RV-ING Blog-January 2nd, 2015
Welcome!
Folks, I’m hoping that everyone had a blessed Christmas and that it was everything you wished it to be. That holiday is made even more special by the gathering of loved ones. How you wish to spend the day and season and with whom you share it varies greatly for everyone. Each person has their own traditions and that is most likely what guides their celebration.
Being Christians, the day is the celebration of the birth of our Lord for my family. We each do that in our own way. Of course no Christmas would be complete without some gifts, though our attempt to limit this tradition in some ways is part of our trying to make the sacred day less commercialized. We want to avoid the feeling that people must break the bank in order to enjoy the season. We do exchange gifts but, try to make them more of a token variety rather than a huge expenditure and expectation.
In our family, every special day has at least one special food or more that we make part of the feast we share. For many years, we were the ones putting on the event and would cook ridiculous amounts of food for our group and Dan and I enjoyed sending home leftovers as well as eating them ourselves for a while. The foods were good. They were special. Many were only made at certain holidays. Our family is representative of many ethnic groups so there are many specialties to choose from and several must haves for every holiday. The past few years my daughter in law Shannon and son Danny have taken over the cooking of the big meal. It always tastes great, but I no longer am responsible for it. I usually do bring several items but, as husband Dan says, “they took my spatula away,” which shows you what he knows about cooking a turkey or ham. Seriously though, I still cook large meals occasionally, but after 50 years they are prepared less often. With health issues being a part of our lives, I have attempted to make meals that are more healthy.
Since I love to cook and am a fair, though far from perfect cook, I am working on the feeding us aspect of our upcoming camping adventure. For my birthday, my daughter Lori and son-in-law Lee sent me several books about the full time RV-ING experience. One was a cook book for that lifestyle. As part of my preparation for this drastic change in lifestyle, I will be trying out some of the recipes soon. Will let you know how we liked them and if they fit my criteria for meals. I will also add these books to a bibliography page I hope to add to this blog in the future
What are my musts for meals in the RV lifestyle? Well, I will not sacrifice taste for the criteria I have in mind. I will not completely limit my choices as far as foods and cooking methods. The RV cookbook I was sent has a fairly extensive list of supplies and equipment for your kitchen as well as a list of pantry and cold storage staples. This give me hope that I can produce great meals and still limit the need to carry so much extra weight. At this point it appears to be a balancing act. The book seems to point the way to being efficient and not limiting us to boring meals which would take the ‘flavor out of the adventure.’
One thing I want as part of my new lifestyle is to prepare meals even more healthy than I do at home and serve smaller servings as far as my new health plan. I know our exercise level will increase while out in the world so I feel an occasional splurge will not be too detrimental especially if I cook it myself so I can control what goes into it. As part of this blog, I will be sharing actual recipes when we are on the road and any insights into what makes the tiny kitchen work for us.
Shopping for necessary stuff for the journey has begun and will be explored in the next blog. Please comment at any time on items you found to be indispensable for meal preparation, great recipes and any tips for storage of food and equipment or any double use for the cooking equipment. I really want this blog to be interactive.
Let Life Begin 