Vacation eats

For one whole week we had this glorious view.

yes, it was hard to leave!

Considering I didn't want to spend the whole week in the kitchen I cooked some things ahead and planned for simplicity.  I brought key safe foods I knew would be hard to find, like the organic beef hot dogs my son likes, whole grain tortillas and sandwich flats, lunch meat for the meat eaters etc.  I also baked several batches of breakfast cookies and froze them, along with pre-cooked peppers and onions, a batch of sweet potato/black bean/spinach enchilada filling and I also brought a jar of last summers homemade spaghetti sauce.  Here's what the fridge looked like:

Top left to right: clausen dill spears, behind that is the frozen enchilada mix and the peppers that are thawing. in front is the bag of breakfast cookies, laying on top of a bag of cooked white rice.  Behind that is a bag of cilantro and I think the bag under it is the spinach. The yellow container in front has lettuce in it. Resting on top is my fav Trader Joes Chipotle Hummus along with zip lock bags with red and yellow peppers and leftover diced tomatoes.  On the right you'll see Simply OJ, with water, corona and whats left of the jar of spaghetti sauce. (next shelf) lunch meats, cumin spiced black beans in the white container, baked potatoes (thrown on the still hot grill after a dinner so there were days worth of potatoes) big bowl of fresh Pico De Gallo. (Next Shelf) Strawberries blue berries, eggs, alfalfa sprouts (requested by wonderteen) other beer and pop.
The drawers were filled with apples, oranges, lemons, limes, peppers, cukes, onions, mushrooms and anything else we fit.  I also had a basket of bananas and tomatoes on the counter.

As a treat for the family I packed all the dry ingredients for their favorite gluten free chocolate chip cookies.  Old peanut butter containers are AWESOME travel containers!  Wash and save!  We have used them for so many travel purposes.  Mr loves to take a small one and have it filled with MnM's or nuts and keep it in his golf bag.

I used two containers for the dry mix and brought a post it with the remaining wet measures that were needed. As you can see, I made due with what I had.  Some tin foil over a pizza pan and cookies were made without needing to wash the pan!  They came back from fishing to a cabin smelling of cookies!

My plant based cookbook in the back of the cupboard, surrounded by canned beans and the rice, sugar and popcorn that was transported to the cabin via old Jif jars. It was SO handy!

Food was a piece of cake. I loosely planned basic meals: 1 mexican night, 1 pasta night, 2 grilling nights, a fish fry night, and a random night of leftovers at the end to clean up and take less food home.  The kids thought mom was ultra creative by using large mugs to refrigerate leftovers.  My daughter was very pleased and loving her veggie filled sandwiches and trying new things.  We decided to try mushroom burgers together and we both very much enjoyed them!  Though we did realize that she likes hers more well done and I'd prefer mine more rare.  Our big note to self was to prepare better for the first day and the first nights meal.  Day one was a bit on the sparse side for food because we didn't realize the tiny town grocery was so limited on what it carried - even in produce.  So we went into town the next day and finished up our grocery shopping.  

We had a wonderful time and even came home lighter than when I left! Only -.8 but hey, who can say they lost weight on vacation!   ME! :)

Plant based on vacation.  It CAN be done and without stress!

Blessings for a beautiful day!

the Mrs.