RV Kitchen Hints and Hacks - RV Podcast Episode 371
RV Kitchen Hints and Hacks
This week we have tips for cooking and organizing in a small RV kitchen. Make dinner with me as we show some tools and techniques that help us with kitchen management.
Other places to hear the podcast
Mentioned on this episode
Our favorite nesting cookware - Magma cookware
We also mentioned the Omnia stovetop oven
Peggy prepared the broccoli chicken bake
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Automated transcript of StressLess Camping RV podcast episode 371
Peggy
This week, we have tips for organizing and cooking in a small RV kitchen. Make dinner with me as I show you some tips, tools, and techniques for getting along with a small space and still having a delicious meal. We have this week's podcast along with show notes, tips, tricks, destinations, and so much more at our home on the web at stresslesscamping.com.
Tony
Don't forget to like, share, and, gosh, if you like it, please subscribe. It really helps us out. And most of all...
Peggy
Bon appetite, and stressless camping.
Tony
Stressless camping. I'm Tony.
Peggy
I'm Peggy.
Tony
And we're two RV industry veterans who travel part-time...
Peggy
In this Rockwood Mini Lite
Tony
Looking to share big adventures and help you with great tips...
Peggy
Tricks
Tony
And discounts and meals
Peggy
And meals. Today, we're gonna have a little time in the kitchen, but we don't want our food to get hotter than our air conditioner, so bon appetite and dig in.
Tony
Mm.
Peggy
All right. So today, we are gonna make one of our favorite recipes. It's not only a favorite camping recipe, it's a favorite recipe, and it is on our website under recipes, and it is the chicken cheesy... I forgot what it's called. Cheesy broccoli chicken bake or something like that. So the first thing we're gonna do, of course, is cook the chicken, 'cause we want our cook- ch- chicken pre-cooked. Especially today, we don't want to be baking forever, because it's really, really hot.
Peggy
So I'm gonna start with my Magma pan. These pans are great because they nest, so there's, like, four sizes of pan and then this kind of lid/frying pan. And they all have this quick release handle that fits onto pretty much every pan. So you just pull back, slide it on there, and you have a handle on your pan. So I'll open up the chicken now. We sometimes do use canned chicken, but that wouldn't be a very interesting demonstration, so we're gonna go ahead and cook the chicken.
Peggy
And we decided that today we're gonna cook it with lemon pepper. So I'm just warming up the pan a bit. I should have put some oil in it. Let me do that now. Just a little bit so the chicken doesn't stick too much. Let's see. I'll talk about a little bit of the tools that I'm showing in here. Uh, this is... I- I think it's actually called a fish spatula, but we found that since we use only stainless steel pans, we don't use anything that's non-stick, this metal spatula...
Peggy
And it's really, really thin, so even when we're frying eggs, we can get under the egg and flip it, 'cause those thick nylon ones just don't wanna flip an egg. I got this off of Amazon. It's just a utensil holder so that I don't get schmutz all over the countertop. And I'm gonna go ahead and put my chicken in. I maybe should have let that pan heat a little bit more, but that's okay. I'm gonna add a good generous amount of lemon pepper.
Peggy
It's one of our favorite seasonings, especially for chicken. And we're gonna let this cook. Actually, I think I'll put a lid on it, and then it will sort of bake a little bit. So we'll let that go for a bit, and we'll get ready with some other parts. Now, I have chicken on this cutting board. I don't wanna use it for my veggies, so that will get washed. So the second ingredient in the title, or maybe the third, 'cause I think cheesy's the first word 'cause it's the first word in every recipe, right?
Peggy
So we have broccoli. So we happen to have three sources of broccoli right now. We've, we had leftovers for a couple days from our other dinners, but these two will be sufficient for tonight, then we'll have fresh broccoli for another day. And I'm gonna chop up this broccoli so it's easy bite-sized pieces. Now, of course, this broccoli's already cooked, so we don't have to worry about cooking time. Really, once we get it all put together and we get it baking, we only have to really make sure that everything kinda mushes, meshes together, melds together, and melt the cheese.
