I am still almost three months out from our trip to Germany in October, but have begun to think about what to cook in our apartments while there. I like to cook things that are fairly easy and inexpensive - and will last 2-3 meals. I also want dishes that don't really require a recipe and the ingredients be easy to find. I would love some feedback on the types of things others cook while on vacation.

I am on vacation too so I cook very little when I am staying in an apartment. We predominantly rent because of DH allergies and we can control the environment better. Also for me a MAJOR part of travel is to learn the foods and food culture of a country.

I am picky about how I cook so for me most rentals don't have good pans or if they have good pans they don't have decent knives or decent mixing bowls or.... You get the idea.

Having said that I do make morning coffee and a couple of times a week carry out lunches (sandwiches, salads).

More and more grocery stores are doing the deli/grocery store thing where you can get takeaway. I had great porchetta, some really fantastic salads as takeaway from the grocery stores in Italy.

Anything that needs a recipe is usually available on allrecipes.com or foodnetwork.com or epicurious.com so I wouldn't worry about recipes.

The one thing I had difficulty finding in Europe (England and Italy) was brown sugar. Also the vanilla is different from ours. If you have friends where you are going and want to make an "american" dish brownies and chocolate chip cookies are huge hits. Just take the dry ingredients premixed in zip lock bags (except for the vanilla which you will have to add to the choco chip cookies). Eggs, butter, oils, are all available.

Summer and early fall it is too hot to cook in un-airconditioned kitchens. Winter I have been known to do soups (don't require a lot of utinsels). Ovens are so different and touchy that baking is very problematic. It took me 6 months to learn my new stove here in the states. Unfortunately I don't have 6 months to learn a different stove while traveling.

We mostly just cook breakfasts--eggs, toast/croissants, fruit, that sort of thing. I love having a kitchen in France or Italy so I can make breakfast. But we've also gotten take out foods, esp. from farmer's markets, like roast chickens, roast potatoes, paella, in France. I've seen beautiful selections of prepared foods in some German stores--I'd try to hit markets or good groceries and focus on take out.

Hi Kathryn: On our main Slow Travel website, one of our members has put together a vacation rental kitchen cookbook. These are geared to travelers to Italy, but they may give you some ideas.

Also - traveling in the fall, you may find you want to take along a couple of favorite soup or stew recipes, which lend themselves easily to reheating.

Judy

This message has been edited. Last edited by: TourMama,

We cook and eat most of our meals in our vacation rentals. Here's one of our main dishes (have some problems uploading but you get the idea) in Venice last November: steamed black rice from the Veneto; sauted flat beans in olive oil and garlic with carrots and mushrooms; and sauted shrimp in oil and garlic, butter and lemon juice added after cooking while still hot. Seasoned with salt and pepper. Ingredients purchased at the Rialto market. One of our joys is food shopping.

I also like to cook in vacation rentals, and it can be a challenge. Often the kitchens are tiny and the equipment sparse. I always take my own knives (just 2)
We travel generally to France. I always cook rabbit and duck of some sort. We have leftovers with the rabbit. Risotto is a good one for not needing a recipe as are all types of pasta dishes. I only book apartments that have an oven and have found them all pretty easy to use.
Warm salads are another favourite easy to prepare in a small space and lots of vegetable gratins.
In many parts of France there is an amazing shop called Picards which sells only frozen food of excellent quantity and variety which require either cooking or heating up depending on the dish.
Hope this helps. The markets give you the best ideas.
Sue

Knives! Either bring one or two as Susi said, or buy one while traveling.

Pasta is a great base for picnic leftovers and fresh veggies from the market. Since we travel almost exclusively during summer (hot) months, we do little official "cooking". We prepare some things, but often have a cold supper.

Breakfast is about the only thing we cook in rentals.
Sometime snacks, if we've eaten a large meal out.

Kitchens are usually tiny and sparse with utensils. Grocery stores can be found pretty much anywhere.

