October 26, 2017

These posts are all about great food we make, share and eat in our travels. Thrown in will be some places to eat in places to go.

We have a 3 burner stove, convection oven and microwave, a good sized fridge and freezer and a portable gas grill. We travel with ScanPan non-stick cookware, various collapsible items like a funnel and colander, a KitchenAid blender/mini-food processor with several different blending/chopping/ice crunching ‘heads’ and tons of food! We bring all of our favorite tools (spatulas, wooden spoons, peeler, whisk etc)and have a knife rack that fits inside a cupboard door. Nesting stainless steel pans, nesting storage containers, a hand mixer, jelly roll pan, bundt pan and the convection oven racks keep us in granola, cookies and the occasional cake.

I’ll be adding recipes and ideas for quick prep to whittle down the time and mess of some of those recipes.

 

Quick Breakfasts to Sustain Travelers

I’m beginning “Road Food” posts, of course, with breakfast! Breakfast isn’t just tossing something into your body to keep from having to stop early or endure hunger pangs. There is tons of research out there showing us that breakfast, like the adage says, is the most important meal of the day.

When I compose a breakfast I don’t look for a recipe, necessarily. I look for the components or building blocks, if you will, to give us the energy to start the day and sustain us whether we’re doing a 10+ mile bike ride, playing pickelball or getting from one place to another. Here they are: Protein, fiber, vitamins from fruits and veggies and a bit of carbohydrate.

Here’s one of our favorites:

• 1/2 c. Greek Yogurt – Organic (almond, soy, coconut etc. yogurt is your choice)
• 1/2 c. fruit – chopped up
• 1/4 c. granola

Mix it all up and presto.

Here’s how to discover your favorite kind of granola – use organic products if you can get them:

• In a big bowl put 2 cups Old Fashioned Oats
• 1 c. roughly chopped nuts and or seeds – pecans, almonds, sunflower seeds, pepitas, cashews, walnuts, peanuts or combinations of nuts

In a cup measure mix:

• 1/4 c. maple syrup or honey
• 1/3 c. nut butter – btw, tahini is delish
• 1 tsp. vanilla or other all natural flavoring
• 2 Tbs. oil – olive, sunflower, coconut

Pour liquid over dry, mix with damp hands until the wet is all dispersed. Smash thickly onto a jelly roll pan. Bake in convection oven at 325* 10 min.

If you want, toss on some organic coconut flakes (the wide flat ones, the shreds fall out of the granola) right now.

Bake another 10 min. until you smell that golden yummy smell of toasting oats and nuts.

Cool. Add any dried fruit that calls to you. Break those chunks up and put it all in an airtight container. Experimentation is encouraged. I love to use almonds and almond butter with vanilla and coconut flakes. Another combination that rocks is peanuts with peanut butter and lots of dried fruit. Tahini with pepitas, sunflower seeds and cashews is amazing as well – I love to grind in a little Alaea red salt, too.

Because we eat up our granola pretty quickly and most ingredients have multiple other uses, I keep all of our favorite ingredients in the RV. The recipe is so simple to make, I usually make it while we’re hooked up or generating and doing business online.

I just remembered the super-easiest of homemade cereals: Mueslï! Use the recipe for dry ingredients above and add dried organic fruits. Just toss on some yogurt and the nut or other milk you like, that’s breakfast!

Here is yet another breakfast that uses those same ingredients:

Into 1/2 pint jars or other containers put:

• 1/4 c. organic, old fashioned oats or Mueslï
• 1 Tbs. organic ground flax seed (get those omegas!)
• 1 Tbs. organic chia seeds
• 2 Tbs. organic greek yogurt
• 2-3 Tbs. chopped fresh, dried or frozen fruit
• fill with the ‘milk’ you like

Mix it gently using a chopstick. Cap those guys off and put them in the refer overnight (they are good the next day so I do two days worth). If you have a big eater, double the recipe and the size of the container!

That was a ‘milky’ invasion of recipes, wasn’t it? Just wait! More variety and fun to come!