One of the greatest pleasures about RV’ing is the food, and what you bring, and what you prepare ahead of time makes a huge difference.
A few essentials to consider are the things to cook with. Do yourself a favor if you can, avoid using your gas stove cooktop. A friend of mine once said, “use RV park electricity, and not your propane.” Good advice. We take along an electric skillet and a slow cooker like a Crock Pot. The slow cooker we rarely use, especially on short getways, but the electric skillet we use all the time. Our favorite skillet is the Green Pan Electric Skillet. We use our slow cooker as a warmer for beans and sauces more than anything. When we lived in our RV after Hurricane Harvey, my wife became a slow cooker master chef, but like I said, we don’t use it for much else.
Another trick is to make food ahead. We love to BBQ, so a few weeks before our scheduled trip, we have a cookout at the house, part out what we want for a meal at home, then freeze the rest. We use a vacuum sealer, like Seal-A-Meal, then toss it in the freezer. A vacuum sealer will keep your food tasting fresh and also avoid freezer burn.
We prepare all sorts of goodies; spaghetti, hamburger patty’s, even things like shrimp gumbo. Unless you have a giant Class A Motorhome with a couple of Sub Z’s, a Vulcan Cooktop and a private chef, we like to do as much as we can ahead of time, because if we wanted to cook all the time, we might as well stay home!
In the next few weeks, we are meeting up with our kids from Houston and Corpus Christi and heading to Port Lavaca/Matagorda Bay KOA Holiday. My wife and I visited them last year and loved it. It is going to be a short trip, but a fun trip, and we get to meet our newest grandchild! We planned the trip way ahead of time, and of course, the food prep was a big part of it. Our meal plan is a ton of chicken wings, BBQ short ribs, (that we pre-cut) and hamburgers…, everything prepared in advance. For the ribs, the only thing left to do is to warm up a couple of sides, then nuke the ribs. For the wings, again, toss them in the microwave, serve with some celery sticks, a couple of sauces, then eat. I invented a killer wing sauce that I’ll add at the end. For the burgers, we’ll cut up a couple of tomatoes, slice an onion or two, then shred some lettuce. We also like to throw on a slice of cheese and a couple of strips of bacon, open a bag of chips, and wala!
I suppose the point is, do yourself a favor and keep the meal plans as simple as possible, prepare ahead of time, and enjoy your time with your friends and family.
Hot Wing Dipping Sauce
3/4 c. ketchup
3/4 mayo
3 tbls honey
3 tbls apple cider vinegar
2 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp smoked paprika
Mix together, then chill for about an hour.
