Meal prep...small space & small storage

[wingnutz]

Searching for wonderful one-dish summer veggie salads (with or without pasta) that will keep one or two days in a 10 cu. ft. fridge.

Ideas?

Great tried & true recipes?

TIA

ps I guess I could pre-cook & chill the pasta at home before heading to the RV, right?

[Orangepeel]

Timely question! I just made this salad for my practical final this past week. (Took a health class I took this past quarter.) It is really yummy and SO easy to prepare.

If you want it to last over a few days I would recommend leaving the avocado out of the mixture and instead cutting the avocado into each individual serving.

Avocado Tomato Salad

Salad Ingredients:

1 pint grape tomatoes, halved
1 yellow bell pepper, seeded and cut into 1/2-inch cubes
1 cup black beans, drained
1/2 cup red onion, small diced
2 tablespoons jalapeño peppers, seeded, minced (2 peppers)
1/2 teaspoon freshly grated lime zest
2 ripe Haas avocados, seeded, peeled, and diced into 1/2-inch cubes.

Lime Vinaigrette Ingredients:

1/4 cup freshly squeezed lime juice (2 limes)
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon garlic, minced
1/4 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper

Directions:

Place the tomatoes, yellow pepper, black beans, red onion, jalapeño peppers, and lime zest in a large bowl. Whisk together the lime juice, olive oil, salt, black pepper, garlic and cayenne pepper and pour over the vegetables. Toss well.

Fold the avocados into the salad right before you're ready to serve the salad.

[wa8yxm]

NO recipies but I do have a suggestion to improve counter space... A bar stool (wooden no back).. I use one here.. got it for something else turned out to be the wrong height (That I can fix but . Well, fixed a different way) the stool is nearly exactly the height of the handle on my oven.

So when I pull the cover off the sink I set it on the stool.

I use the stool for temp "Holding when I take thigns out of the fridge and need to "rotate" to get to the item in back.

I sometimes use it as what I call "Working" storage (In computer terms "Stack") when I am cooking to hold something I will need, Shortly. or when a recipe says "Set aside".

I also use a FOOD-SAVER vacuum bag sealer.. And I have added more freezer, in the form of an ENGEL chest freezer/fridge (Can be either depending on how far you turn the knob) this is a high effiency COMPRESSOR cooling unit, Draws 3 amps running at 12 volts,, Very nice, 9 years old it still keeps ICE CREAM hard if set to "Freezer" . Only work I have done on it is: Routine defrost and once I took it outside, hooked up the JET nozzle on the air compressor, put on the painter's mask and dusted it out a bit (the compressor area) Only problems I have had with it were with the 12 volt supply (The dang wire that feeds it failed,, A most interesting failure, easily fixed)

[gthunts]

DW and I are getting prepared for a month long trip and we do the following: pre cook spaghetti sauce and put two serving amount in quart ziplock, same with manwich meat, chicken soup, stew beef with gravy. We also buy bulk size amounts of chicken breasts and pork chops and put 2 to a bag. Everything fits nicely in the RV freezer above the fridge. Add microwave rice dishes and veggies when time to cook. I also use a vaccum seal unit. Works great !!!

[NFlcamper]

Originally Posted by Orangepeel

Timely question! I just made this salad for my practical final this past week. (Took a health class I took this past quarter.) It is really yummy and SO easy to prepare.

If you want it to last over a few days I would recommend leaving the avocado out of the mixture and instead cutting the avocado into each individual serving.

Avocado Tomato Salad

Salad Ingredients:

1 pint grape tomatoes, halved
1 yellow bell pepper, seeded and cut into 1/2-inch cubes
1 cup black beans, drained
1/2 cup red onion, small diced
2 tablespoons jalapeño peppers, seeded, minced (2 peppers)
1/2 teaspoon freshly grated lime zest
2 ripe Haas avocados, seeded, peeled, and diced into 1/2-inch cubes.

Lime Vinaigrette Ingredients:

1/4 cup freshly squeezed lime juice (2 limes)
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon garlic, minced
1/4 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper

Directions:

Place the tomatoes, yellow pepper, black beans, red onion, jalapeño peppers, and lime zest in a large bowl. Whisk together the lime juice, olive oil, salt, black pepper, garlic and cayenne pepper and pour over the vegetables. Toss well.

Fold the avocados into the salad right before you're ready to serve the salad.

I saw a neat and easy trick to "half" the grape tomatoes - Take a plate and turn it upside down, place the grape tomatoes in the bottom of the plates raised ring and cover with another plate (right side up), hold top plate in place, and slice between the plates. Keeps fingers away from the knife altogether.