Cooking in an RV

  Moroccan style beef stew with carrots

So I’ve gotten a few questions about what it’s like to cook in the RV.  Well, it’s easier than cooking in the sailboat!  We have a small kitchen space with a fridge, propane stove (3 burner) and oven, and a sink with two basins.  

The hardest part is the small amount of counter space.  You have to be a lot more…deliberate…when you cook in such a small space.  You get out your ingredients and prep as much as possible before you start.  Set up chopped ingredients or spices on a plate or in small bowls and put the big container away (takes up too much space).  I don’t anticipate making any (or many) big, elaborate meals.  One pot or crockpot is good.  

We haven’t used the oven yet for cooking, but did turn it on to make sure it works (it does).  It’s very small – only about 14x15 inches and only about 4.5 or 5 inches tall!  No roasting chickens or turkeys in there.  I worry that such a small size will make things burn, since food will be so close to the flames…we’ll let you know how it goes when we finally use it.

We purchased a small plastic bin for collecting dirty dishes somewhere other than the sink, that way you can still USE the sink to rinse or get water or wash your hands.  The tote also comes in handy for drip drying dishes once they’re washed if we don’t dry them and put them away immediately. 

You can’t let dishes pile up – so we wash small batches more often.  The down side to that is that we don’t keep the water heater turned on all the time so it takes a bit of foresight.  We turn on the water heater and let it heat up water for 15-20 minutes before we wash.  It saves propane that way (but makes washing your face before bed a bit chilly).

Overall, we’re dealing with the small kitchen just fine.  It’s a bit more work than a big kitchen, we’re finding that everything is though, when you live in a small space.