Vanlife: Gourmet Eating is Possible!

To those that knew how we liked to eat prior to travel, you have an idea that we love to cook. This hasn’t changed. Although how we go about doing it looks a bit different… and a bit less diverse so to speak. The lack of available counter space and an oven, plus the minimal mobility in the van (along with lacking extra serving plates and utensils) has significantly changed:

1. Portion control. This is for the better I think. We tended to eat a lot, and also had a lot left over for the following day’s lunch, which in hindsight, lead to a bit more than we probably needed and a bit more muffin than we wanted.

2. Side dishes. Our dinner portions while large also included a hefty green salad side, probably some sort of roasted veggie side, or a more filling starch along with our main.

3. Dessert. Generally this was ice cream or pastry from Central Market down the street only every once in a while. I’d say “dessert” many days came in the form of wine or IPA beer which we do still miss some days… and/or Netflix time and popcorn.

However, vanlife has it’s nuances and difficulties so to speak (mostly the space) and so the following will give you some insight into how we cook and eat while traveling!

How we shop (mercados and tiendas)

Throughout Latin America and the world there are amazing produce markets. We LOVE these! Down here, the produce in these small or large street markets is of great quality and local which means CHEAP. This supports the poorer demographics as well which allows people to support a diet with fresh produce easier, meaning less over-salted and over produced food as is best provided by the States for the same demographic. (This hits home after hearing about a bunch of food recalls about taquitos…) Anyway…

Referencing back to a previous post about my pride and joy in hosting a dinner party in the van, on that day we went to a market where there was anything from artisan crafts and shoes to sunglasses and electronics to flowers and produce. We bought enough produce to feed 8 adults in a vegetarian curry (eggplant, onion, red bell pepper, carrot, zucchini, jalapeno, cilantro, fresh garlic & ginger, etc.) in one large reusable bag’s worth, about 8lbs of produce for 16 Q (Guatemalan), aka slightly more than $2.00 USD. Just for an idea of how cheap.

Generally speaking, we shop at these markets first. Gotta get the basics, you know? After perusing, we usually end up with 2 big bags full of fresh fruit, veggies, and maybe a few other things such as oils, spices, and occasionally (if it’s early in the day) meat or fish. Now, before you take our sentiments and run with it, we are fairly wary on what we are buying at these markets. We ask ourselves:

Is it green and leafy?

Will we take the time to treat it and it’s many crevices and potential water bacteria, as non-purified water used during growing can contaminate it with all sorts of icky stomach bugs. Usually, the answer is no, we won’t take the time. I read somewhere that when eating these sorts of items you are supposed to soak it for 30 minutes in a bath of water with an iodine sterilization solution. We do have this for backpacking in case our water filter breaks, but I don’t want to deal with it. So aside from cilantro, which we rinse briefly with our filtered water and shake out (risky I know 😉 ) or cook it we generally don’t buy leafy greens.

Can you peel it?

If the answer is yes, we are all over it. Solves the contaminated water issue right out the gate. I also packed a vegetable peeler for this purpose. Things like onions, cucumbers, carrots, garlic, etc. are no problem even for eating raw.

Is it meat? What time is it?

Generally speaking if we buy meat I’m pretty determined to buy it as I’m used to seeing it. Packaged at a nice grocery store under refrigeration. However James has convinced me a few times (after a few months of building up stomach bacteria while traveling) to purchase at these markets. What does this look like you might ask? Well, it’s basically an open air market, no refrigeration, with hanging raw meat, which looks like the shape of whatever animal it is, unless it’s a sausage in which case they look like hanging sausage… and they chop it up and bag if for you right there. This is why you ask… what time is it? If it’s early in the day, usually this means that the meat you are looking to buy is fresh from that morning and has little stank and no flies. If it’s later in the day, just avoid it, you are getting the dregs at that point. (And the answer is no… we haven’t had any stomach issues or parasites so far with eating the meat from these markets although it isn’t a habit of ours to eat meat from the markets in the first place)

Post market shopping we usually need to restock some other items which we tend to buy at a normal grocery store, if there is one available. What we haven’t lost touch of, and is definitely our gringo coming out a bit, is that we are a bit more likely to buy a few “luxury” items from these spots if we see what we want. Since we grew up in the PNW, where there is a heavy influence of Vietnamese, Thai, Chinese, and Korean, we love to cook asian inspired meals so, we tend to put up a bit more money when we find specific items such as peanut butter, coconut milk, special sauces, oils and vinegars, as well as starches like quinoa and cous cous.

How we cook & what gear do we use

I’m gonna brag a bit here, I absolutely love our van design for cooking. We left ourselves flexibility for cooking inside the van or outside the van, which depending on our circumstances has been super nice! Is it raining? We cook inside. Are there a TON of bugs? Inside. Is it freezing outside? Inside. Is there a nice warm breeze? Outside. Hot as hell? Outside. You get the idea.

You may be asking, how? What is your set up? Well The design in more detail is written out on an earlier post we made, so feel free to check that out here, but here is the short. We have a large propane tank and hose that hooks up to a 2 burner camp stove in which sits on a counter nearest our side doors. If we want to cook outside, we open those doors, pull down the table that is hinged there, and move the stove onto that table (which we made large enough to hold the stove). Done. Takes about 10 seconds to convert.

