Dinner in the caravan

Meals is a confined space is limiting. I have no stove no hot plates or no microwave. What we do have in the van is an electric fry pan, a gas burner and a toaster oven, I also have one fry pan and a small saucepan.
I realized yesterday when packing  that the freezer is not that big either, so buying food while we are on the road will have to be limited and often.

I brought half a loaf of bread, two frozen meal bowls and two bread rolls then the freezer was full. The fridge took all the apples and bananas, a tray of chicken, a pack of mince and a pack of grated cheese, tub of butter, yoghurt, a container of cooked corned beef, a couple of slices of bacon and some fresh vegetables that was all.

Tonight I cooked the chicken in the electric fry pan and did Chinese cabbage, bacon and red capsicum outside on the gas burner.

The chicken had been marinated and made a crust but the chicken was very tender and there is enough for tomorrow night as well.

Chicken Snizichel

I don't even know how to spell it but I was over them. The last time i went shopping at Meat City, I bought lots of these and found when packing them for the freezer that I didn't have enough containers for single serves so I did a few in one larger container.

I put freezer paper between them so i could just get enough out for one meal, pretty smart hey? Except that last week, I pulled out the Whole container and didn't realize really what i had done until they were thawed. Result was three meals and one lunch the meat being chicken. I mixed it up and had salad one night, mashed potato and hot vegetables the next night, followed by chicken (again) and my version of fried rice, then the last for lunch today with salad. Finally we can eat something different! I selected some mince from the freezer this morning for the evening meal, so far so good.

Tidying one of the "hot spots" this afternoon (a buzz word which means an area that always seems to be messy)I discovered a voucher that I had been sent from the local club that we belong to, it was a free meal for one purchased, yep, we'll do that. Then i read the fine print, it was only available on Monday and Tuesdays until the end of the month.

I asked Warren if he was cooking tonight, he said "Okay where do you want t eat?" then i told him about the voucher. Off we went for an early dinner and on the menu for specials was Chicken Schnitzel! done in different ways, I choose the one with garlic prawns and Warren had Hawaiian. With the voucher, the meals cost us $12 and we did have a drink which was a few more dollars but no prep and no dishes, yay!

What on earth did I do yesterday?

I had great plans to spend the day sewing as the house was clean and tidy so nothing needed to be done there, except the normal day to day things that don't take that long to do. I did have a load of washing to do and that was put on while having breakfast.

At ten to eight while we are chatting over breakfast, the phone rings and it was a friend who was going interstate later in the day. Her SIL was going to take them to the airport but one of the kids were sick, could we pretty please drive them. Of course we could, I had offered to do so earlier but she said it was all organised.

There went two hours and we decided to have morning tea at a coffee shop while we were out, it had been on the agenda to do today. Warren dropped me at home and then went to help a friend move some furniture as they are having new floors laid, getting rid of the carpet.

I watered the garden while he was out and found a heap more passion fruit had fallen so thought I had better make some passion fruit butter, spent about 20 minutes n the net looking for the recipe. I mde some last year with a recipe from a forum that I use, only to find that I had written out the recipe and it was in a drawer with all the other stuff, some of which I threw out.

Made the butter, standing stirring at the stove for 20 minutes, ended up with three jars. Made scones plain one and some cheese and bacon ones and choc chip cup cakes. Put a roast chicken and vegetables on t cook as furniture moving friend was coming for dinner. Scones and cup cakes for dessert.

Cheered on our guys in Glasgow and then settled down to watch Foyles war on TV while knitting a scarf. I thought that I had done very little but now i can see why I didn't get any sewing done oh well there is always today and we have left over chicken for lunch and a hearty soup for dinner. Plan for this afternoon is a movie to see Mrs Brown's Boys.

KFC

Warren did his grandparent/parent duty today and went to sports day at school with youngest grandson. As he and I had been out all day (and I hadn't taken anything out of the freezer for dinner)I suggested take away. We decided to buy KFC and take it home. Five pieces of chicken, two individual serves of coleslaw, two small tubs of potato and gravy, a serve of hop chips and a pepsi each and a few cents change from $20.

After we had eaten i asked warren how was his chicken and he said "Quite frankly, the KC that we used to buy in China tasted much better" I had to agree. We had bought KFC quite often while we lived in China probably as much as once a fortnight, some nights we would walk to one KFC outlet, eat and then walk home again a distance of between five or six kilometres. (In our city in China there was at least six KFC outlets and only one Maccas)

Often we would buy a bucket of chicken which would include ten pieces of chicken two bread rolls, two sweet corn cobs and a large bottle of Pepsi for 74RMB (approx $16) included in the pack was three large disposable cups and ice.

Tonight's meal was the first KFC that we have eaten since returning from China twelve months ago. I have already taken meat out of the freezer for tomorrow nights dinner.