One Bowl Travel Mixes

Summer has come to a close for us here in Utah as the schools are back in session.  We know that not everyone has gone back to school yet though.  Our Seattle friends don’t start until after Labor Day each year.  No matter when your kids go back to school, if you have them, traveling never really stops.  People travel for work, fun, and holidays.  We are continuing our travel series to help you travel easily to allow you to eat well while you are out and about.  If you missed our last three posts about traveling, be sure to go back and read them.  Two are about staying with other people or an Air BnB type place and also camping. 

This post will cover how to travel and eat well with only one bowl!  No need to use several dishes or have a complicated meal while traveling.  These are simple tried and true items that we personally make while traveling often.  We have come to a place that we don’t eat out very much when we travel.  There are several reasons for this:

1.  It takes a lot of time to research and find a safe place to eat.  Once we do, we have to wait when we get there, etc.  It seems like a lot of time is wasted trying to eat out.  That is time we would rather spend doing fun things together.
2. There is always a risk of cross contact when eating out at non dedicated restaurants.  We do eat out occasionally when we travel, but our celiacs do get glutened sometimes no matter how many reviews we read, go at odd non busy hours, talk to staff clearly, etc.
3. It is expensive to eat out when traveling.  Making our own food most meals allows us to use the money we save not eating out to do other activities we find fun.  It depends what your priorities are. Ours are eating well and safely, along with lots of other fun.  There is no right or wrong here, just take into consideration what your priorities are.
4. We know that eating out gives the cook in the house a break.  To be honest, this is generally the only reason we eat out.  My husband knows that some days I just need a break.  For us, we have learned that cooking when we travel is actually much faster and everyone pitches in more.  We are all traveling together without a lot of other things we need to do, so we all pitch in to cook while we travel.  This not only saves time, it also brings us together while traveling…which is the point, right?!
5. Simplicity.  Making our own food while traveling is so much more simple than going out.  Our electric skillet makes everything we need for every meal of the day.

When we travel, we do our best to stay in a place that has a kitchen.  Some of these kitchens are just kitchenettes, and sometimes we end up in a hotel.  Having a kitchen makes our life much easier while traveling. These ideas are for when you have a kitchen while traveling.  Before we get started on the food, we’ll let you know what we do when we arrive at the place we are staying to keep us all safe.  Renting a place with a kitchen is nice, but there are things we do to ensure our safety while staying there.  Hopefully these are helpful tips.  We stayed with friends recently that also have celiac and food allergies.  We had fun prepping the house to keep us all safe. :)

1.  The first thing we do when we arrive at a place with a kitchen is to clean all of the kitchen surfaces with an antibacterial wipe.  This is simple, easy, and should only take a few minutes.
2. We run a load of all the main dishes through the dishwasher, including the silverware.  Silverware drawers are notorious for having crumbs in them.  Once the dishes are done  we store the silverware on a towel on the counter.  No sense putting them back in a contaminated drawer.  The rest of the dishes we put away in the cupboards, as the risk of crumbs up high isn’t very good.  
3. When we use a baking sheet, we put aluminum foil down first and then parchment paper on top of that.  The foil acts as a barrier since parchment paper is permeable.
4. Toasters are a big “No” unless you travel with parchment paper sleeves for a toaster.  We haven’t personally used these, but we hear great things about them.  We just use our electric skillet to fry our bread.  Truth be told, my husband likes it this way better than in a toaster.
   
   
   

Ok, onto food!  A few mixes we take anytime we travel are: pizza crust, chocolate cake, cookie, and pancake/waffle.  We take our bread when we travel, but we make it at home before we leave.  It’s not practical to make bread while traveling.  Why the desserts, you ask?  With all of our restrictions combined, it is next to impossible to find safe desserts for us.  We have a few in the family that can’t survive without dessert, so we make dessert. LOL.  Who can blame them, though! These are so good and so easy.  Here are the items we make when traveling and what we do with each of them.  All of these items can be made in ONE bowl with just a spoon!



Pizza, need we say more?!  I don’t know anyone that doesn’t like pizza.  Our pizza crust is either thin or thick crust, both are fluffy in the middle.  It can also be made into pizza pickets for the times you need to take it on the go.  No mess is amazing!  Follow the directions on the back and quickly stir with a spoon.  You have to move quickly with this one as the dough gets thick, but it's definitely doable.  I actually do this at home when our mixing bowl is dirty.  If you don’t have an oven, these can be made in a skillet or on the stove.  Bake on medium low heat until the bottom is golden brown, then flip until the top is golden.  Flip again, add toppings and a lid until cheese is melted.

Chocolate Cake- on more than one occasion, we have been traveling on someone's birthday or a holiday.  Our cake mix, using oil for the fat (recipe on the product page), can be easily made in one bowl.  Then bake it as a sheet cake.  Simple and delicious!  Finding a safe bakery that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg isn’t easy.  Our cake mix is easy and inexpensive.  Win win!

Cookie- If you haven’t tried our cookie mix yet, you need to!  These cookies are what dreams are made of, or so we are often told by our customers.  They are bakery style cookies that are safe and delicious, for a fraction of the cost of store bought cookies.  Crisp on the outside and gooey in the middle in all the right ways.

What would you add to our list?  We have traveled so much, but we love to hear from all of you too.  You all have valuable tips too, so let us know what other things you do to make traveling fun and safe!