Meal planning/stocking up in a holiday caravan

JodyBPM

I'm generally pretty good at budgeting/meal planning, but we have a holiday caravan that we go to 2 or 3 times a month for a weekend, plus several weeks throughout the summer, and whenever we're there, all my planning goes out the window, and I spend a fortune on food and eating out. It's been known for me to spend more on food for the two nights away than I do for the whole of the rest of the week at home!

I need some good ideas for meals (particularly main meals) that can be made from tins/longlife produce. We are a family of 2 adults, 2 children and we're not fussy eaters, which helps.

I take milk, bread, fruit, yoghurts and any veg that needs using up with me when I go, and we keep porridge, cereal, tea & coffee, butter, cup a soups, ketchup, squash etc down there. So breakfast is covered, and lunch can be a fairly easy tinned soup and toast or beans/spaghetti etc on toast.

I get a bit stuck with main evening meals though, and far too often either end up spending a fortune on eating out, fish and chips etc. I'd rather not regularly go to the supermarket whilst I'm down there, partially because I'm trying to escape the daily grind, but partially because I always manage to spend a small fortune on non meal planned top up shops.

I'm trying to take something in advance for the Saturday night that just needs to be reheated, like hm shepherds pie, sausage casserole, lasagne. I don't work on Fridays, so this works quite well, as I have time to knock something up. Any suggestions on slightly lighter meals that could be prepped in advance and just heated up would be welcomed, as I'm not so sure we'll fancy stews etc in the blazing sun (hopefully!)

So that leaves Sundays main meal, which we would probably have at lunchtime, so that we can give the children a pack up to eat in the car home for their tea. As we're often out and about, I really need something quick and easy to make, but a step up from pot noodles or tinned spag bol etc.

I'd really like to do one big non perishable shop that would last for 20 meals or so, and stock up the cupboard with tins/packets.

Things I can think of are:
a range of tinned veg - any suggestions on which veg work in tins and which don't? I like tinned sweetcorn and tinned mushy peas, but I honestly don't think I've tried any other tinned veg?
tinned new pots and instant mash
tinned frankfurters
tinned pilchards in tomato sauce
jar of pesto
tinned rice pud
tinned custard
tinned fruit
jar pasta sauce
tinned tuna
angel delight


So that would give me meals like franks, pasta and pesto, with tinned veg on the side, or tinned pilchards with tinned/mashed pots and veg, pasta with tuna, veg and pasta sauce. Puds are self explanatory!

Can anyone think of any other non-perishable goods that I could stock up on, and the meal combinations I can make with them (would like stuff with a shelf life of at least until we lock the van up in October). We have a fridge, but no freezer, and a hob, a rather weedy oven ,a grill and a microwave for cooking on.

Klug

When we caravan, I take the slow cooker or pressure cooker so can always plan a hot meal if necessary (weather induced).
Tinned potatoes are a good standby, also the tinned pies are fairly good.
Could you cook a chicken before you go and just supplement it when you get there - maybe with chips or veg and gravy one night and in pasta another?
Packet custard is a great pudding with cut up cake or crumble etc.

joedenise

I'd second a pressure cooker. I always take a pressure cooker away with us when we go away in our motorhome. I don't really like using tinned stuff too much, just don't like the taste of tinned veg apart from carrots, which I'd rather eat tinned than fresh cooked, LOL.

For weekends I would take HM ready meals, frozen. They'll defrost slowly in the fridge for when you want them. All you'll need to do is reheat them. I would take things that you usually eat such as shepherds pie, spag bol - 10 minutes to cook some spag while the sauce reheats - curry - 10-15 minutes to cook some rice to go with it.

Doesn't really help with the longer holidays but I would have thought you could take enough for 2-3 days with you and then do a shop for the rest of the week. That's what I used to do years ago when we had a static caravan.

Denise

Moggins_2

Tinned carrots, peas, mushrooms, any type of beans and tinned tomatoes are all nice enough.

Linda32

Hi, I know what you mean about hot food in the summer months. Its not what you want is it?

How about the Uncle Ben's range of savoury rice and risotto. You have to wait for offers to come around but the do eventually, I stock up then.
OH has these for his dinner at night, he adds chorizo to the savoury rice. This would keep in the fridge for the weekend, I'm sure.

If your not against going to the supermarket on the way, just once then how about a pork pie and salad things. It would just be a question of putting on plates, no cooking. This is what we have when we go self catering.

HTH

macpep1

How about cooking up some chicken fajhita mix to just heat up for the summer months? Just add your sour cream/wraps etc

HM burgers that can be just taken from the freezer & defrosted when needed, ideal for the bbq, add salads, pasta etc

You could use tinned salmon & instant mash to make salmon fishcakes, just make into patties, add seasoning, dip in breadcrumbs ready to be grilled/fried later on with some salad?

Sorry may not be of much help, just trying to think of what I done when we went away with our van.

If it was just the weekend, it was generally something I had pre-cooked the Friday evening ie lasagne, take away on a Saturday or a BBQ then a light lunch before heading home the sunday.

flipper_72

We camp rather than caravan, but i tend to take some frozen HM meals with us, We are going to a tent already set up in France this summer and i have every intention of taking at least 5 meals worth with us (for 7 days). Partly for cost (i am a meal planner and hate waste), partly as my son has lactose intollerance and partly because i want to enjoy the holiday not spend it reading labels in a supermarket.
We will take for main meals
Chilli (adult and child version or just child and extra chilli to add), will eat with rice and totilla chips
Curry
A roasted chicken (or possibly 2) this will do a chicken and veg/pots meal and a pasta meal plus lunches
the other meal(s) will depend on what i have in freezer at time, i try to freeze meals in family, 2 adults and 2 child portions so that the adults can have a slightly different variation of a meal to the kids based on what we prefer, just reheat and add to pasta/rice/potatoes/bread.
Try to think about the meals you do already at home and choose some easy to bulk make/freeze and transport meals for the weekends and the first part of your longer hols. Frozen blocks of food transported in an electric coolbox with ice blocks will still be frozen when you get there and will take a number of days to defrost in a fridge.