Peggy
So we don't have to worry about cooking anything, because we're cooking it all ahead of time. So if you're just camping for the weekend, you could actually pre-cook your chicken or you could actually pre-mix this whole meal, and then you don't have to worry about so much cooking while you're camping. Now, when it comes time to doing dishes, what I like to do is use the pan that I cooked in and put a little bit of soapy water, hot soapy water, in the pan and then put the dishes in and wash them individually, and I rinse right into the same pan.
Peggy
So I start with a very little amount of water, and then I can kind of fill the pan up as I go. Now, if I am really worried about the space in the gray tank, we can dump this, after it cools, we can dump this into the toilet, because we always want more water in the black tank, even if we don't want more water in the gray tank. The other great thing about using stainless steel is that when you finish cooking and your pan is still hot, if you put water in it immediately, it kind of steams itself clean and it makes cleanup such a breeze.
Peggy
You'll notice that when I am taking the lid off of that pan, I use a, a holder, a glove, because that lid does get hot. The handle Makes it so that the pan, I can hold the pan, but I can't get the lid on and off without, without using some protection. You always wanna use protection. So I chopped up the broccoli. I'm just gonna move it back into this little bowl so I can use this cutting board and cut up my cream cheese.
Peggy
The cream cheese, I've let it soften for a while, especially in this heat, ha, ha. And I'm gonna cut it up into smaller pieces so that it's easier to mix it in to the dish when we're, when we're at that point.
Peggy
So we have our cream cheese cut up. We have our broccoli cut up. So once this chicken is done, I'll put it to the side, and we'll use this pan actually as a mixing bowl. Now, you probably see in the camera the Omnia oven. This little contraption is so great. We're not gonna have to turn on the actual oven, even though our oven is fantastic. We love cooking things in the 21-inch oven, which we love, but it will heat the trailer up even more, if, if that's even possible.
Peggy
I think it's oven temperature in here now. But we're gonna use the Omnia oven, and we're gonna bake our dish in this. The way that this works is you have this kind of heat dissipator. That might not be the right word. Heat spreader-outer. And so that sits closest to the fire, and it moves the heat around, and then you've got this pan that kinda looks like a Bundt pan, and that way the heat comes to the outside and the inside of the pan so it cooks very evenly.
Peggy
So once we get everything ready, this is what we're gonna bake our dish in on the stove top. It does a really great job. We, our friend Cindy has baked cinnamon rolls and, uh, like egg bites and all kinds of things in it. It's a really, really handy tool, and it uses... It makes it a little bit less hot in the kitchen.
Tony
10 minutes later.
Peggy
Okay. This is something that no kitchen should be without. This is a... Well, this is called Thermo, Thermapro. Doesn't matter what brand it is, but this is a temperature probe. If you're cooking, especially if you're cooking any kind of meat, you want your meat to be fully cooked. And so this thing, it does take a battery. I forget what kind. It has magnets on it, so it sticks very handy, close to your stove. Then it has an on/off button, and it'll tell you...
Peggy
Oops, that's the wrong one. That's the one that releases the probe. The on/off button, and it has a digital readout. It's 102 degrees in here right now. It also has on the back a handy little guide. So we are cooking chicken, poultry. We want it to be at least 165 degrees, but not too much more 'cause then it'll dry out, but that's the temperature goal we're looking for in order for our chicken to cook, or be cooked properly. Let's check it.
Peggy
It's about 140 now. Of course, it's all different in different parts, but we're getting close. Magnet. So I'm kind of cutting up the chicken as it's still in the pan. I will chop it all up when it's all done and cooled off a little bit, but I figured this way it'll cook a little faster, and I want it cooked up in the long run anyway. And it is getting hot, hot, hot. The chicken is cooked, so let's move on to the next step.
