Being resourceful on vacation!

Okay I know we said we were going to be on vacation but I just had to share my cooking experience from last night dinner.

So I am on vacation in Louisville Kentucky with my family because my husband is participating in the Ironman today.  Now if you are an athlete or have ever trained for anything you realize that nutrition is just as important as training.  For this reason, and the fact that there is 11 of us, we like to plan our meals when traveling.  I know some of you are going to say that going out to eat is the fun part of vacation and I would agree with you sometimes.  Going out to eat with 3 kids, 4 and under isn't what it used to be, plus it can get pretty expensive since we are not huge fast food fans.  So for this reason on "family" vacations we plan meals.  

These meals are always easy and crowd pleasing.  On our meal board this weekend we had pulled pork sandwiches, walking tacos, and of course the carbo loading dinner feast the night before the big race, where I had made up pasta, a very veggie and meaty marinara sauce to top it with, some bag lettuce, bread, and some cooked carrots.  
 

 

Like I said it has to be easy because you are on vacation as well.  I cook all of my food a couple days beforehand and then freeze them.  This helps when packing the cooler because your food acts as ice for the other food you bring.  I then bring a large and a small crockpot to heat up the meals each day.

With all the planning that goes on before vacation, there is always going to be some kind of obstacle that vacation throws at you!  Like how could I of planned on the refrigerator in the hotel room freezing some of our food?  So when this happens you can either freak out and throw all the frozen food out, find a grocery store to buy all new food or you can take the "cool" approach looking around the hotel to see what you can use to cook these foods so that people will eat them still.  

Hmmmm what can I use?  I got it, every hotel room has a coffee maker!  This acted as my steamer to cook the carrots.

 They didn't turn out that bad.  If I had a microwave or stove I would of cooked them a little longer but sometimes you just have to roll with what life gives you. And I know you all have the same question, and I will just say "no, they did not taste like coffee, they tasted like steamed carrots!"

You know what they say, "when life gives you frozen carrots, put them in a coffee maker and cook them."  Okay maybe nobody ever said that but I do know that I have heard "don't waste food" and "be resourceful" and so that's what I did!

Now I need to get some shut eye so I can cheer loud in a couple hours for my ironman!

What have you cooked in a hotel room before?  

-Cool