New and improved kitchen coming soon

I intended to have another recipe to post several days ago, but a major development in my personal life has caused a postponement of that post. I've mentioned before that DH and I live in a small RV with our two cats. Well, this last Monday, we bought a larger motorhome! I have spent the last 5 days moving all of our belongings from the old to the new. We now need to figure out where everything "belongs" in the new motorhome.

The new motorhome is a 1983 30 foot Winnebago with a decent sized refrigerator and freezer. The old one was a 1974 21 foot Tioga that had a tiny refrigerator with in-fridge freezer that always frosted up. Yesterday I fired up the oven to discover that it is well insulated and doesn't heat the "house" up near as much as the old one did. And in the new one, I have a real pantry - or at least I will have as soon as we make and install a couple of shelves. There are already shelf supports, but the previous owners apparently removed them to turn it into a closet. We, however, have more need for a pantry than a second closet.

Anyway, I have not had much time for cooking or for transcribing handwritten recipes. Hopefully we will have things settled enough in the next couple of days that I can focus more on getting recipes written and posted. Bear with me for a few days and I'll see if I can get pictures of my new and improved kitchen posted.

Grilled Cheese Deluxe

One thing I’ve noticed about myself over the years is that my ambition level goes through cycles. At times, I will be extremely ambitious and will do a lot of cooking, cleaning, art work, exercise, etc. That will last for anywhere from a few days to a few weeks, then will gradually taper off until I am left so ambitionless that microwaving something seems like a lot of work. Fortunately for me, that total ambitionless state usually only lasts for a day or two before my ambition level starts cycling back up, but for a few days on either side of that, while I am not a total slug, I could still be described as a couch potato. On those days, I want something that is pretty quick and easy to cook and equally easy to eat, and also is comfort-foody. One of my favorites has always been a grilled cheese sandwich.

When I was growing up, what my mother called a “grilled cheese sandwich” really wasn’t one. As I mentioned before, my mother loved using her microwave and didn’t really care for using other means of cooking, so she devised a semi-reasonable facsimile of a grilled cheese sandwich. All it required was bread, butter, cheese, a toaster, a microwave and either a paper towel or a microwave safe plate (paper or otherwise). First you toast two slices of bread, butter one side of each slice, put one or two slices of cheese between the unbuttered sides of the bread, put it on a plate or paper towel and microwave it for 30 to 45 seconds to melt the cheese. And there you have what I now call faux grilled cheese. That worked fine for me as a kid - I’d never really had grilled cheese fixed any other way. But then I grew up and learned how to make a “real” grilled cheese, and was no longer satisfied by the fake. But even after I learned about grilling it properly, it was still just cheese and toasted, buttered bread. Until I met DH. He introduced me to putting mayonnaise or Miracle Whip on it before grilling, which I found a little strange at first. But then we stopped in a restaurant in Arizona late one night after driving for about 12 hours, and grilled cheese changed for me forever.

There we were, exhausted, hungry, just wanting something easy on the stomach and easier on the jaws, since we were too worn out to chew much. So we ordered grilled cheese sandwiches. But much to our surprise and delight, what they served us was not simply cheese on buttered, grilled bread. I present to you now what I have come to refer to as Grilled Cheese Deluxe:

Grilled Cheese Deluxe

2 thick slices of sourdough bread (or other bread of your choice)
1 thick or 2 regular slices American or Cheddar cheese
Mayonnaise or salad dressing (such as Miracle Whip)
Butter or margarine (softened or whipped to an easily spreadable consistency)
1 thick slice of tomato (or 2 thick slices if it is a small tomato)

Preheat a skillet or griddle on medium heat. Butter one slice of bread and place in pan buttered side down. Quickly place the cheese and tomato on top of the bread in the pan, spread mayonnaise or salad dressing on the other slice of bread and put it on top of the sandwich, mayonnaise side down. Butter the top of the sandwich. By the time you are done assembling and buttering the top of the sandwich, it should be toasted on the bottom and the cheese should be starting to soften. Flip the sandwich over to toast the “top” and finish melting the cheese. When both sides are toasted, remove from the pan, cut in half and serve.

And while this is slightly more work than my mother’s faux grilled cheese, it is still simple enough for those times when I am feeling decidedly lazy.

Grilled or Broiled Vegetable Packets

A few years ago, DH was told he needed to bring his blood pressure and cholesterol down. He opted for changing his diet and exercise habits instead of going on medications, and so we started eating a lot more vegetables and a lot less meat. But since we both have a limited number of vegetables that we like, we had to find various ways of preparing them so that we didn’t die of diet boredom. And since we live in a small RV that heats up quickly when cooking, we decided that we preferred grilling outside on a small gas grill. But if you’d prefer to warm your house with the oven, by all means, these work just as well under a broiler.