Peggy
All right. I moved all that cooked chicken onto a plate. It can cool a little bit so it'll be easier for me to cut it up. Now I'm gonna start on the rest of the ingredients. Now, this fire is off. I'm gonna, gonna use the pan because it's already dirty. So hopefully I remember all the ingredients. We have broccoli. We have ricotta cheese. I read my recipe today, 'cause I haven't looked at the recipe in a while 'cause I make this however I make it, and what I said in the recipe is if you don't like ricotta, use more cream cheese.
Peggy
If you forgot to buy cream cheese, use more ricotta. You might put in a little sour cream. It really doesn't matter. Whatever, you know, whatever you wanna put in there to make it ooey, gooey, delicious will work. I'm gonna go ahead and drop all these chunks of cream cheese. This is going to be very cheesy. I'm just gonna mix this all up together. The cream cheese is melting so much that it's not gonna be in chunks anymore, is it?
Peggy
Now I'm gonna cut up that chicken and mix that in here.
Peggy
I didn't really pick the right knife for this job, but it doesn't have to be, like, perfect pieces. You just want it kind of bite size so it's easier to eat when it's all done and it cooks evenly or heats up evenly.
Peggy
One thing I forgot to mention is that when we are doing the dishes, not only do we use the pan, or if we don't have a hot pan, then we use a sink tub that we have, but also if we just have one or two things and we don't really need a whole pan of water, we bought the Dawn Power- Sprayer, I forget what it's called, the dish soap, and I found a recipe online. Actually, I found it from Abigail Epperson from RV Miles, and I just refill it.
Peggy
I just use my own. It's basically dish soap, rubbing alcohol, and water. So we're gonna put all this chicken back in here and mix it up real good. Another thing that I love, we love about these Magma pans is if I was turning on the oven, I could just take this handle off, put this lid on, and stick it in the oven. Because it's stainless steel and the handle comes loose so there's not a handle, it, this is also all oven wear. All right.
Peggy
But because I wanna wash more dishes, I'm gonna transfer this into our Omnia oven. So if you've read the recipe and you say, "Peggy, you forgot something," yeah, I might have, and that's okay. You have the recipe. You don't have to forget. But like I said, we kind of do this differently every time because it's like, oh, we don't have any broccoli today, let's use mixed vegetables. Oh, I forgot to buy ricotta, let's use sour cream. It's really versatile recipe, really easy, and especially, like I said, if you w- don't wanna spend a lot of time in the kitchen while you're camping, you can pre-cook the chicken or use canned chicken.
Peggy
Now, in case it wasn't cheesy enough already, I'm gonna add some shredded cheese. Sometimes I mix in shredded cheese. Today I just feel like it's so cheesy we don't really need it.
Peggy
Okay. We lost one of our cameras, so I moved the angle a little bit on this camera. We have a dirty pan that I'll be washing using as a dish pan. We have our casserole in our Omnia oven with the cheese on top. You always put the lid on because that kinda makes it convection so that it cooks evenly. We're gonna turn this heat on kind of low 'cause I don't wanna burn the bottom, but that bottom layer really helps with that.
Peggy
If you have that bottom layer on, you're not getting that direct heat right to the pan that the food is in. So let's get this fire back on and let's let this bake for a while, and I'm gonna go get some cold water.
Speaker 3
25 minutes later.
Peggy
It's been about 20 or 25 minutes. Let's see how we did. Ho ho ho. Check out this gooey goodness. It's actually almost too cheesy, believe it or not, but look at that cheesy chicken broccoli bake in the Omnia oven on the stove top in our Rockwood Mini Lite.
Speaker 3
How would you like to help support this Stress Less Camping podcast and website for free?
Peggy
Oh, why wouldn't anybody wanna do that?
Speaker 3
Well, you can. Our discounts and deals page on our website has all kinds of great deals and discounts that we enjoy ourselves, but we also have a link to our Amazon store. And if you buy stuff on Amazon, which of course we all do, if you click on that link first, we get a teeny-tiny cut of what you buy. Now, that doesn't raise the price of what you pay at all, but it does... Basically, Amazon just wants to see if we're referring people, and so they give us a teeny-tiny cut if you click that link.
