We happened to talk with our neighbor about the pecans and he just said that the pecans are beautiful this year, so I decided to go see if there was any left under the tree and I was in luck. I collected about two to three gallons of shells and very few actually were either empty or damaged, they might have been from last year for what we know.

Suddenly I wanted to bake a pecan pie and I had never baked one before. I asked my friends in Facebook for a good recipe and Catie Doman graciously shared her blue ribbon winning recipe. Keep your eyes peeled, I will share it with you with her permission. I went back to get some more pecans and kept jumping up to reach the ones up on the lowest branches too. I just wanted to make sure that I had enough for a pie in case they end up being bad ones. I was in luck again. I think I could bake thirty pies out of them. Better safe than sorry is what I'm thinking.

So I had most of the ingredients at home but wanted to make my baking as RV'ish as possible and I think I would use ready made crust to save time while RV'ing. And since I am trying to learn to take shortcuts, I decided it was good time to start using the half ready products. I am originally from Finland and we make everything from scratch and I need to learn to simplify my cooking a lot in order to enjoy it better. So here is the recipe for the filling, I used Pillsbury pie crust and I still have half of it left, since it has two crusts in it. I can make another one as soon as this one runs out, which is probably later on tonight.

Fresh from the oven, hot and still puffy!

Catie's Blue Ribbon Winning Pecan Pie:

1/2 cup of sugar

1 cup of Karo dark syrup
1 cup of pecans

3 eggs

4 tbs butter (which I forgot, still came out good)

1 tsp vanilla

1/8 tsp salt

Pillsbury pie crust or home made crust.

Mix the ingredients and pour onto the crust. Bake 10 mins in 400F and then 35 mins in 300F. You can probably make it prettier with nice edge and not forgetting the stuff out of it. But at least I do have a reason to make another pie. It is pretty yummy, make two at the same time so you don't have to be baking all the time.

Just imagine the stick of butter in the picture, I am sure it will be even
 tastier  with it.

YUM!

Serenity

The decision to keep the house has calmed me down. I am not so worried anymore what kind of rig we have, or if we have enough room. Not that having the house will help anything with the fact that we are living small while on the road, but just the knowledge of being able to return here will release some of the pressure of having to sell everything. It might actually be worth keeping the furniture at least some of it, so we don't have to go all crazy spending once we are done roaming around the country.

We also are relieved that we don't have to fix as much right away, since we are not trying to sell for a top dollar. Some changes that we need to do can be done down the road, whenever it seems necessary and we get to keep our nice neighborhood and all our friends and family close. Such a nice feeling. I am already feeling a little sad of missing on all the fun lunches and dinners with one of my closest friends. We usually have dinner in our favorite Indian buffet once a week, or anywhere we feel like, and those will sadly have to be iced until we come back from our Tour de America.

Fresh herbs will be greatly missed, especially the basil that
 took over the whole back yard

I have been following a few RV bloggers and I have to admit that I am pretty anxious to get on the road. Some of the bloggers have absolutely amazing photos on their blogs, and I am sure they would be able to make our dumpster to look like a dream vacation spot, but I can't help but wish I could go to see all those fabulous views and sceneries that they have photographed to their blogs. Looking at those pictures it just makes you think that they are either professional, or they have a camera that has a button "$1M" that makes everything look like million dollars. Maybe you can train your eyes to see the photo in front of you, but the colors look sometimes so surreal, maybe they have more professional gear than my point and shoot.

I have been frustrated with my own photos, since there isn't really anything yet to take pictures of, and when you are trying to blog about the brainstorming it gets a bit difficult to take photos that are actually somehow related to the post itself. I have to use pictures of what ever random stuff  that are not related to anything that I am really talking about, but that have something in them that I like, not necessarily great photos, but images of things that I like. This is one of the reasons you have seen so many pictures of our critters and our home. But this is one of the things I would like to concentrate more once we hit the road. I can't wait for that one.

Another amazing photo of the... vegetation on our yard. 

Moving from 3000 square feet to about 150 will be a huge change. I am sure the lack of storage is not going to be the only issue, one of the things I have been threading is the cooking. We have a pretty big kitchen with all the possible appliances and gadgets and the RV, well, it just doesn't. I have been thinking about toaster oven and maybe a single burner to add little cooking power, but then again storing them will be an issue. I think we will just try to figure out how to use the convection micro as an oven and try to get by with as little as possible. I think my Kitchen Aid might not have a spot in the RV, drats!