Elly

We will always do breakfast in our apartment. Eggs or cereal. We enjoy muesli and find the European brands much better. We also stock up on snacks. My husband does not eat meat. I will look for items like pre-packaged pasta (ravioli, etc) if I can not find fresh. Or get a good dry pasta. I have found it a bit more difficult to find good pasta and sauces in Northern Europe (Holland). I did find good prepared dishes already packaged similar to deli selections in Holland - prepared meals and cooked chickens, etc. I also make a lot of salads and add items like a nice canned tuna. I usually buy a small olive oil and vinegar for dressing.

I also look to see if there are any fresh markets in the area. I'm not certain if you will find this in the area at the time you are staying in Germany. I suspect you might since it would still be time for winter squashes, root crops and fresh mushrooms. I try to cook seasonal and local if possible and use the fresh markets. Also see what the specialties of the area. I do not know much of the cooking in the area - maybe sausages. They would be easy to cook.

quote:

Originally posted by susi:
...I always take my own knives.....
I only book apartments that have an oven and have found them all pretty easy to use....

Good advice about the knives! As for having an oven, I was surprised at how many rental units only have a cooktop (or hob as the Brits call it) but no oven. Check your rental info carefully if an oven is important to you.

quote:

Originally posted by Marta:
We will always do breakfast in our apartment. Eggs or cereal. We enjoy muesli and find the European brands much better. We also stock up on snacks. My husband does not eat meat. I will look for items like pre-packaged pasta (ravioli, etc) if I can not find fresh. Or get a good dry pasta. I have found it a bit more difficult to find good pasta and sauces in Northern Europe (Holland).

Marta

Please tell me you didn't miss rijstafel. Even a vegetarian can eat until they burst at most dutch restaurants serving rijstafel.

Cooking, after getting local specialties from the markets, is a highlight for our travels, maybe more so than sightseeing, because the whole experience of going to a market, trying out the language, trying out in-season local ingredients, gives a real involvement into the culture, wherever one is.

We have also compiled simple recipes for travels; after all, one does not want to cook all day when travelling.
Many of the recipes are barbecue dishes with a simple marinade using local herbs (such as herbs that grow in the garden, in our last Provence rental). When renting a house, my husband insists that we find one with a barbie.

O yes we bring our own knives, sometimes even an extra chopping board.
Most of the time we eat in. Then we choose a couple of rather good restaurants for a more celebratory night out.

quote:

Please tell me you didn't miss rijstafel. Even a vegetarian can eat until they burst at most dutch restaurants serving rijstafel.

Rijsttafel usually didn't work out for us. We found it a little too expensive for two. We did frequently eat Indonesian but usually ordered separate dishes. You could often order a single plate with an assortment (nasi rames) and share. We do love Indonesian food and ate a lot of similar food in Malaysia.

Okay... back to talking about cooking in vacation rentals.

For me, I get the basics in...pasta, rice, oil, vinegar, salt and pepper, etc. and then plan to go to the market (as part of my travelling enjoyment!!) and get things to go with the above. Unless you are really isolated, this seems to work well. I would likely get at least 2-3 days worth of food in if I don't want to go to the market daily. I often have a pasta or rice dish one day of some sort and then make enough to chill and turn into some sort of salad the next day. Part of travelling for me, however, is eating new things and having access to high quality yummy foods so I likely would not want to make something I would eat for days and days...I also try to cook food that is native as much as possible, it makes shopping easier. I agree with some posters above, sometimes it is a great idea to pick up food that just needs to be assembled. For instance, in Paris, even though the markets are super, so is the ready to go food located in small deli type shops all over!

We love to cook in rentals because the food shopping is so fun in different countries.

In Amsterdam on our houseboat we were two blocks from the Albert Cuyp market and that was in November so we got tons of chantrelles and made lamb chops with pasta and mushrooms. We had an oven here and we did do roasted potatoes one night.

In Rome we bought pancetta for carbonara...pasta is great for fast cooking on holiday.

In Paris we mostly bought snacky things, pate, bread, tomatoes, cheese, desserts...I have to say we ate out the most here, it was fantastic!

Mexico not alot of cooking in the apartment as the food is so cheap! Here we just got beer in and some chips and snacks. We will be cooking more this time as we will be there longer.

It is true that its rare to get an oven in rentals but some have them.

Where I usually want to cook the most is in England at my mother in laws but she won't let me near the stove! I am dying to get one of those gorgeous english pork roasts with all the crackling on it and make a roast dinner.