We got a bit choosy with our kitchen items that we brought, as this is an area that could take up a ton of space that we very well don’t have. What we did decide to bring is as listed:

• 

  1 large frying pan & lid

• 1 medium (camping size) pot with camper handle grip (it’s removable) that has a lid that also seconds as a small pan

• 1 small sized pressure cooker

• 1 medium & 1 small cutting board

• 2 nice cutting knives (one is serrated)

• 1 spatula (teflon)

• 1 large serving/stirring spoon (teflon)

• 1 pair of tongs (metal)

• 1 medium sized colander/strainer

• 2 light weight camping mugs (metal & enamel)

• 2 plates (hard-plastic reusable)

• 2 bowls (hard-plastic reusable)

• 2 tupperware (one doubles as a hand powered food processor)

• 2 butter knives

• 3 forks

• 3 spoons

• 1 bottle opener

• 1 swiss army knife with corkscrew (I mention this as important as we at some point lost our wine opener, and although we plan to buy a new one, this has come in very handy)

• Plastic Egg carrier– Made for camping, but this fits snuggly in our fridge which minimizes the eggs from bumping around and breaking even when we are on horrible roads, and it holds 12!

• 1 small hand crank coffee grinder

• 1 french press (stainless steel)

That’s pretty much it aside from a few water bottles, some clips for open bagged items, and our spice rack which is a metal basket we hung up above the stove, our food cabinet space, and our small fridge! Oh and our backpacking cook set which we store under the bed, and is completely self contained and separate from anything we use on a daily basis.

What are we eating?

Here is some insight into what we actually eat! If anyone has a question or wants to hear more detail, don’t hesitate to reach out, I’m happy to share recipes… although most times I’m not measuring, it’s more of a feeling…

Breakfast:

Pretty much all normal things you see… eggs in many forms with veggies, yogurt/granola, pancakes/syrup, etc. But here are a couple of our fav’s:

1. Egg sandwiches: Eggs are everywhere and cheap. We find eggs even at the most unlikely of convenience stores that don’t sell any other food. These sandwiches are best with a runny fried egg, bacon, avocado, sauteed onions, a decent mustard and hot sauce of course.

2. Potato Hash w/ a fried egg on top! Balsamic vinegar, butter, rosemary, & lots of garlic and spices!!

Lunch:

We mostly just snack and recently we have been digging the menu del dia in the countries we have visited in South America, which usually consist of: soup or ceviche, a main entree- which includes a meat of choice, rice, beans/lentils, veggies, and a fresh fruit juice for $2-3. Otherwise we may make a sandwich with what we have available- veggies/sliced cheese or PB & J/PB & banana.

1. Enhanced veggie sandwich: add sliced meat (we only do this when the sliced meat options are better than (essentially) bologna that is pretty much the main option for sliced meat down here. Occasionally we find a nice pastrami, or spend more on salami, but it’s rare.

2. Peanut butter: we haven’t had trouble finding it, but it’s a luxery item through and through, basically, the locals are for sure not buying it.

3. Other snacks: We mainly eat these to minimize hassle and just eat more for breakfast and dinner.

• Nut mixes! I have realized I love to make these, and I will usually alternate between sweet and savory mixes. I basically put them together let them marinade, and then brown it up in the saucepan over a low heat. They have ranged from coconut/fruity mixes to jalapeno/ginger/sesame to salty/spicy. These are great cuz usually it makes a lot and they last us a long time, and so if we are on long drives and need something quick and accessible, this is the ticket.

• Fruit: There is so much delicious fruit near the equator! One of our favorites is Grenadilla which has the texture and look of snot, but its sweet and a bit salty and has crunchy seeds throughout to break up the snottyness all at the same time. Yum. Apples, bananas, oranges, pineapple, pitaya (dragon fruit) are also some favorites.

Dinner:

Basically a lot of veggies!! But also the occasional pork, chicken, beef, or tuna added in makes for a treat. Here’s some of our favorites:

1. 

   Ramen: we invented a pressure cooker recipe for ramen broth that kills when we are craving some good ramen. Usually consists of a good chunk of pork, a bit of soy sauce, veggies to add flavor, star anise, other spices, and a soft boiled egg. Along with ramen noodles which have actually been abundantly everywhere pretty much the whole trip!

2. Eggplant or brocolli stir fry over rice.

3. Indian curry: made with garam masala and plain greek yogurt for a more healthy option, plus lots of veg and some turmeric rice.

4. Thai curry: (again) lots of veggies sauteed with garlic, ginger, cilantro, lemongrass (we actually found this once!) and a tad of soy sauce and fish sauce (brought from home) for the authentic flavor. Add May Ploy (THE BEST curry paste I’ve found anywhere, and we found it in Guatemala!!) curry paste and coconut milk (which is expensive usually, but we find it). with rice or add extra broth (usually water and chicken bouillon) to make a soup with egg noodles.

5. Quinoa & veggies with peanut sauce: I make a pretty decent peanut sauce using the luxurious peanut butter, soy sauce, ginger, garlic, apple cider vinegar, and hot sauce.

6. Spaghetti: the standard dinner anywhere it seems. However, we like penne or the curly short noodles over the long and straight ones, and with homemade pressure cooked pasta sauce of course: tomatoes, garlic, herbs available to us (rosemary, oregano, basil, etc.), grated carrot (adds a sweet flavor), a bit of extra tomato paste helps with texture and bulk, and of course butter. With sauteed veggies and maybe some chicken or sausage.

7. Carbonara: when we have bacon, we keep it simple.

8. Balsamic cous cous: with fresh veggies and a twist of lime and curry powder. (surprised by the curry powder? Me too. It was a test I so boldly took recently and it payed off!)

9. Chicken Stew: with potato & veggies, usually contains too much chipotle spice and all my tastebuds die a bit. But still delicious.

Dessert:

Mostly ice cream cones at all hours of the day, sometimes twice daily. I mean we’re near the equator… it’s hot and we deserve it… Also beer. Lots of cheap lager beer.

¡Buen Provecho!!