                                 

Pumpkin Season Is Here!

Today we got greeted with a nice cool weather. It had been raining at night, which we are excited about. The watering of the lawn and plants had started to feel like a second job. The rain has cooled down the temperatures that had been soaring at around 100F all summer. It feels wonderful to go out without having to wear shoes around the pool just to prevent your feet from burning up on the hot concrete. Now we can keep the doors open and let the breeze to get in. Aah, how I love the first cool days after the toasty summer. My plans were to finish up some yard work as soon as the weather like this arrived, but instead  I decided to just lounge on the couch and be useless. Man, it was tough, but I think I achieved my goal.

 After few sweet recipes, I thought it was time to straighten up our diets and stir away from the sweets and try to eat a bit healthier, and suddenly after today's lunch in Vietnamese restaurant the curry chicken pho made me crave for more curry, and suddenly I remembered that it is almost time to dust of your holiday recipes, and I happen to have one that I just one day pulled out of my sleeve, and it made into a hit at a Thanksgiving party, even kids loved it.

So get ready for fall, the pumpkin season is here. And even though I will try to stick to the healthier stuff I think I will occasionally slip in few recipes that will also satisfy the sweet tooth. But for now I am going to share my recipe for curried pumpkin soup. And since I like the easy cooking, this is once again one of those recipes where most of the ingredients come straight out of the can. And it is really good too!!!

Pumpkin Soup with a little side kick!

2 tbs butter

small onion

2 cans of pureed pumpkin

2 cans of chicken broth

1 can of coconut milk

bunch of cilantro

salt

turmeric

coriander

cumin

nutmeg

curry

Melt butter on a large sauce pan, add finely chopped onion and spices to taste, I usually start with about 1/2 tsp each except nutmeg 1/4 tsp and add later on to taste I like mine more flavorful, so I usually add another round of the spices. Stir for a minute or so and add broth and pumpkin. Let mixture warm up to a boiling before adding the coconut milk. Let boil for a while (10-15minutes) and add spices to your taste if needed. Just when done cooking, add fairly generously chopped cilantro, stir in. Garnish with some more cilantro and a dollop of sour cream. Tadaa!

Yours to try, let me know how you liked it.

                                  

Chick Pea Salad by Moi

Another recipe by me. This one came around just from the attempt to imitate something I had eaten. Well, what I ate before was more like marinated chick peas, and I had no idea how to make a marinade for them, so I decided just to throw in some stuff and see what came out of it. This recipe has been requested by so many, that I think it is best to be shared here, no more writing down it for me. This is easy to modify to include or exclude what ever your likes are. I love cilantro, so I use it a lot. Not everyone likes it, and you can easily replace it with parsley, and you don't have to use it as much either. You could add a bit more olive oil, and put everything into the food processor to ground it up into a dip for pita chips or what not. Chick peas are so good, and you can make almost anything with them, even patties to fry. I guess I just made myself hungry for some falafels. But here goes the recipe:

Chick Pea Salad

4 cans of chick peas, rinsed and drained

1 bunch of cilantro

1/4 c of red onion minced

1/2 c of chopped sun dried tomatoes

1/2 c of parmesan cheese

5 tbs olive oil

pinch of salt

Use a large mixing bowl, toss everything in there, season and mix. Tadaa, that was difficult. Yours to try now, let me know what you did and how you liked it. 

Nutty Banana Bread Day Is Here

The day finally came that my bananas got ready for being baked into a bread. I was supposed to clean all day, and do laundry, then some baking, and finish up the yard work, that is still waiting on us to make a move. Well, after last attempt to wreck my back, I wasn't too keen starting on that  show. But I did plan on cleaning and baking, and making some laundry.

I so love my friends, they do come to the rescue always when you need it, and my dear friend delighted my evening by stopping by. Us two sitting down and enjoying of nothing (but beer) was long over due. So I junked the plans of laundry and cleaning, but I did manage to get the banana bread out of the oven before she showed up with pizza. So that's what was for dinner, beer, pizza and banana bread.

My friend gave the thumbs up, so did Lee and I feel pretty confident that it is ok to share the recipe with y'all! This banana bread is good.