Maybe someday...

I don't eat any meat chicken or fish, so having a kitchen is a necessity.

I love grocery shopping on holiday. I almost don't know what to do with myself the very few times I have gone away and had to stay in a hotel. I do take some time-saving shortcuts and buy some expensive treats I wouldn't at home, just so I can "assemble" a delicious fresh meal rather than "cook" it from scratch. But it's still cheaper than a restaurant.

I have generally found that someone has always left a recipe book or two at a rental in the book shelf.

But does anyone REALLY use "recipes"?

Anyhow, whether you're a professional TV chef or a TV dinner chef, I can't imagine spending hours in the kitchen with your nose stuck in a book measuring out a quarter teaspoon of fenugreek when you're in a fantastic city for such a short time. Even if you enjoy cooking, it should be easy and fun, just a few things thrown together. That you should be able to do from memory.

In my opinion, the best use of the kitchen, in terms of both eating well while saving money, is to keep it simple, shop for good fresh interesting ingredients (like maybe locally made sausages or game or cheese, or fresh pasta, bread from a nice bakery, wine, some nice fresh salad or vegetables from the market) and use your kitchen to assemble it. Then use your time to explore!

(The chefs I hear about generally eat OTHER people's cooking while on holiday, THEN go home and try to cook it themselves. And they don't use recipes.)

Your kitchen equipment should be adequate for this (others' suggestion of a sharp knife might help). Think of it as a challenge. I bet the grandmother downstairs could make anything in that cookbook with what's in that cabinet and her two hands.

Enjoy!

quote:

But does anyone REALLY use "recipes"?

I use recipes. Really.

quote:

Anyhow, whether you're a professional TV chef or a TV dinner chef, I can't imagine spending hours in the kitchen with your nose stuck in a book measuring out a quarter teaspoon of fenugreek when you're in a fantastic city for such a short time.

I don't cook for hours. As a rule on holiday I cook for less than an hour in fact. With friends together making food and drinking, it is pure pleasure.

I do recipes too. The Silver Spoon cookbook will be in my suitcase. (we travel by car, so the weight is not an issue) The recipes don't take hours and are mostly easy to make. Exploring the markets for the right ingredients is what I love to do on a holiday. So instead of taking a cooking leason, I explore the Italian kitchen with the help of my cookbook. My family is still talking about last year. Everbody was helping at the kitchentable with a glass of wine, windows open, last sun coming in and the television on a Italian summer program....it felt like we belonged there.

quote:

The one thing I had difficulty finding in Europe (England and Italy) was brown sugar. Also the vanilla is different from ours. If you have friends where you are going and want to make an "american" dish brownies and chocolate chip cookies are huge hits. Just take the dry ingredients premixed in zip lock bags (except for the vanilla which you will have to add to the choco chip cookies). Eggs, butter, oils, are all available.

I'm sorry to hear you had problems in finding brown sugar in England - dark brown muscovado, light brown muscavado (both with high molasses content and strong flavour), light brown caster(fine flow srystal) and demerara (large crystal, used for toppings or as coffee sugar) are widely available in every supermarket, in addition to Fairtrade caster (very light) which has become very popular. There is more shelf space devoted to non-white sugars than the standard white caster for cooking, unless you are buying from a tiny shop like a petrol station convenience one or the limited 'ingredient' range in Marks & Spencers food section. The large packets of granulated white (for sweetening, not cooking) are sometimes found in the tea and coffee sections which could cause confusion, making you think that's all we have! The others are to be found with other baking ingredients.

Of course, you may be looking for a special kind of brown sugar not covered in the list above. Look out also for the difference between vanilla flavouring (awful ) and vanilla extract - the second is usually in larger bottles and much more expensive but so much better.

Hi,
Just let yourself get inspired by local market products.
I just love cooking and even the kitchens are tiny at times there is always a way of prepairing something delicious and simple.

