Cooking up a storm before a vacation

It's winter vacation time!!! I began planning this last summer in August, and have been counting down the days since!

Having fun! Wish you were here! And all that jazz!

Okay, so my daughters and I are out chasing the sun this week. But before we left, I had a lot of work to take care of. Oh yes, the usual, laundry, checking on schedules, going by the bank, packing suitcases. But what really kept me busy was all the pre-vacation cooking to be done. Yep, I said pre-vacation cooking.

I had all the usual cooking to take care of. Then because this was just a girls' trip (guys staying home), I had meals to prepare for my husband and son, so they wouldn't starve. And of course, I had some things to make, for us to take with us, to keep our eating out limited to meals that we really wanted from a restaurant. I don't enjoy eating out in mediocre restaurants. If I'm going to eat out, I want it to taste great.

And then, I wanted to prepare some things to have in the house for when we returned. A dinner in the freezer to heat that night, and some lunch things for to-go lunches the next day. You know how it is after a trip. You come in the door and just want to drop your bag and lie down. The last thing you want to do (but everyone expects you to do) is jump back into the kitchen and make dinner.

So, as much as I could, I doubled up everything I made for a week, plus had a couple of cooking sessions on three of the days last week.

In total, for the trip, to be eaten here, there, and after, I made 6 7 loaves of bread, a double batch of granola, a batch of cookies (and after half of those disappeared, a batch of brownies), a mac and cheese casserole to heat, a rice and beans casserole, a pasta and Italian sausage casserole, a large pot of turkey-noodle soup, some cranberry-orange muffins, a quiche, some beef stew, 2 pizzas, a container of refried beans (with the rest of the fixings for burritos), and a large container of egg salad. Believe it or not, the majority of this will be left behind for the guys to eat up. They're the big eaters in our house, not surprisingly. I am hoping this will hold them for a few days. I've also left them a huge container of carrot sticks, some frozen spinach and frozen mixed veggies. Maybe they'll think to try some of those?

To take with us on the trip, we've packed cocoa mix, koolaid drink mix (some places the tap water tastes terrible), crackers, string cheese, microwave popcorn, some candy from Christmas, cookies, a couple of sandwiches, bananas, nuts, a bag of carrot sticks, and raisins.

I like to bring a bunch of snacky things with us. We can stretch the time between formal meals with a good snack. Our motel has a breakfast provided, which we always enjoy fully. I can always find something healthy to eat. Most of the places we stay have at least fresh fruit, juice, oatmeal, whole wheat toast, hard boiled eggs, and yogurt.

We'll have a fridge and microwave in our room. The three of us will walk down to a market and buy some sandwich stuff to last a few days. We actually fare pretty well with our dining-out budget when we travel. I'll give you more details when we return.

I hope you're having a splendid week! I'll be back in just a couple of days.

Do you take food with you when you travel, too? Making sandwiches in the hotel room, to take to a park or the beach, can save quite a bit on the travel budget.