Suitcase Cuisine...

We're back from convention!  We actually ate out very little, our suitcase came in VERY handy!  Several people at the convention were surprised at what we could pull off in our room.  So, here are a few of my "suitcase cuisine" secrets.

The first thing for me is stealth.  Hotels are not going to encourage you to cook in your room, in most cases.  Occasionally you will be blessed with a room with a kitchenette, but I am rarely that lucky.  Although part of the reason they don't want you cooking in your room is because they want you to spend money in their restaurants; they also have to make their rules for the "village idiot", since they stay in hotels too.  In one of the hotels my husband has worked in, the VI (village idiot) decided to fire up a hibachi in the bathtub.  Of course that would set off smoke detectors, sprinklers and all manner of fun things!

The second thing is to try to figure out what appliances the hotel will have in your room.  I usually check the website for that info.  On this trip we had a small "dorm-size" refrigerator.  There was no microwave, unfortunately.  If the hotel advertises the fridge as a mini bar, that means it will be full of $5 sodas and candy bars and may mean that it will trigger an alert to be checked everytime you open it (which means you can't take their stuff out of it and put your stuff in).

I try not to advertise the volume of food that I'm bringing with me. I usually pack the majority of our food in the large suitcase (we only have 3, sort of like the 3 bears).  First thing in is a 12 pack of soda.  A can of soda is usually $2-3 each in a hotel!  I also take a 24 pack of bottled water, but I don't worry about disguising that.

The lesson I learned early on was not to pack a loaf of bread or chips (unless they're in canisters, like Pringles) in the big suitcase.  The bottom line is that no one wants to eat bread that has been compressed to 2 inches tall. 

What I DO pack are convenience foods. In our house, this is also known as the hurricane stash.  These are foods that have a long shelf life.  This time we took mac and cheese, but not the blue box kind. We took Velveeta shells and cheese, because you don't need milk and butter to mix those.  We also took some pre cooked bacon, and Bisquick Shake & Pour pancake mix.  Anything liquid gets packed in a storage bag with zipper seal.  Can you imagine how wonderful it would be to open your suitcase and find out that the syrup had exploded while you were traveling?  Anything that comes home will go into the stash for future use.

I tried something new this time and it worked really well.  I took 2 caesar salad kits.  I had a box of  gallon size storage bags.  I found that if I put the lettuce in first, and then added the other igredients with the dressing on top, it was good to let it sit for a couple of minutes and let the dressing sink down into the lettuce.  Then I shook the bag to mix everything. The first time I shook the bag right away,and since the dressing was still on top, it stuck to the top of the bag by the seal.  It was hard to get a good mix.  Now I let gravity do the work for me.  Easy to serve and clean up!

Another thing I've learned over the years is to watch foods with strong fragrances.  Grapes are awesome, apples are pretty good, oranges not so much.  Depending on how full the hotel is, your room may not be serviced for 24 hours.  That fruit can get pretty rank with that amount of time in the trash, taking the room's ambience with it!  And you may have to walk quite a ways with that stinky trash to find a trash can to dump it in.  Also remember that hotel rooms have trash cans the size of postage stamps, so you don't want meals that generate a ton of trash.

So what did we take?  We had

• a box of crackers and a jar of peanut butter (never used, this time)
• 3 boxes of velveeta shells and cheese
• pack of hot dogs and buns (I acquired some condiments when I went to fast food restaurants)
• BBQ chicken quesadillas (burrito shells, sm. tub of BBQ sauce, deli sliced chicken breast, baggie of shredded cheddar-also used for hot dogs)
• 2 breakfasts of pancakes & bacon
• individual bottles of apple juice
• poptarts
• chocolate, chocolate and more chocolate
• disposable tableware--cups, plates, silverware
• electric single burner and pan (an electric skillet works well too), spatula, wooden spoon, & collapsible colander

• dishtowel and detergent, paper towels (I use a roll that has been cut in half and had the core removed so that it's easy to pack.)

Which brings up another point.  Once the pan has cooled completely, use a paper towel to wipe all the debris into the trash.  Remember that you will be doing your dishes in the bathroom sink and you will not have much counter space to dry the dishes on, so less is definitely more.  Plan your menus to use as few dishes as possible.

And that's it!  I've been refining my menu for about 25 years.  We usually try something new everytime.  This time it was the caesar salad and the BBQ chicken quesadillas.  Both are definitely do overs.

Feeling blessed, how about you?