Have Bread, Will Travel...

As a family we love to travel.  We almost exclusively camp (real camping~ with a tent!).  We have been camping since before we had kids, we have camped during pregnancy, we have camped with babies/children, and we have continued to camp with food allergies.  Now some of you might think that pregnancy and babies would have been the most difficult time to camp; but actually, for us, it has been the whole food allergy thing.

I think what makes camping with food allergies so tough, is the trying to keep food from getting contaminated and the fact we have to pack it all.  We pack ALL the food because most places we go, we don't know if we can find the foods they can eat.  Plus, I make all the food basically from scratch.

There are a few things I do to make it easier on myself.  The first is planning the food, right down to the last bite.  Every breakfast, lunch, dinner, snack has been planned for.  Then, I over pack a bit.  I make lists, then check and double check that I have everything.  One time I forgot the boys' chocolate chips.  That was quite tragic!  Lots of tears.  There was no where near to buy them.

Another thing I do, is to buy all the none allergy food as we go (especially if it is a long trip).  This gives us more room to bring the hard to find food.

We bring about 4-5 high quality coolers with us.  We use one as a "freezer" and one as a "fridge."    The" fridge" can get opened as often as needed.  The "freezer" only gets opened to move something to the fridge to thaw out.  The rest of the coolers are dry goods.  I bake like a mad woman in the days before we leave to stock up on baked goods like bread, Indian Fry bread, muffins etc.  The baked goods usually are only good for about 7 days, even with the "freezer" method.

One last thing I do, is to google and search for all the stores along the way that might carry what we need.  I make a master list of them.  Sometimes I will even call to see if they carry some of our "basics."

Something new I am going to try this year is canned bread.  You did read that right.  Canned Bread.  It is a pretty simple canning method.  I simply mixed up my pumpkin bread recipe and my bread recipe.  I greased the inside of a couple wide mouth jars and filled them half full with my breads.  I baked the breads in the glass jars.  When they were done, I pulled them out, wiped the lip of the jar down, put on a fresh canning lid and ring and let them cool.  As they cooled, they self sealed.  I then put them on my shelf for two weeks as a trial.

The result was awesome.  Bread was fresh.  The canning seal was so tight I had to have DH pull it off.  It was just like fresh baked!  I will definitely bring some of theses when we go camping!  Next to try is chocolate cake!