Monday, June 8, 2015

My RV Kitchen

When we were shopping for the travel trailer that we now live in I thought the kitchen was kinda impractical.  The sink was huge and there wasn't any good open counter to put down a cutting board and use as my work space.






You may think I could use the covered sink as my cutting board...but what do I do when I need to rinse veggies?  The covered stove might have been a good place to cut...but I need to add my ingredients to the pan as I go.  Stuffs going to be cooking there.

The solution?  Well...I don't really have one.  I made grilled cheese with tomato yesterday for lunch and sliced the tomatoes on that little ledge in front of the sink.  :/  It's not ideal.

But it *is* workable!  And there is plenty of counter space for all the things we need to have living on the counter.  Here's my RV kitchen today: 


The built in spice rack has all my go-to spices, but I also have an entire cupboard below our pantry cupboard for additional spices, vinegars, and the like.  That cupboard is pretty crammed with stuff...BUT I NEED ALL OF IT.  Seriously.  I got rid of a lot and I use most of it at least once a month.

I found room for my Soda Stream.  I've had this for years, but stopped using it when we lived in our old house.  It was actually cheaper to buy bottles of club soda rather than get the CO2 tank refills.  Now we just don't have room for all those bottles of club soda and don't go to the store often enough to get the 6 liters I drink every day (I need tons of fluids due to no large intestine, for some reason carbonated water is absorb by the body better).  Now it just makes sense to keep my six Soda Stream bottles filled with tap water and carbonate them manually.  I am constantly rotating and refilling bottles throughout the day.  The bottom shelf in the fridge door is designated to my water needs.


The big sink is a good thing to have when you don't have a dishwasher.  We have a soapy water tub in one half and a drying rack in the other half.  You can't let dirty dishes pile up to dishwasher load size, but we keep up with it.  (Okay, my mom does.  I'm the cook, she's the dishwasher.)

Other counter necessities are our coffeemaker.  The measuring cup on top lives there to fill it with water every day.  We're Puerto Rican, so coffee is always mandatory.  Puerto Rican's ALWAYS have a pot of coffee going all day long.  It's just how we do.  Our grounds, creamer, sweetener, and filters all have designated space on the counter.

The toaster also gets a place of honor, even if we don't use it every day.  Between the coffeemaker and toaster is the designated spot for EITHER the slow cooker or rice cooker.  When I need to use one the other gets put away in the cupboard above the couch.  There's only room for one or the other.

Now we wittled away at our kitchen appliances before we went full-time.  There's no big blender, counter top grill, panini press, yogurt making machine, or huge bowl mixer.  But I'll be DAMNED if I get rid of my rice cooker.  Yes, I realize you can just boil rice on the stove or even get one of those 'make rice in the microwave' doohickies.  I DON'T CARE.  I love my rice cooker.  I put water and rice in it and get perfect fluffy rice every time.  I CAN'T LIVE WITHOUT IT.

The slowcooker we're using a lot less lately.  We've come to realize that our two 5 gallon tanks of propane last a heck of a long time.  Also, the propane is only $1.55/gallon here.  That's insanely cheap, isn't it?  I haven't been buying propane for long but I'm just saying that seems cheap to me.

Other fulltimers were telling me to get Nuwave ovens and cooktop things so I could use electricity to cook or bake.  I don't really feel like adding to our kitchen gadget pile.  The oven bakes well and it's awesome cooking with gas.  If propane gets crazy expensive maybe I'll consider investing in the electric gadgets.  We're talking super crazy here, because I only have 5 gallon tanks.  Even if it goes up to $5 per gallon we're talking $20 every other month to fill it.  I can swing that.

Anywho, I know I have neglected this blog to focus on my writing projects.  We're still in Acton.  We haven't left since we first parked the rig here.  We've bought our out days twice with Ready Camp Go and after this out day stint I have another two weeks booked here.  We're still waiting for my brother to let us visit.  He has two newborns and my mom wants to be all over her grandbabies.  They were premies though, so we're being patient.  He'll give the word when we're welcome (hopefully before the end of June).

After the visit is accomplished we're heading up north.  We're still bouncing around Thousand Trails campgrounds.  That's going to end in September when our membership is up.  We've decided we need to get untethered so we can go to the places where we want to be.  Hopefully we won't regret that decision!

2 comments:

  1. I've never heard you talk about your brother! Older, or younger, and where does he live?

    ReplyDelete