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| Breakfast al fresco |
When I had the use of my friends' holiday cottage, complete with well-equipped kitchen, one of my favourite holiday occupations was cooking all the meals that are normally too time-consuming to do at home. I approached my first caravan holiday with the same mentality and all the ingredients to make tuna lasagne from scratch. My wee Bailey has a four-burner gas cooker with grill and oven and I had kitted it out with all the essential utensils, pots and pans, baking tray etc. What I hadn't realised was how little work space there is. With the cooker lid up and the sink cover open, the only available worktop is the one above the fridge, which I tend to use for the kettle, tea and coffee caddies, jam jar, bottle of red wine....you get the picture.
So, when a large dollop of home-made tomato sauce ended up on the carpet, I began to revise my ideas of cooking in the caravan. (It's also far too hot slaving over a gas stove in a confined space on a nice summer evening.) Now, I use trips in the caravan as the ideal excuse to visit M&S foodhall and stock up on meals I can cook in the oven. In their original packaging. If there's a dine for £10 deal on the go at the time, so much the better. I thought that I would miss having a microwave, my caravan being too old to have a built-in one, but have found that I can do without, except for when my coffee goes cold. I do hold my hand up and admit to having an electric toaster now, after incinerating one too many slices of bread under the grill. I like a bit of carbon with my toast but there are limits! All I need now is some way of reminding myself to silence the smoke alarm
before putting the toaster on!
