Homemaking

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Culinary Inspiration

The onsite restaurant closed this week and tonight surplus food was brought over to the motel. I helped myself to oranges and huge onions that inspired me to ask the owner if she could spare two eggs. She sure could and she also handed me sour cream, which fit in well with the fate I decided to reserve for those onions, as well as a few other items. I decided to turn them into a crustless quiche!

Quiche à la Rae is one of only two egg dishes I eat (the other is French Toast à la Rae). Quiche à la Rae involves lots of flavourful ingredients to mask the taste of eggs, namely strong cheese and plenty of sweet, caramelized onions. Tonight, I substituted sour cream for the skim milk I usually use, and I also added some basil I’d bought earlier in the summer and frozen. I baked the whole thing in a casserole dish and it came together quite nicely. I served the dish with hot buttered toast and a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice. This is going to make a fabulous breakfast tomorrow or maybe lunch. If it’s anything like regular Quiche à la Rae, it’ll be even better cold!

Inspiration

Inspiration

Other goodies: butter, oranges, radishes, and lemons

Other goodies: butter, oranges, radishes, and lemons

Two eggs, sour cream, fresh frozen basil, salt, pepper, grated old cheddar

Two eggs, sour cream, fresh frozen basil, salt, pepper, grated old cheddar

What onions are supposed to look like

What onions are supposed to look like

CIMG0225

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Welcome Gifts

I wrote last fall about a wonderful Dutch couple that left me several bags of useful items. I’m still using the dish soap they left me!

This week, I was once again the recipient of much appreciated gifts! I met a wonderful, feisty RVer a few days ago when she brought in a bunch of books for our book exchange. She let me have first pick, so I took a couple of novels. Then, she came in this evening just after I started my shift with two more things for me. The first was dinner! She brought me a slice of pizza fresh from town!  She also handed me an unopened package of  fancy hot dogs that aren’t full of the junk regular hot dogs have. I don’t normally eat beef or pork, but I’m not a vegetarian anymore so I don’t turn down free protein!

As it turns out, they’re about to cross the border, so they can’t take any meat with them. The sausages were all they had left and rather than ‘donate’ them to customs, they thought that maybe the single gal would appreciate them. She does. 🙂

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RV Air Conditioning

Air conditioning is a luxury I have not had much experience with other than in my vehicles. So, it’s rather appropriate that the first home I’ve lived in that has air conditioning is an RV. It really is a luxury… It is unbelievably luxurious to be able to rid your home of sticky heat with the flip of a switch! Last night, the bedroom was an oven but it took only a half hour to get the rig quite cold, enough to make the whole night comfortable. I’ve own Miranda for about a year now and I am surprised that I continue to find her so comfortable, so much better appointed than any sticks ‘n bricks style home I’ve previously lived in.

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The Dawson City Thrift Store

Today, my manager suggested I check out the Dawson City thrift store at St. Paul’s church. The first Saturday of the month (2pm to 5pm), they have an ‘all you can stuff in a grocery bag for 5$’ sale.

St Paul's church, Dawson City
St Paul’s church, Dawson City

I scooped up quite a few skirts and some blouses, several not being wearable right now but which I will be glad to have if I end up with an office job in Campbell River this winter. I also found a fleece jacket for the Chilkoot trip. I had not bought one at MEC back in Vancouver because I have a fairly good one, albeit with a temperamental zipper. I decided that if I found a cheap replacement, I would get one, but otherwise I would endure with the jacket I have even if it clashes with the rest of the clothing I’m taking on the trek. The jacket I found this afternoon is in perfect condition, is my size and is of a colour (olive-ish) that matches or complements the rest of my Chilkoot gear! Sweet!!! I also picked up several books. My bag was bursting at the seams, but I didn’t get a sarcastic comment from the cashier, so I don’t think I was excessive. 😀

Then, I checked out the Saturday market on Front Street and bought a mountain (okay, a pound) of basil from my manager’s husband before going to the general store where I found mozzarella on mega sale. Looks like I’m having pizza again for dinner. 😀 I am so excited to have so much sweet-smelling basil in the house! Whatever I can’t eat in the next few days will get frozen and enjoyed in the next few weeks. Yum!

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RV Appliances

This post is prompted by a comment left by 1001 Petals in reply to my post last night about my wildly successful pizza. She asked for confirmation that my stove runs on propane, which lead me to conclude that while I’ve hinted at this in the past, I’ve never actually explicitly talked about the RV appliances. So. 🙂

The Range

I have an Atwood ‘Wedgewood’ three burner 21″ range (stove top with oven). This appears to be the ‘top of the line’ model for this brand. It’s certainly the biggest! A lot of people complain about their teeny RV oven, but I find mine to be plenty large enough as my largest casserole dish fits in it (enough food to feed four to six people!).

The range runs exclusively on propane, so it’s great for boondocking. I’ve never tracked my propane usage in comparison to oven usage, but the amount seems to be negligible. Propane is so cheap for daily use (ie. other than heating) that I don’t ration it.

There is a piezo-type ‘sparker’ to light the range, but mine works intermittently. How it is supposed to work is you turn the burner knob you want to cook with to the ‘lite’ position, then turn the piezo knob to create a spark that will ignite the gas. Since my piezo isn’t reliable, I just turn the burner knob to ‘lite’ and then ignite the propane with a BBQ lighter or a match. The oven has two lighting options. You can keep the knob at ‘pilot’ and always have a flame ready, but I don’t like to do that. I’d always be worried that the flame went out and propane was building up in the rig! Instead, I turn the knob for the stove to the temperature I want and immediately apply a BBQ lighter or match flame to the propane.

The nice thing about baking with propane is that you get instant heat, so you don’t really need to preheat your oven. I’ve also noticed that things bake more evenly. I have a rack above the flames for baking and there is space to put a pan below the flames for broiling.

This model was eventually upgraded to make it practically impossible to drop food under the burners, which is my biggest pet peeve. Otherwise, I have no complaints. Cooking with this range is a joy, even if clean up isn’t!

The Refrigerator

Miranda’s fridge is a Norcold 9182, which also appears to be a higher end model. It’s built in and has decorative oak panels, making it very lovely! It’s also HUGE! I don’t have the specific cubic footage of this model, but it is significantly more than the average RV I’ve visited and much more than any other class C I’ve toured.

The fridge runs on propane or 12V power (ie. on the batteries) or on 120V power (ie. shore power). I find this to be quite misleading as it never runs just on propane. So, when boondocking, there has to be enough battery juice to run the fridge. It doesn’t need a lot of that battery power, but you don’t want to run out in the middle of the night! You also would not want to run the fridge on just the batteries as this would drain them very quickly!

I know a lot of RVers who dream of having a ‘house-style’ fridge in their RV, but I have yet to encounter any problems with mine that would make me have such dreams. Sure, an RV fridge can take a long time to cool (12 to 24 hours), but once it’s cold that’s it. I have not had any problems at all regulating the temperature; maybe I just got lucky with a better than average fridge? My favourite thing about an RV fridge is that it’s QUIET! Also, the fridge has thus far been very low maintenance. I haven’t even had to thaw it out yet! The size is also perfect for me. I was never able to fill a full-size house fridge and I have yet to get this fridge to capacity, but at least I’ve come close!

The Microwave

The microwave is a Dometic brand and operates like any other microwave I’ve had. I didn’t have a microwave for five or six years and since getting my first one I haven’t yet learned to rely on them. I use the microwave mainly to thaw bread, melt butter, make five-minute chocolate cakes, and bake the odd potato. I can only use the microwave when I’m on shore power and I have never missed it when boondocking.

Hopefully, that’s all a bit clearer now.