Cooking

[jo79RI]

Would some of you like to share how one cooks while living for months at a time in your Oliver?  The refrigerator and freezer don't hold much, and it looks like most cook outside when possible.

[Overland]

We bought a National Luna fridge/freezer for the back of our truck, which triples our storage space.  That made a big difference for us, and we can get about three weeks of groceries between that and the trailer, if needed.  

For cooking, we do grill a good bit, but then we do that at home as well.  We also substituted a small toaster oven in place of the microwave, which we find to be more versatile.  A typical meal for us is one thing on the grill, and one or two things on the cooktop or toaster oven.   Some people carry an instant pot and seem to get a lot of use out of them.  And some people carry a portable stove as well for cooking outside - we carried one for the first few trips but found that we don't use it that much.  The Lukens' have a Cobb Grill and you can search for their posts about it - seems pretty neat.

Edited February 27, 2020 by Overland

[SeaDawg]

I'm one of those who cooks mostly outside, on a wood fire whenever possible.  It's what we like.  

We've also used a gas  grill, and a pocket rocket. We don't usually have power, so microwave is a nonstarter, and reheats and sometimes  toast, are done on the fire, or in a lidded pan on the stove in the Ollie.

For us, the original Ollie three way fridge could hold food  for two, for about two weeks, if I stored things like tomatoes, onions, potatoes etc., outside the fridge,  which is actually best, anyway. I process (clean and cut) celery and carrots, etc.  and store in smaller containers or bags in the fridge. 

It's not that hard, really,  in my opinion.

The smaller freezer ( shoebox size) in my replacement 12v truck fridge makes frozen veggies and meat/ fish a bit of a challenge. But still doable. We shop whenever in town. 

I also carry shelf stable  boxed milk and tinned cream, so that helps, on longer camping trips.

Sherry

 

Edited February 28, 2020 by SeaDawg

[Landrover]

Our cooking changes depending on where we are. If possible, we like to support the local mom & pop restaurants. Cooking outside is the best either with the Weber Q or the Blackstone griddle, and sometimes the mood is lazy quick microwave meals.  I Also carry a 12v 110v cooler freezer in the back of the truck. We always wind up carrying more food than needed.  

[jo79RI]

Doesn't that cause the truck battery to go dead? 

[Trainman]

10 hours ago, Landrover said:

Our cooking changes depending on where we are. If possible, we like to support the local mom & pop restaurants. Cooking outside is the best either with the Weber Q or the Blackstone griddle, and sometimes the mood is lazy quick microwave meals.  I Also carry a 12v 110v cooler freezer in the back of the truck. We always wind up carrying more food than needed.  

Mom and Pop works for us to, but I do most of the cooking outdoors and very little cooking is done indoors, only soups, stews, and sandwiches. We have a small portable LP grill that plugs into one of the trailers LP outlets. We just purchased the Blackstone small grill and will be giving it a try, I think it will even work a little better for all around cooking, we will see. On longer trips we may even take both grills with us, we have the room. 

[Overland]

3 hours ago, jo79RI said:

Doesn't that cause the truck battery to go dead? 

It can. And slow drains like that aren’t good for starting batteries even if you aren’t running them down. So you’ve got a couple of choices -

The easiest way is to just disconnect the fridge from the truck when stopped and connect it to your trailer, or to shore power if the fridge has dual inputs.

The other way is to use a separate rechargeable battery pack like a goal zero for the fridge.  With that, you plug the fridge into the battery pack and the battery to the truck. Just unplug the battery from the truck when the engine isn’t running. These battery packs will have hookups for portable solar panels to keep them charged during the day if you aren’t driving. Many of them are sold as “solar generators” for that reason. 
 

There’s also a third way, which is to do like we did and permanently install a second battery in the truck, with solar hookups and a relay that automatically shuts off power from the truck when it’s off. 

Edited February 28, 2020 by Overland

[Landrover]

15 hours ago, jo79RI said:

Would some of you like to share how one cooks while living for months at a time in your Oliver?  The refrigerator and freezer don't hold much, and it looks like most cook outside when possible.

 

3 hours ago, jo79RI said:

Doesn't that cause the truck battery to go dead? 

My cooler has an auto shut off if battery voltage drops to a certain level to prevent a dead battery and allow enough volts to start the vehicle.  When parked at the camp site, the cooler is plug into 110v when traveling  it’s plugged into 12v  my cooler will stay cold for several hours completely unplugged as long as the cover remains closed. 

[Overland]

28 minutes ago, Landrover said:

My cooler has an auto shut off if battery voltage drops to a certain level to prevent a dead battery and allow enough volts to start the vehicle.  When parked at the camp site, the cooler is plug into 110v when traveling  it’s plugged into 12v  my cooler will stay cold for several hours completely unplugged as long as the cover remains closed. 

I like a man who lives on the edge. 🤠

Edited February 28, 2020 by Overland

[BackofBeyond]

We also use a secondary cooling -  an Arb AC/DC powered, don't remember size.  Generally it stays connected to the Oliver power systems. It also has the low voltage shut off feature for those occasions it may be in the truck - but the 2500 has two decent sized batteries. It really adds to the storage capacity - and is very versatile.  Cooking is outdoors mostly -  Weber Q, and at times the trusty old portable LP cooktop, rarely use the microwave. If we have time I'll play around with my Dutch ovens.