Finally a food update

I think I have come to the conclusion I will not be a food blogger. I seem to be more interested in cooking and eating it than remembering to photograph and blog about it.  Take for instance this post. I started it weeks ago when we were still in Canada and have only just got around to completing it.

Since coming to Canada we have definitely been buying less steak to cook on the bbq – it along with everything else is expensive. We are definitely missing the cheap asparagus which had become a regular feature on the BBQ. Cheap summer corn is still in abundance so we are enjoying that instead. Yesterday we went to a farmers market in Rossland. I helped a lady wheel her baguettes across the road for the market and was given a free one which was nice. There was heaps of lovely produce and we spent a pleasant time wandering around tasting and shopping.

RV Sushi Rolls

One of the interesting things we have discovered on our travels is the difficulty in buying brown bread without overwhelming amounts of sugar in it. We may be looking in the wrong places but certainly supermarkets are not overflowing with it and health food stores are expensive. We have found our best bets are sourdough bread and some french bread. Not sure why Fiona has not got into making bread as she does at home - but stay tuned as she might!

Anyway, this post is meant to be about sushi. We found all the bits and pieces to make sushi early on in our trip - except a rolling mat. On previous camping trips I have found that this is not essential if you are not too picky on the final look of your rolls. On mornings when we have been hanging around the RV doing school work we have been making sushi for lunch for a change. We have been having some interesting fillings when we have been out in the national parks and the choices in the fridge have been limited. Symi will eat tuna sushi rolls but they would not make it onto her favourite list. 

Last week I found some crumbed fish which were square shaped to have in burgers (they obviously have some species of square fish here that we don't see in Australia). I decided to try them in sushi. As you can see below, work space in the RV is limited. Also evident is that Symi found a rolling mat on our travels which has improved things. 

Ingredients included mayo, cooked and cooled crumbed fish, lettuce and avocado. 

Symi has loved helping to make these and we can even count it as school work as we practise fractions when cutting them up!







The final product was a success and liked by all. Definitely one to eat soon after making so the lettuce and the fish crumbs do not go soggy. Interestingly we had these before a very long bike ride and they seemed to provide longer lasting fuel than sandwiches. 

Whats cooking in the RV this week?

Thought it might be time to update you on what we have been eating in the RV. The weather has remained cold – not surprising considering we have been chasing the snow!

One dish we tried was cooking a whole chicken in the slow cooker. The oven in the RV will, just, fit a whole chicken but with the cold weather and the doors shut it gets quiet smoky if you had the oven on for an hour of more. Anyway back to the slow cooker. It is very easy to cook a whole chicken. Chop an onion into three slices – no need to peel it is just for the chicken to sit on. Wash and pat dry the chicken and sit in on top of the onion. Turn slow cooker to high and wait 6 or so hours. That’s it.  You do need to take the skin off the chicken as it is not crisp (if you have an oven you can put it in there to brown it at the end). My other suggestion is get a plate that is not blue to serve it on. I can’t seem to take a photo of any food on the blue plates that looks any good – perhaps it is me. 

We have a lot of zip lock bags of food in the freezer. One of these tends to be chilli con carne. When we get sick of having it with wraps or rice we turn to nachos – much to Symi’s delight. This makes for a very quick meal. Spread the meat mixture and a bit of grated cheese between layers of corn chips. Heat for a few minutes in a hot oven and then top with Symi’s guacamole and some sour cream – yum.

Our other regular meal lately has been oven roasted salmon. Salmon is relatively cheap here – cost about $7-$8 for a piece to feed us. I microwave some potatoes and pumpkin so they are partially cooked and then finish roasting them with the salmon and some asparagus (99c a bunch) in the oven. The result is always a winner for this family.

 Symi and I have also been doing some cooking together. We have been making sushi rolls for our lunches and pancakes with chocolate chips for snacks. While we were up snowboarding Symi made some double chocolate cupcakes. Symi did this herself but Rob and I happily assisted with the eating.

