Food preparation before departure
Whether you're preparing for a few days away, or an extended stay, food preparation is a must if you plan on eating in. With the prices of take away food nowadays, we eat in as much as possible.
Being an Aries, I'm an organiser, purely because I enjoy planning and making sure everything is accounted for. Food is a big task that needs to be done to save money.
Our trip to Alice Springs recently was only an 8 day journey, so it was far less overwhelming when it came to meal prep, shopping, menu, space and people count.
I started with our stops along the way. I had to take into consideration
*The facilities available:
- Were we free camping?
- Would we have access to power and water?
*Were we pushed for time
When choosing our overnight stops, we worked out how many hours we would be driving on that day and found the closest available half way stop. For this particular trip, both overnight stops were going to be free camping, which meant we would be 100% reliant on gas alone. With this in mind, we wanted as little dishes to wash as we didn't have access to running water and we wouldn't have access to defrosting food in the microwave.
Then came working out the menu for the days we would be at the caravan park. For these days, we would have power and running water, leaving me with no restrictions on meals. All I needed to consider here was the food preferences of the people I was feeding. Lucky enough, most of these people are not fussy eaters.
Here I begin with the menu.
Dinners:
BBQ's are always top of my list as everyone travelling with us loves a good BBQ.
A couple of nights of simple dinners would be a must as we weren't sure just how late we would be at the car event each day.
We allowed one night to eat at the local pub.
Lunches:
As we would be travelling all day, we needed something we could just pull out of the pantry/fridge and prepare road side. Generally buying lunches at fuel stops becomes really expensive. We want to avoid take away.
Breakfasts:
Here is where we needed something simple and quick with little mess. Most often than not, I ususally spend the time preparing breakfasts while others are packing up.
The menu came down to a few choices for each meal time.
Dinners:
-BBQ for the overnight stops - and I would do the 'cook once, eat twice' method, meaning less gas usage on the second stopover as we would only be reheating and not cooking.
-Hot dogs for the days we would arrive back to camp late
-Roast chicken pieces with salad and roast potatoes
-Lasagne with garden salad
-Tacos also for the days we are out late
Lunches:
For the driving days:
-Sandwiches with cold chicken and coleslaw
-Pies and sausage rolls - we can heat in our travel oven while we drive
For the non driving days:
-Lemon and rosemary chicken and salad wraps
-Sausage sizzle
We also left a couple of days for buying at the event to save time driving back and forth
Breakfasts:
For the days we were driving and would be time restricted:
-Pancakes
-Crumpet eggs
For the non driving days:
-Bacon, eggs and toast
-Bacon and egg muffins
-Scrambled eggs on toast
And for the Father's Day breakfast would be a full cook up:
-Bacon, eggs, toast, sausages, tomatoes and mushroom.
Once I had the meals worked out, I then needed to consider snacks. Most of the time we would only need light snacks while driving, sitting around in between events or after dinner while playing cards etc.
I consider sponge roll cakes, chips, biscuits and then one-bite type snacks such as Arnotts Shapes and slices of homemade banana bread while in the car. Only a couple of us eat fruit, so for those of us, I would buy least messy type fruits such as bananas, apples and grapes.
Then came time to prepare the shopping list. I start with each meal, and work out what ingredients I would need. As some meals were going to include some of the same items, I put a number next to it so I know just how many of that item I needed to buy, rather than getting home with only one of that.
The shopping took forever, but I managed to get everything I needed, minus the perishables. For these I would purchase 2 days prior for the trip there and then purchase at the local supermarket in Alice Springs for the trip home.
Laying the groceries out on the bench, I stood back and worked out different sections. Meals with part or full that I could cook prior to departure, and meals that needed to be cooked on the day.
All of the meat was going to be cooked before leaving and placed into vacuum seal bags. I did this for a few reasons.
- To save space in the fridge/freezer. These plastic packages are very bulky and would easily halve the space I had available to use.
- So I could make up my own meal packs in seperate vacuum seal bags. Rather than defrosting a whole pack of sausages to use only half, I was only going to defrost each meal at a time.
- To save filling up the smaller bins available out in the country towns along the way.
Then the cook began! I don't often fill my entire 900mm oven, but on this cook, I ran out of room at one stage. I had each shelf full of a loaded tray of meat.
Once the meat was cooked and cooled, I put my vacuum sealer to good use. Working out how much I would need to cut off the roll for each pack was a little tricky, but after wasting only one bag, I had it nailed. I divided out each different type of meat over the amount of meals we were going to use it and made sure I had the right amount for the meal. Then I placed it into the vacuum seal bag in a flat fashion, removed all air and sealed it.
The packs came out amazing, and I was really happy with the space I saved, knowing how much time I would save by only reheating and how much gas I would save.
Then I moved onto baking the snacks. I had been given a 10kg pack of muffin mix a few weeks prior which I thought I would put to good use for some muffins for snacks. I bought some bananas to mash into them and choc chips also, just to make different flavours. These freeze really well and will last for a couple of weeks in the freezer.
I even colour coded them for ease of identifying different flavours!
Banana bread was next. I always make this at home and it's a big hit. If I hadn't freshly baked it when we want to eat it, we heat it in the microwave for a few seconds and spread butter onto it. But we also eat it at room temperature and is great sliced up on it's own and will be a really nice treat while we drive. So I made 3 of these, and once cooled, I sliced them up, wrapped in cling wrap and put in the freezer.
Sliced banana bread makes the perfect road trip snack!
The perishables were left to purchasing last as I needed them to stay fresh as long as possible, so I left them until 2 days prior to departure.
With the meat packs the way I had made them, and then other foods we needed to freeze, I found it was only a couple of things I needed to put in the side of the car fridge that Mr had turned down to use as a freezer. The space we had saved, and the time we didn't spend on cooking meant more relaxing and 'holiday' time.
I follow this method each and every time we go away. I will continue to do so and I hope it helps you on your travels.
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