On our trip to Greece there were a lot of different sorts of olives, so I just bough some chicken breasts and prepaired as follows: in olive oil on a pan just put the breast on one side for a few minutes to get it golden, then the other side, then I added slices olives stuffed with garlic or spicy olives, onions, garlic and I added a small glass of white wine. Cover and just let it for 15 minutes, to get a sauce and you can serve it on pasta or potatoes. While the chicken and pasta cooked I prepared a salad. Not more than 30 minutes in total.
if you don't have olives, then you can imagine a recipe with mushrooms etc...
Fish is also very easy to cook: grill it with olive oil, pepper and present with lemon. It just takes a few minutes and the meal is ready.
And since most recipies are fast to prepair, I don't keep it for 2-3 meals, istead you can just cut all ingredients once and then the cooking is even faster and you get fresh food.

Even though there are plenty of restaurants arround at one point you just want to get a great home made meal. I usually can't eat all the time at restaurants, as it is too much.

In Germany it is still quite usual to eat a main meal at midday and, although we don't do this at home, we find it a useful thing to do on holiday. We can then have what the Germans call 'Brotzeit' in the evening, which is bread, sausage, cheese and pickles/salad. You will find that food shops in Germany have a huge selection of different sort of cold meats, salamis etc, a wide range of breads - the traditional German country bread is just heavenly with the cold meats, and large jars of pickles which are usually very cheap. You can buy any quantity of the cold meats - even just a couple of slices if you want something to try and are not sure if you will like it - it fact they will cut of a small piece of anything for you to try in the shop before you buy. The only thing we find poor in Germany is the cheese - there are a few good ones, but mostly we find them lacking in flavour and with a 'soapy' texture - compared with the wonderful English cheeses anyway.

I would agree with the advice to take a sharp knife - I know we are very unusual in providing sharp knives in our apartments AND sharpening them regularly. We too have had bad experiences of apartments without sharp knives!

Thanks for all the good replies. It is nice to read that others do a lot of the same things I do, i.e., take a couple of good knives, shop for local specialities, etc. We also enjoy the local bread in Europe and absolutely love shopping in the grocery stores. Thanks again.
Kathryn

Hi Kathryn,

We've done several rentals in Germany and Austria. We always eat all our breakfasts at "home," and try to fix about half of our own dinners at home too. We really like shopping in foreign grocery stores and specialty food shops. There are some outdoor markets in some towns and cities, though not what we are used to in southern France. The outdoor food market in Munich is spectacular though.

For breakfasts, there are wonderful breads and pastries at the backereis (standalone shops and even at the grocery store). We like to have meats and cheeses, which you can buy in single slices as Margaret says. And the yoghurt is wonderful-- we buy it is big jars.

For dinner, I do take some shortcuts. We like to make some "local" dishes, but don't want to deal with recipes, investing a lot of time in cooking, or buying lots of ingredients (like spices of which we'd use just a teaspoon or two). So I like to use the little sauce packets, by Knorr or Maggi, which are different in every European country based on what the local dishes are. (You can also buy packets to help with soups, salad dressings etc.) You can add a meat (beef, chicken, pork), a starch (potatoes, rice, pasta), and a vegetable or salad. This is an easy and inexpensive way to have a good meal with a local focus. We like some of the sauces so much that we often carry a few of the packets home with us.

You can also buy some pre-prepared foods, as a way to save some time and enjoy local foods.

Kathy

We just got back from Greece and although our kitchen was ill equipped, we were thrilled to have the option of buying local cheese, eggs and other produce. Frying an egg without a flipper was fun and oh yes, cutting a watermelon with a butter knife is another fun game. We did remember to bring along a can opener that doubles for other purposes. We definitely do not cook elaborate meals but shopping for groceries locally is half the fun! I loved our tiny kitchen in Santorini with the two hot plates. Getting up in the morning to make our own coffee and eat breakfast at a slow pace with our PJs feels like a luxury to me. It makes me feel like it is home away from home. It is for that reason that I never like to stay in hotels.

This time I brought a portable clothes line with suction cups so I could wash out our underwear and lighter clothes to eliminate the need for laundromat visits.

Sandy

I guess having an Italian wife influences me massively but I think various pasta dishes are an excellent thing to cook on holiday.
As a meal which is cheap, fairly quick, healthy (if you add the right things, filling and simple this is a gerat holiday food.
The great thing also is that you can add most local vegetables and tomatoes etc and make different dishes and include garlic etc.