Slow Cooking in an RV

Last week on one of our shopping trips I decided to splurge and spend $19 on a slow cooker. I have one of these at home which I often use for batch cooking. My first two efforts were a British Raj Curry from a recipe by Rick Stein and a batch of Chilli con Carne from a recipe by Gordon Ramsay - I must have been having a celebrity chef day! Anyway, over a couple of days I cooked both these up and after we had taken a meal from them I bagged up the remainder in trusty zip lock bags. These store really well in the freezer as you can see in the picture below.

Staying with what I now realise is my obsession with celebrity chefs I then decided a pot roast was the way to go. In my Paprika app I stored a lot of recipes that I use before leaving home. I really like this app because you can access your recipes off line. So looking for a pot roast I remembered Jamie Oliver's Pot-roasted Pork in White Wine with Garlic, Fennel, and Rosemary. Bit disappointing not to have my own rosemary from the garden anymore but I suppose you have to make some concessions if you are going to galavant around the USA in an RV. I found all the necessary ingredients and then managed to roast potatoes and pumpkin in the RV oven - all very satisfactory. I have tried roasting veg in the convection microwave but it was nowhere near as good. I so suspect that the problem may be with me rather that the convection microwave. Results are below.

You may notice that I am photographing food on the breadboard. This is due to having inherited blue plastic plates. I have come to realise this is not the best colour for taking pictures of food. Looking at my published effort it also occurs to me that the fennel does not look anywhere near as good as it tasted.

Now for my most recent effort - no celebrity chef this time I am pleased to report. Slow Cooked Hyderabadi Chicken Biryani. I figured that biryani is very slow cooked and that someone must have tried it in a slow cooker and after a bit of searching around I found a likely looking recipe. I did not have all the ingredients so improvised a little. I liked the idea of not having to cook any vegetables separately so added pumpkin and green beans with a couple of handfuls of spinach thrown in at the end. I also decided to layer it chicken, veg, rice, chicken, veg, rice to spread the flavours through a little more. And the result? 

Well, it took a while to cook so we saw ourselves through with a glass of red and a few nibbles.

Then it was time to peek into the slow cooker and see if the experiment had worked. All was good and the result was enjoyed by Rob and I. Not so much by Simone who found the coriander seeds I had substituted for cardamom pods a little much. I must admit I think I may have been a little generous when adding them.

Cooking in an RV

Things I have found out about cooking in an RV:
1. You can always remember what you had for dinner last night because your clothes smell of it.
2. Batch cooking is good because when you come home from snowboarding so tired you can hardly stand up you can just heat something up.
3. Flour tortillas are very useful as they can be used for wraps, quesadillas, and dipping in things and the take up way less room than bread.
4. My daughter is always hungry - although this is not limited to when she is in an RV!

It is quite amazing how much food we can squirrel away in the RV. When I did our first big shop I purchased way more that I meant to. This was mainly because of all the special where it was actually cheaper to buy two of things than one?

Our meals have been quite simple so far. We have cooked up a batch of beef curry and a one of chilli con carne. We purchased a cheap slow cooker from an overwhelming large Wallmart store which has turned out to be a great investment for soups and stews.  Other than that we have been eating salads and stir fries.

Last nights dinner was a Mediterranean eggplant and barley salad from a website called Smittenkitten. I am sure her picture looks a lot better than mine, particulary as mine is of the leftovers as I keep forgetting to photograph food before we eat it! Anyway I will put a photo here for comparison. We added feta to ours and everyone enjoyed it.

Symi's Guacamole

We have been discovering the delights of cheap avocados. We arrived in the USA the day after the Super Bowl and people must not have bought the anticipated numbers of avocados. Good for us as they were 50c each. Symi is the guacamole maker in the family. Her recipe is below

Guacamole 

2 ripe avocados
1/4 finely chopped red onion
1/4 C chopped coriander
1/4 C chopped cherry tomatoes
Juice 1 small lime
1/2 tsp cumin
Salt and pepper to taste

Roughly crush avocado flesh with a fork. Mix in all remaining ingredients. Serve with corn chips or what ever else you fancy.