You will need:
Heavy duty aluminum foil
A gas or charcoal grill or an oven set to broil
A selection of veggies
A selection of seasonings

Depending on your tastes, you have an endless variety of flavors to work with in grilling veggies. All veggies for this should be cut to fairly uniform sizes (think shish kebab sizes). Our favorite vegetables for grilling include:
Potatoes
Bell peppers (any color, but we like red, yellow and orange)
Onion (we like pearl onions, but large onions cut up work just as well)
Carrots (again, we’re lazy; we get baby carrots, but you can cut full size ones)
Broccoli
Cauliflower
Asparagus

Others you can include:
Corn (fresh or frozen)
Green beans (aka string beans) (fresh, frozen, or canned-drained)
Tomatoes
Zucchini
And really, any vegetable that can be eaten steamed or roasted can be added to your packets. You can even throw in fruits, such as apples and grapes!

Seasonings:
As with the veggies, there’s a wide variety of seasonings that you can use. Amongst our favorites are rosemary, oregano, basil, chives, butter or olive oil (this is entirely optional for flavor-no fats required!), fresh citrus juice (lemon, lime, or orange), Italian salad dressing, salt and pepper.

Making the packets:
Cut off a length of aluminum foil, about 20 to 24 inches long. Lay the foil out with the dull side facing up. Put your cut vegetables in the center of the foil, then sprinkle with your choice of seasonings (go easy on any liquids!). Next, double fold the ends and sides of the foil to create a sealed packet.

Cooking:
Preheat the grill or broiler (for a charcoal grill, see tip below). Cook packets on the covered grill or in the broiler a few inches from the heat source. Cook for 10 to 20 minutes or until veggies are tender.

Charcoal tip:
To get coals ready quickly with no starter-fluid flavor, get a charcoal chimney. A charcoal chimney is basically a metal cylinder with a grate near the bottom, a lot of vent holes around the bottom and a few up the sides, and a handle on the side. Place the charcoal briquettes in the top of the chimney, then wad up newspaper into the bottom (under the grate). Don’t pack the newspaper in too tightly; you want some room for air to flow around the paper. Set the chimney upright on the charcoal grate of your grill or a fire-safe surface. Light the newspaper, and the chimney will draw the heat up through the coals. In 15 minutes or less, you have nice hot, glowing coals. Pour them into your grill and close the lid for just a minute to warm the grill before adding your veggie packs.

You can find charcoal chimneys these days in just about any store with a lawn and garden department. Or you can make your own (disclaimer: I have not tried these directions, I simply found them elsewhere; make this at your own risk): http://www.opentutorial.com/Make_a_charcoal_chimney

Regional differences

Hi! I'm back, after being offline for a little over a week. You see, DH and I live in an RV, traveling around the USA. We spent a year and a half in California before deciding that we'd been in one place too long and needed to hit the road again, and we didn't end up stopping anywhere with internet access. So, we're now parked in Missouri, where we will likely stay for the summer, then move on from here, most likely to Florida for the winter. Which brings me to what I really want to talk about: regional differences in food.

It's been 4 years since we hit the road the first time in our RV. The first 2 years, we traveled a lot, and we've eaten at restaurants and shopped in grocery stores in many states. And what we've found is that there is a lot of difference in the foods available, and even in the way the "same" foods are made.

My first experience with the differences was actually a few years before we got the RV. We went to a family reunion up around Chicago, and we went to McDonald's for breakfast. We ordered biscuits and gravy and discovered that they make it different there than they do in Missouri...in Chicago, they put red and green peppers in it. In Missouri, it only has black pepper. So I already knew I was in for some surprises when we hit the road, but I wasn't quite prepared for just how many.

For instance, sweet pickle relish in South Dakota is not as sweet as in the lower midwest (Kansas, Missouri, Illinois). In California, it is nearly impossible to find Jiffy muffin mixes in anything other than corn or blueberry, while in the midwest there are about 6 or 8 different kinds. If you order "tea" in the south, you'll get sweet iced tea (sweetened with sugar), while in the north it would be unsweetened and might be hot or iced. Nearly all coffee in Texas has chicory in it, in most other places it doesn't. And in Oklahoma, a hamburger usually does not come with ketchup, while in most other places we've been it usually does. And if you ever go to a restaurant called Grubby's Diner on Coast Highway in Oceanside, California (which I do recommend for all non-gourmets out there), if you order Chicken Fried Steak or Chicken Fried Chicken, they will make it with brown gravy instead of cream gravy (aka country gravy, aka white gravy) unless you specifically request the cream gravy. As far as I know, they are the only ones in the country that make those dishes with brown gravy. Please, if you know of somewhere else that uses brown gravy, let me know so that we'll know to request cream gravy or order something else if we go there. :)

Aside from these differences, we've also found vast differences in the terminology of foods. I'm sure most people are aware of the Soda/Pop/Coke/Soft Drink differences, but there are many others. In the lower midwest, you would have "sloppy joe" sandwiches, but in South Dakota it would be "loose meat" sandwiches. In the lower midwest, you order "chocolate long johns" (donuts), in Southern California, ask for "chocolate bars" to get the same thing. These are just a few examples; a list of all the differences could fill a book, I'm sure.

So, when you go out of your area, just remember that you are likely to run into some regional food differences, even in the restaurant and grocery store chains you are familiar with. And if I ever give a recipe and you are unfamiliar with some ingredient, or if you can't locate an ingredient, leave a comment and I will be happy to clarify or help you find the ingredients. Or if you just want to discuss regional differences, by all means leave a comment. I love hearing about other differences I haven't discovered yet!