A Traveller's "Kitchen"

I have become a Traveller.  Not a traveler, mind you, who is globetrotting and seeing the world, but a Traveller, as in I am working as a seasonal employee, because I currently, have no home.  While traveling was a always a goal of mine, that is not the case here. To make a long story short, I refused to sign a new lease on my last apartment with the $400/month rent increase, especially since both my son and I had just lost our jobs, so we opted to live in our car, a 1997 Honda Accord (which just died this August, but served us well). I found part time work in a catering kitchen, and would listen to other cooks talk about their seasonal jobs. Eureka! A lightbulb went off, and I realized I could still work and have a place to live. A month later, we arrived in Bozeman, Montana to work up at Big Sky Resort.

One of the big issues with employee housing (or dorm or hotel living) is that there's no kitchen. I'm a cook and a pastry chef. I need a kitchen, preferably, with an oven. With us in the car, we had brought an induction burner, a pot (3 quart) and a pan (3 quart/10"). Once we got to housing, we had a shared microwave in the hall. Period. Hot plates are not allowed in housing (although some people did quietly have them), because they're a fire hazard. You see, hot plates work on thermal induction, which means you plug them in, turn them on, and they get HOT. Induction burners work on magnetic induction, which means that the only surface that heats up, is the area that is covered by a pot/pan that can hold a magnet, so you need a pan such as cast iron, and certain stainless steel. Aluminum pans won't work (you can test the pan by seeing if a magnet sticks to the bottom of the pan). No other surface area gets hot. If the pan is not on the surface, there is no heat. If you leave it on with no pan, it will just keep beeping at you until it eventually turns itself off. (As a safety note: Please never leave any pot unattended! Not only is it a big fire hazard, you can lose some of your favorite pots that way. Believe me, I know this from experience.)

Now a person cannot live by ramen alone, at least not me, and restaurants up here are few and expensive (the closest fast food is about 40 miles away) so when I got my first real paycheck, about a month later, I splurged on a small (4 quart) slow cooker. Not too long after that purchase, getting a little frustrated with the altitude adjustment (we were at 4,800 ft above sea level in Bozeman, moving eventually to over 7,000 ft above sea level in Big Sky), came a small rice cooker.  Now, I could make some food...soups, stews, chili, rice dishes, definitely an improvement. I still missed toast (the iron works ok, but it's not the same) and baking. In our second season, we got moved to a different room, and joy of joys! inherited a small toaster oven from a departing employee.

Fast forward to Fall 2017. I'm from the east coast (big ups to the Bronx!) and was missing the change of season. Montana is a beautiful state, but we live above the deciduous tree line, so everything stays green. I also wanted a traditional Thanksgiving, so that's what I decided to make.

Thanksgiving Dinner
Cooking a multi-part meal with minimum equipment and space take coordination. What can be done quickly and put away? What can be done at the same time?  The day before Thanksgiving, I started with the cranberry sauce, since this is served cold anyway. The next step was to prep the turkey. Given the lack of space, I bought a turkey breast (on the bone), and with a sharp knife, removed the breast from the bone. I line my slow cooker with a cooking bag because I hate to clean the ceramic insert (I'm terrified of breaking it and got a good deal on Amazon.com), so I rubbed the turkey breast with oil and placed it in the bag, rubbed all my seasonings on the breast and set the slow cooker on high to cook for 5-6 hours, or until tender.

While the turkey was cooking, I made the traditional green bean casserole.  I mixed all the ingredients, according to the directions on the box of fried onions, and put it in a small aluminum foil tin to cook in the toaster oven.

After I removed the green beans from the toaster over, I started cooking my sweet potato. For a nice baked sweet potato, clean the potato well, and poke all over with a fork. Rub butter well all over the potato, and bake in the toaster oven at 400º F for 30 minutes, turn potato over and bake for another 30 minutes, or until soft. I like it really soft, with the syrup on the skin, so I turned it again and left it for another 30 minutes, total cooking time of 90 minutes.

I was just using StoveTop™ for the stuffing, and a packaged sauce mix for the gravy (although I did doctor that up with butter and some of the drippings from the turkey) so I did those after everything else was done.

All in all, I was very satisfied with with my results.

Cranberry Sauce
Homemade cranberry sauce is so easy to make, you'll never use canned again.

Equipment used: Induction burner, 3 qt pot
Ingredients:
12 oz bag cranberries
1 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup water
1/4 cup orange juice

Over medium heat (5.0 on induction burner) add sugar, water and orange juice to the pot, stirring gently until all the sugar is dissolved, then bring to a boil. Stir in cranberries, and bring back to a boil. Boil the cranberries, stirring occasionally until they all pop open, about 10 minutes.  Remove from heat and cool until ready to serve, or refrigerate.  

Note: If you want plain jelled cranberry sauce, instead of the whole berries, pour the cooked cranberries into a strainer over a bowl and press through until only the skins remain in the strainer. Discard skins, and cool the strained mixture.