Galley Tools
FoodSaver
We take this small kitchen appliance when we travel for two reasons. Food is the first. If we are fortunate enough to catch fish, we bag, remove the air and seal the fish in food saver bags. They freeze well. Dorado (aka mahi mahi) of course is best fresh caught. Long after the journey is through, though, the once-frozen fish on the grill reminds us of the fishing adventure we enjoyed.
We also take along the FoodSaver marinater, a square container that works with the FoodSaver. The process goes something like this. On a travel morning, I place the meat, chicken or fish I want to marinate in the container and pour the desired marinade over it. I cover it with its lid, vacuum the air out with the FoodSaver, turn the lid to “closed” and slip the container into the refrigerator. As the machine vacuums out the air, the marinade penetrates the meat. When we arrive at our destination and set up camp, the meat goes on the grill and dinner is ready in a snap.
One-dish pasta meals or vegetables frozen in FoodSaver bags can be dropped into boiling water, heated, opened and served.
From our sailboat days, we learned another use for the FoodSaver. The vacuumed bags become great dry bags. We’ve been known to travel from the mists of the Pacific Northwest to the Arizona desert to the tropical coast of Mexico in one journey. Extra first aid supplies, hard dog biscuits and anything else we want to keep dry and clean gets stored in a FoodSaver bag.
Because the FoodSaver mechanism sucks the air out of stored food bags, it saves space. That lets us buy some foods in bulk—homemade tortillas for one—items that would be very difficult to store otherwise. The bags can be washed and reused, too, provided they have not been used before for meat, poultry or fish storage. Once the bags have been used as boil-in-bags, they are finished and can’t be reused.
Food Processor
Ours is a classic, a very small Sunbeam Oskar Plus. We make space for it (it requires very little) because it is so versatile. If we unexpectedly find a delicious cheese in Oaxaca, we can grate it and keep a bag of it handy for any meal. If a street market has a bounty of cucumbers, onions or cabbage, I don’t hesitate to buy fresh. After all, I can turn cabbage into slaw, or chop onions and freeze the extras for later meals.
Toaster Oven
For stays in warm climates, this one saves the day. The toaster part is obvious. But the oven part is the extra advantage. We place ours on a sturdy table outside the rig and use it outdoors. Thaw out some cookie dough, place it on the tray and when it’s sultry in the shade, I can bake cookies without wilting or needing the air conditioner.
Click Clacks
Some of our food storage options come from our previous boating life, and that includes Click Clacks. These virtually airtight containers are lightweight and can be purchased at many container stores. What they bring to the travel party is the absence of sogginess. Crackers, cookies and chips keep their crispiness whether we set up camp in the mountains, the desert or along the coast.
Paper Towels
When is a paper towel not a paper towel? When it’s a cushion.
Rolls of paper towels serve a dual purpose. In the event of spillage, they are close at hand. During travel, a roll of paper towels is often just the trick when it is wedged in between small appliances, cans, bottles or anything else that might jostle.
Cleaning Wipes
For household cleaning, we carry a cylinder of cleaning wipes. They are multipurpose, require no added water and can be used for most hard surfaces. They are also disposable. To get more mileage out of each wipe cloth, we back the cloth with a paper towel (the recycled variety whenever possible). When the wipe is soiled, it gets tossed and the paper towel remains moist enough to continue the cleaning process.
Lightweight and Corel dinner ware
As for stocking the galley, we keep in mind that both weight and weight distribution are considerations. For food preparation and serving, we use lightweight nesting steel bowls and a few plastic bowls. We also use light plastic drinking glasses and microwave safe Corel dinnerware. From our plastic spatula to woven bamboo trivets to lightweight cook pans, we try always to look for the best-fitting and lightest weight solution.
Lightweight items get stowed under the dinette and in the rear compartments. The dinette is also the slide, so we avoid over-taxing the mechanism with too much weight. Heavier items get stowed in the front where the weight gets distributed over the hitch, and over the axles. We try at all times to keep weight within the manufacturer’s guidelines.