Speaker 3
And so it helps support us, and it doesn't cost you any more, and you still get to buy stuff on Amazon, so it's kinda cool.
Peggy
Win-win.
Speaker 3
Yeah. Winner, winner, chicken dinner. And you could even probably buy chicken dinner on Amazon.
Peggy
Probably.
Speaker 3
And using, you know, clicking on our link first will mean we get a, I guess, like we get a pea if you're having shepherd's pie or something like that.
Peggy
There you go.
Speaker 3
Isn't that cool? So we get a peas of the pie.
Peggy
Oh, boy. All right. I thought I'd share a little tip about using stainless steel. We've been using stainless steel for years. I don't really like non-stick because weird chemicals, but stainless steel works really great if you use it properly. My family's been using stainless steel since we got here. And in fact, my mom had the same stainless steel pans, uh, since I was just a wee lad until the day she quit cooking.
Peggy
So I bought a set about, mm, 30, 40 years ago, however long it's been. My gosh. I still have 'em and they look good, and these Magma pans are comparable. So first of all, with stainless steel you wanna get it good and hot. And watch this. I'm gonna put some water in the pan. And see, I don't know if you can see the water kinda dancing around in the pan. That's what you want. That means now your pan is hot enough.
Peggy
So now you're gonna go with your grease, whatever that is, oil or- Butter ... butter or, in our case, I co- uh, this is schmaltz to me. Uh, I don't know what the heck they call it in Eng- It's from the market. Oh, it's tallow. Schmaltz is what it's called. So get that good and hot too. Don't just put it in and now you're ready to go. You want it to be nice and hot
Tony
Not good and hot, guten hot. And check out these eggs we got from a local. All pretty colors. Ain't that nice? Okay, I think we're good. I'm surprised that the camera, which is up here, is not overheating. But it's not, so take your wins where you can.
Tony
And I'm gonna put... I got this truffle salt. I also like these little, uh, Tupperware spice things. I got this truffle salt from a company called Savory Spice. And of course, you gotta have black pepper when you're frying whatever this is, this, this is. I mean, they're not eggs if they're not... Uh-oh, I didn't get a plate. I didn't plan and-
Peggy
Yeah. I mean, just-
Tony
And see, they just, they don't stick. Oh, but I did break the yolk. Doggone it. Oh, well. Oh, well. That's fine. See? Bam. Helps if you don't break the yolk. Oh, I broke it on both of them. That's because I'm on camera. I can normally... And the camera's, you're syncing you guys.
Tony
And then to clean stainless steel, it's also like crazy easy. See, no stick. It's also crazy easy. You just put some water in here when it's good and hot, and it basically cleans itself. Now, I am going to cook some potatoes, 'cause hello. I'm just gonna smash this baked potato.
Tony
And that's how you know you're cooking. I wonder if anybody in an RV manufacturer has ever actually cooked, because that thing goes off all the time. And normally I'd run the fan, but it's so noisy. Put a little bit of butter here, 'cause it's potatoes.
Tony
By the way, this is leftover potatoes from last night. We went to The Big Texan Steak Ranch.
Tony
See, they're not sticking. It's all good in the neighborhood.
Tony
Okay, so now we've cooked our cooks. Now to clean it, just it's still hot. Ha. It's steaming the camera. Ha. And it, look, it didn't take hardly any water. Look, it's... Bam. Looks like brand new. Well, that's what we've cooked up for you this week. A little bit shorter episode, a little bit different episode. And if you are, uh, one of the many people who follows us audio only, you might think, "Hmm, something's missing." But it's, this one is more of a video episode.
Tony
Next week will be different. And we really appreciate your patience, your being here, uh, and spending some time with us in the kitchen. And as always, for more discounts, deals, helpful tips, our weekly podcast, RV reviews, and so much more, check us out at stresslesscamping.com. Thank you so much for being here with us this week. We look forward to seeing you next week. And most of all, stressless camping.
