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pinkytoe
7-20-13, 1:46pm
We will be renting a cabin in the mountains (8500 elev.) for three days and I would like to save money by making all our meals there since it has a kitchen. We will need to purchase all items from the nearest city before driving to the cabin an hour away so i am trying to make a list beforehand. Breakfast is easy enough but the other meals have me a little stumped. Any thoughts on what to take?

Jilly
7-20-13, 3:33pm
Having a kitchen should mean that you could cook pretty much what you already like cooking. The elevation might preclude baking, but everything else you would like to cook should be fine.

Since you are driving, you could take some basics, like staples and seasonings along with you; maybe repackaged into smaller portions, i.e. plastic containers or plastic zipper bags.

Perhaps there are different foods native or preferred to the location of the cabins that you could research now and buy at that city.

It sounds like a wonderful time. If I were going, I would even consider some foods that are more along the line of partially-convenient in nature. Of course, my plan for that little trip would to make everything as easy as possible so that I could enjoy the place.

Dhiana
7-20-13, 3:50pm
As Jilly mentioned, at least take some staples and spices with you since you're driving. Most smaller grocers in more remote locations command higher prices for their goods.
Keep the list at the nearby grocers for the most perishable and fragile items such as milk and lettuce.

Did a trip like this with the in-laws a couple years ago and we made a baked strata before we left which traveled well, spaghetti of course, buckwheat pancakes for breakfast one day, BBQ'd meat and marinated vegis, and stir--fry another night.
Have a great time on your trip!

catherine
7-20-13, 4:13pm
How about preparing the foods in advance at home and bringing them in a cooler, so you don't have to cook on your vacation? You could use the kitchen to heat things up rather than spend time preparing.

pinkytoe
7-20-13, 4:15pm
I forgot to mention...we are flying into the major city that is an hour away from the cabin.

puglogic
7-20-13, 6:13pm
Things to make with pasta are convenient for dinner. For example: A box of whole wheat pasta, a big can of fire-roasted tomatoes, a few cloves of garlic (sauteed), a handful of basil, and a few gratings of a wedge of parmesan cheese (which you can then take home with you) is a good hearty meal. Anything you can sandwich between bread slices or roll up in a tortilla works for lunch or supper....black bean and cheese and salsa burritos is a standard quickie meal for us. Sometimes we'll look at those "five ingredients or less" recipes for ideas on things that don't need a lot of extra stuff. Egg dishes also whip up pretty quickly; as do things with tuna or other canned fish, like salmon burgers.

Miss Cellane
7-20-13, 6:36pm
Go simple in this case. Pasta and jarred sauce, for example, so you don't have to buy tomatoes, onions, garlic, and herbs (of which you will only use a little and perhaps leave the rest behind), etc. And rental kitchens are sometimes not very well stocked--only one saucepan, maybe, or no good knives, so you don't really know what you walking into.

If you will be hiking or even just out and about a lot, I'd get plenty of healthy snacks, so there's something to eat as soon as you get back to the cabin. Fruit, crackers and cheese, that sort of thing.

Lunch can just be sandwiches and carrot and celery sticks. Or a simple pasta salad with bottled salad dressing. That way you can get lots of veggies with no cooking.

Dinners can be pasta with sauce, hamburgers, baked potatoes with canned chilli and grated cheese.

My parents always did the cook all the food yourself type vacations. My mother finally declared that one entire day of the vacation she was not cooking. Those vacations were actually more work for her, because she had to pack every last, single ingredient from home, because Dad refused to pay the high prices at local stores. Then she was faced with a strange kitchen with odd utensils, an oven that didn't work quite right, and not set up the way she worked. So she instituted "Cook's Day Off," so that she could have a vacation too.

So, thinking along those lines, I'd happily deal with some prepared foods, like pasta sauce or pancakes from a mix, on a vacation like this.

SteveinMN
7-20-13, 8:15pm
I feed a bunch of guys every Labor Day weekend at a friend's cabin -- and did the same thing in mid-May of this year. The food is my gig. While there is a full kitchen and an outdoor grill there (great if you have one), it is not possible for me to count on even basic ingredients being there. So I bring everything I need. Granted, for me it's a car trip with a cooler in the back. An airplane trip complicates things a fair amount. But I think if you plan ahead, this can work well, simply, and inexpensively.

The key for me is creating a menu. For example, one dinner might be steaks on the grill; leftover steak will get served in fajitas another day. Leftover tortillas after the fajita meal can be cut up and toasted as garnish for a salad (which also can be home to a bunch of leftover veggies and meats) or crisped in the oven with some of the same spices used for the fajitas. Consider some more-forgiving meals, like salads, soups (maybe not in summer), and frittatas/egg bakes, toward the end of your stay -- you can load them up with small amounts of leftovers or leave out an ingredient without destroying the dish. Picking the right dishes helps me buy the right amounts of ingredients to start with and to make sure they're used. It also helps me avoid recipes that call for tiny amounts of something that's not very transportable (do I really want to haul a bottle of vanilla extract?).

If the cabin has a slow-cooker, you can put something in at the beginning of the day and it will be the basis for dinner when you get home. In addition to Miss Cellane's suggestions, consider salad-in-a-bag rather than acquiring separate ingredients you won't use up.

I also pack a few items that I'll really want there, like a couple of my "good" knives, an instant-read food thermometer, and an apron. Depending on whether you're going with only carry-ons, that may not work for you. But I find the planning makes my work (and it's not really work) more enjoyable.

herbgeek
7-21-13, 7:20am
Backpacking cookbooks might give you some additional ideas since they use ingredients that don't need to be refrigerated. I used to have a cookbook -no longer in print-that used can goods and other non perishables. There might be something like that at your library.

Rosemary
7-21-13, 11:12am
How about preparing the foods in advance at home and bringing them in a cooler, so you don't have to cook on your vacation? You could use the kitchen to heat things up rather than spend time preparing.

That's what I do for both cabin stays and camping. It saves SO much time. It takes me longer to pack all the ingredients for planned meals than it does to just cook them in my fully stocked kitchen. Plus, the cabin where we stay is fairly rustic and it is often really, really hot when we're there -- so I prefer not to actually stand over a hot stove.