Labor Day is fast approaching and many of you, like our family, are planning that last end-of-summer vacation. Because our family is so large, we find it cheaper to rent a small house near the beach and eat our meals in, instead of staying in a hotel and eating out.
But Momma wants a vacation, too, so to make my life easier, I have some handy tricks that makes cooking in a beach house easy for me, while still being tasty for my family. You can use these same tricks wherever you go on vacation, as long as you have access to a kitchen of some sort. Or you can use these tips whenever you need to feed a crowd at home or just want to prepare some food in advance.
Breakfast
Many times when we go on a car trip, we leave at O-dark thirty and no ones wants to eat breakfast then! So I pack a Breakfast-to-Go, usually consisting of frozen yogurt tubes, bagels with cream cheese, and fruit like bananas or grapes. That way when the sleepy heads wake up and get the munchies, they can have breakfast any time they want it. I don’t have to worry about the yogurt staying cool, because it will slowly thaw and be ready to eat a few hours down the road. I find that keeping the passengers satisfied makes it easier on everyone!
Once we get to the beach, I keep breakfasts pretty simple and basic. A box or two of cereal, scrambled eggs and fruit usually do the trick and my kids can fix those things for themselves. But I like to have at least one breakfast that is a little more special. And my Cinnamon Roll Biscuits are the perfect answer, especially when I make the rolls in my home kitchen and freeze them separately on a cookie sheet before they’re baked. Once frozen, I put them in a zipper plastic bag. I also make the glaze and freeze it in a small baggie. For the recipe for the rolls and the glaze, click here: http://bakingwithjulie.com/cinnamon-roll-biscuits-recipe/
This brings up something else I do when I cook away from home: I always bring a few basic kitchen tools with me. I never know how the vacation kitchen will be equipped and there’s nothing worse than planning a certain meal, only to find you don’t have the tools to make it. I will bring one sharp knife, a cookie sheet and liner, a pan for my cinnamon rolls (I pack a paper towel with shortening on it in a baggie for greasing the pan), a good spatula, and anything else I think I’ll need for my menu. I’ll also bring a few basic pantry staples and a few plastic plates, bowls and cups, as there’s not always enough plates there to service my large family, and it reduces potential breakage of fancy tumblers.
Lunch
Depending on when we leave on our car trip, we’ll often pack sub sandwiches we make at home. Each kid puts together their favorite combo and puts the sandwich in a plastic baggie with their name written on it with a permanent marker. The kids eat lunch when they get hungry and we save the cost of a drive through meal.
One cheap way to feed a crowd with one sandwich is to make a large egg salad sandwich, using a grocery store french bread loaf. I picked up this tip from my friend, Kathy, who has an even larger family than mine. Eggs and bread are inexpensive, so for about $4 you can feed 8 people or more, depending on the size of your portions. You can cut small slices for the young ones and big slices for the adults. For my egg salad, I use one dozen hard boiled eggs that I mash with my pastry blender, 1/2 heaping cup mayonnaise, a pinch of smoked paprika, and about 2 teaspoons of ranch powder mix, plus salt and pepper to taste.
Dinner
One of the easiest and least expensive dinners you can make is a spaghetti dinner. Use angel hair pasta and it’s even quicker. Use a jarred sauce that already has meat in it and it’s quicker still. Pick up a bagged salad mix and garlic bread at a local grocery store, and you have a complete meal. For the cost of a meal out for one person, you can feed your entire family.
One of our favorite meals is tacos, in part because you can use the taco meat in other dishes, like burritos, nachos, or taco salad. By making the taco meat at home and freezing it, most of my work is done before I leave home. It’s easy to bring shells, refried beans, salsa, etc. with me. And if we have it for more than one meal, with the options you have, it doesn’t have to feel like the same old leftovers. My Taco Meat recipe is here: http://bakingwithjulie.com/coco-banana-topping-and-taco-feast/
Another meal we like to have away from home is trying some local flavor. Since we’ll be visiting the South Carolina Low Country, we plan on getting some shrimp off the dock and grilling it at our beach house. Can you imagine how much it would cost for 9 of us to go out to a seafood restaurant? Again, for the cost of one or two restaurant meals, I can feed our entire family and still enjoy some special ingredients that are hard to find as fresh at home.
Dessert
The delicious aroma of fresh baked cookies makes any place feel like home. By taking frozen cookie dough, bringing the flavor of home to our vacation is super easy. I place balls of cookie dough very close together on a lined cookie sheet and place in the freezer. Once the dough is frozen solid, I put them loose into a big zippie bag. Frozen cookies take a few minutes longer to bake than fresh and I make sure to bring a cookie sheet and liner as my vacation kitchen is unlikely to have them. My favorite cookie recipe is Triple Chocolate Cookies, found at http://bakingwithjulie.com/triple-chocolate-cookies-recipe/
2 Comments on “Low-Labor Day Vacay”
This all sounds great Julie–wish I’d had these tips back when we had children at home and less money for vacations. .
Thanks, Myrna. I actually put these ideas to work a few days after this segment. It should made our vacation easier!