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34 | LIFE IN SOLERA | AUGUST 2024 | TOO MANY COOKS IN THE "RV" KITCHEN Depending on the size of your rig, sometimes making meals can be challenging, especially if you like to cook! Being new to the RV travel life as well as cooking in an RV, I soon learned that it was not as easy as cooking at home. Many RVs have the same amenities as our home kitchens, but on a smaller scale. At first, cooking was a challenge in our RV. With full hook-ups (water, electric, sewer), I felt like I was at home. Cooking in a boondocking setting such as Glamis or Quartzsite without water and electrical hook-ups forced me to be creative in the kitchen. At first, I ran my RV kitchen like my home …. microwave going, stove on, oven heating at 400 degrees and don't forget the coffee maker peculating coffee! Since it gets hot in the confined spaces of the RV kitchen, of course I was running the air conditioners as well. Suddenly there's no power! As my husband is outside enjoying the smells of other campers cooking, he hears me yelling out his name — in fact, everyone in the campground heard me yelling his name! Circuit breakers were popping like popcorn! I soon learned that you can't run every appliance and the AC unit, even with the generator running. I had to limit the use of the electricity I was using to avoid popping circuit breakers when boondocking. Our RV Club has some really talented and smart cooks who really know how to make a great meal. They know how to utilize their RV's kitchen potential to create any type of meal and make it look effortless. (I'm still working on that part.) Here are some tips I learned from our camping friends: • Plan your meals before your trip. • Slice your meats before you leave home and store them in baggies. Same goes for vegetables and fruit. • See what pots and pans you have in the RV kitchen. I had too many and the wrong sizes in the beginning. The pots and pans were heavy and finding places to store them was the worst. Most of the time, you just need a couple of pots and pans that work for most of the meals you make. • Don't make meals too complicated. I would make meals that used a lot of ingredients. I would use pans that would take up too much of the oven and stove space. And remember, too many pots and dishes meant a huge clean up! • USE THAT OUTSIDE RV KITCHEN IF YOU HAVE ONE, or cook some of the meals outside on your propane BBQ. Nothing smells better than bacon cooking outside, right? • Don't have too many cooks in the kitchen. Spread out, use the outside for some things and use other areas for prep work. Camping life is about being "outdoors" so don't be afraid to use it. When you start RVing, you learn as you go … you change things around as you need to and what makes it easier to have great meals with less stress — I know I did and will continue to. ~ Debbie Monroe, Solera RV Group member and head cook and bottle washer RV GROUP

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