How to spend a month in your RV without a lot of cooking or shopping.
This is for all the part timers out there. If you are only out in your RV for the summer or a few weeks at a time, you may not want to spend all your time shopping and preparing meals. Here are a few tips to make your RV trip healthier and easier. We managed one full month without stepping foot inside a store.
As you plan your trip and your sightseeing stops, take some time to do the same around your meals. Are you content to eat something simple in the morning? What works best to get everyone out the door and enjoying the day.
Breakfast can be as simple as yogurt and granola, or a protein bar. An easy item to prepare at home is a loaf of bread to freeze for the road. My favorite is banana and walnut bread that includes oats in the ingredient list. Pre-cooked microwave bacon and a slice of bread with cream cheese should last everyone until lunch.
If you are going to be on the go all day, think about taking snacks so that no one is tempted to stop for fast food. Lunch meat, cut cheese or sausage can all be easy, portable snacks. Be sure to include some fresh fruit and vegetables. Think about crackers as your carbohydrate source instead of bread. They last longer, won’t get moldy or soggy and are easier to eat on the go.
Some easy things to make in advance can include a meatloaf or casseroles. If you can prepare and freeze these before your trip, dinner can be a snap after a day of adventuring. The trick is finding items that freeze well. If you have a convection oven, any one container dish can be easy to make along the way. When I cook meatloaf on the road, I mix everything in the aluminum pan that I will use in the convection oven. That avoids extra dishes which is ideal if you are boondocking or even just camping with electric but no water or sewer. Be mindful of the size and shape of the container for freezing so that things will easily stack in the small space. If you choose to buy frozen items to take with you, remove them from the packaging and place them inside of Ziploc bags to save space.
With RV refrigerator and freezer space at a premium, if your trip is longer than a week, you will probably need to stock up. But keep in mind that having canned pasta sauce, noodles, tuna, breadcrumbs, and a few powdered sauces will give you a variety of simple meals to cook. Come prepared with downloaded recipes in case you don’t have connectivity.
Visiting nearby Farmer’s Markets can be a most affordable and fun way to find the fresh items you need and experience the community. Farmers Markets holds a list of every market by state. Once you find one nearby, try and check it out on Facebook. I have found Facebook to be the most reliable guide as to whether the market is currently active and what products you are likely to find. Locals and vendors often post photos, so you know what to expect. We have hit the jackpot at several markets. We visited one in Poplar Bluff, Missouri and found scallops, shrimp and catfish that had just been trucked in from the Gulf of Mexico. Often you will find prepared breads or other baked items. At the end of the market time, vendor often reduce their prices, but you will have missed out on the premium items that sell at opening time.
There were times, we wanted the camping experience and cooking over an open fire is easier than you think. Invest in a simple grill and don’t rely on what the campground provides. Your grill can balance on rocks or over the existing grill that might be rusty.
Having a grill makes hot dogs, steaks, pork or even scallops a breeze. I took the scallops we found at the farmer’s market and put them in a thin aluminum pain which I sat on the grill. That way, they cooked in the butter sauce I made, and I avoided the smell that cooking seafood indoors can leave behind. That is another option when you do foil packets to avoid a split in the aluminum foil.
We were able to be out on a month-long trip and avoid the grocery store completely. Between the prepared foods we brought, our cabinet of all the basics and a few stops to the farmers markets along the way, our food preparation time was cut in half and the time we spent was enjoyable and allowed us to experience what was in season and fresh in the communities we visited.