Banana bread

1 c shortening

2 c sugar

6 ripe bananas

4 eggs

2 1/4 c (2.25 c) whole wheat flour

1 tsp salt

2 tsp baking soda (I used only 1 tsp)

1tsp vanilla (I used vanilla sugar, Scandinavian thang)

1 c chopped pecans (optional)

Cream shortening and sugar together. Mash bananas and add to the creamed mixture. Add eggs, one at a time, beating after each addition. Sift flour, salt and baking soda together and add to banana mixture (if you use vanilla sugar, add it with the dry ingredients) Add vanilla and pecans. Pour into 2 greased and floured 9x5x2 inch loaf pans and bake at 350 for 45 minutes or until the toothpick inserted to the center of the loaf comes out clean. (took 1h for me) Tadaa!!!! 

Make it and let me know how you liked it!

Fanfares for Southern Cooking

The banana pudding ended up on the table of the Southern potluck today. Man, I don't care how unhealthy it is, but I just love Southern food, it is made out of deliciousness and sweet intentions to make people happy. And I sure got happy. On the negative note, I have tomorrow a health screening, where my cholesterol will be checked, and I am not expecting to score as well as I would have before the potluck. And on the other hand, I don't really even care, since I got my belly full of yummies, and that's when I forget the worries. Hah!

I am kinda perfectionist, and it doesn't matter much what is being measured, I would like to be the best possible what ever at any given situation. But the cholesterol... yeah, I made peace with myself before I attacked the crispy chicken, corn casserole, sweet potatoes and Dorito salad. I had never even heard of such, but it was so good, and I will be finding out how to make some myself, maybe I will share the secrets with you too. So you will have to learn to be more forgiving for yourself too, life is too short to worry about the comfort food.

The banana pudding got thumbs up, but I personally think it was quite sweet, and maybe the problem was me substituting the milk to almond milk with vanilla flavor. The pudding had lots of vanilla in it, but that is what I had, and thought that it had to do, it just adds sweetness to it. And maybe unsweetened condensed milk would allow you to add sweetness to your own liking, but I didn't want to risk it with too many changes, since I am no expert with such things. Either way people seemed to like it, I just personally would prefer less sweetness. So if you like less sweet stuff, you might want to consider regular milk and regular condensed milk.

My work, still trying to figure out if I can
continue while RV'ing

But I have gotten for some reason really into trying to figure out RV friendly cooking, which basically just means, easy, no mess stuff, and I will probably start more often blogging about the ones that were successful, and worthy of blogging. Right now we just are chilling out and waiting for dinner to cook. Meanwhile I will try to find out some recipes, that I desperately want to learn, not necessarily cause they'd be RV friendly, but cause they are delicious.

No Bake Banana Pudding

My quest to make the worlds best banana bread was sabotaged by my DH, hungry hubbies can be devastating for a girls baking plans. But I decided to post another recipe that I talked about, banana pudding that does not need baking, and to be honest, since I am not native, I had actually no idea that it would be ever even baked, but this is way faster, and also in a small space of RV will not create too much heat. The recipe that I used was found online, and it was for 20 servings, and I made some changes for it. Maybe I shouldn't have, since I am not used to making banana pudding, but I kinda ran out of the pudding mixture before I had even one third of the bananas used. So my version probably has much more pudding than what you all who know more about the matter would prefer. So maybe renaming the dish would be in place... Some Bananas in Pudding?

No bake banana pudding

I will post the recipe as I should have followed it, but will make notes about the changes to the recipe. This recipe comes together so fast, and especially if you would be RV'ing too, you would appreciate the fact it it takes very little dishes. I love easy, no mess baking and cooking. I prefer recipes that require nothing but throwing whole things out of fridge straight into the pot and get heated. This is one of those, or at least very close to one of them. All dishes to wash that I had were small cutting board, knife, measuring cup and measuring spoon, spatula, beaters and bowl. And next time I don't even need cutting board, bananas are easy to cut in your hand, as long as you use regular knife that you would use with fork. No trips to ER, especially if you're RV'ing. But let's get to business:

Essentials, minus the condensed milk, ooops! 

No Bake Banana Pudding

Ingredients

1 (5 ounce) package instant vanilla pudding mix

2 cups cold milk (I used vanilla flavored almond milk)

1 (14 ounce) can sweetened condensed milk

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

1 (12 ounce) container frozen whipped topping, thawed

1 (16 ounce) package vanilla wafers (I didn't use quite all of these)

14 bananas sliced (I only used 4 to 5, don't ask, it is still delicious!)

Just to add here a note I got from one of my glass friends, she thought that there had been typo in the original recipe, that 14 bananas just sounds way too much, she thinks that 4 sounds more about right. Yay me, accidentally might have gotten it right. :D

Directions:

In a large mixing bowl, beat the pudding and cold milk for 2 minutes. Mix in condensed milk until smooth. Stir in vanilla and fold in whipped topping. Layer wafers, bananas and pudding mixture into the glass serving bowl. Chill until serving.

I either didn't put thick enough slices of bananas, or I didn't overlap them, or I put too much pudding mixture, either way, I am pretty sure it will be quite delicious, at least what I licked from the spatula was yummy! One more victory to my RV cookbook! I am pretty stoked and can't wait until tomorrow to see what my coworkers will say, I am no expert in any Southern foods, and they are, so this will be quite a test for me. The good thing is that they are probably not expecting much from my Southern cooking, but I hope they will be pleasantly surprised. Even though it is missing most of its bananas. I ain't telling if you won't.

Well, the good thing about not using as many bananas as the recipe called for is, I will now have enough bananas to make my banana bread, assuming that Lee will leave them alone. Wish me luck!

Practicing the RV Living in the Kitchen

I am so confident that we need an RV with an oven. Lee is not quite convinced that I would actually use it, since we have now 2 ovens, and they don't get used as often as I thought when we bought the house. But if we lived in an RV, I think we need to actually cook more, and eat less out. Especially while boon docking, there really isn't always any place to go to eat, and if you plan on saving money on your journey, then you might as well live according to it. Now it isn't that I can't cook, I sure can, but I learned to cook everything from scratch, so it takes an eternity to do anything. My mission is to learn to take short cuts, so I have time to enjoy the life too.

Met these guys at the Canton swap meet. Bet they know about
Southern foods

Today I am going to make sopapilla cheesecake, something that I have done before, but decided to make it  again, since it is very tasty and so easy to make. I also decided that I have to learn to cook some of the Southern foods, main dishes and desserts, and I am hoping that the bananas that I bought the day before yesterday will be ripe enough before I have to go back to work next week, so I can make banana bread or banana pudding.

Bluebell ice cream was not on sale, so no vanilla
 ice cream for us! Just sopapilla cheesecake.

Sopapilla cheesecake is ready now... and smells good. I am also hooked up on Pinterest, that is where I got this recipe from, and I think it would be perfect for RV baking, fast and doesn't take much to throw it together.

Sopapilla cheesecake:

Ingredients:

2 cans of butter Crescent rolls

2 packages (8 oz. each) of cream cheese

1 cup of sugar

1tsp of vanilla sugar (if you are a Viking) or vanilla extract

2 to 3 tbs butter

some sugar and cinnamon to sprinkle on the top

Just line the bottom of a 9x13 pan with one can of rolls. Mix cream cheese, sugar and vanilla and spread the mixture on top of the dough. Add another can of rolls on top (if you have the ones with seams, pinch them shut). Melt butter and brush it on the top of the cake and sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon. The original recipe calls for 1/2 of butter, and 1/4 cup of sugar cinnamon mixture, but that is just diabetes waiting to happen, and tastes just as good without the ton of sweetness and grease. Now just shove it into the oven for 350F for about 20 to 30 minutes and enjoy warm or room temperature once done. And it really doesn't even need the ice cream, even though it would look better that way. Hah!

One thing that kind of worries me about the toy haulers kitchen is, that it does not have much room to store anything, but I am thinking that since we have the garage, I could store some items there. The only problem is that I seem to think that about everything, clothes, kitchen items, art supplies and of course the toys that the hauler is meant for. I would be happy with just some fishing gear and canoe, and maybe mountain bikes, but I have a feeling that it is too much stuff to be shoved into one toy hauler.

We

We are looking for a diesel rig for now, but we are worried that our budget is not big enough to afford one that we like. Often the diesel versions of these toy haulers are more difficult to find and they are pricier. The advantages of a diesel seem to be that they are longer lasting motors, and if taken care of, can last forever. They also are capable of carrying a heavier load, which would mean, that we could take more of our things with us. So much for pairing down. But to be honest, just moving from a 3000 square foot house into a 36 foot RV does require more slimming down than I know how to do. I guess I will find out how to...