When we were buying our first trailer, there was some weird RV oven shortage. RV dealers tried to tell me that I only really needed an oven for cooking Thanksgiving dinner and that all I needed was a microwave with a convection oven. Wrong … on many levels! First of all, I love to cook! I need an oven! I’m famous for my cookies! I can’t not have an oven for them. And secondly, who in their right mind cooks a turkey in an RV oven?! Actually, truth be told, cooking Thanksgiving dinner in a trailer is on my bucket list although I would cook a turkey breast – not a whole turkey. However, it’s not on my husband’s bucket list. He thinks I’ll totally lose my mind trying to do it and he can’t bear to watch. I beg to differ … and I’m also losing… We did have Thanksgiving on a trailer trip once. We had it in a restaurant. While taking off my coat to sit down, I accidentally smacked my hand on a tray of wine the waitress had for another table. The wine went all over one of the people sitting at the table. Very embarrassing. This wouldn’t have happened if I could have cooked in my trailer because I have stemless wine glasses (see holiday shopping blog post)! I digress…
On our first trailer trip ever, we stopped at a McDonalds and got the kids Happy Meals. Thank goodness we did! It took us forever to set up the trailer because we were newbies. Then, I decided I’d make us what we now call “Trailer Pizza.” Trailer pizza, for normal people, is a garlic, chicken, and rosemary pizza – delicious! I was feeling so gourmet! I set the oven for the temperature I cook it at home, got it ready, and baked it just like I would at home. The bottom got so burned it was inedible! We ended up scraping the topping off and having that for dinner. Stupid trailer oven!! Here’s what we learned.
RV ovens run hot on the bottom. DUH! We noticed. The heat doesn’t disperse evenly and it makes cooking in the oven a big challenge. My dad had already come across this problem and let us know a great hack. If you get some cheap tiles and cut them to fit into the bottom of the oven, the heat disperses more evenly. It’s not perfect, but it helps a lot.
I also heat the oven up a little higher than I want. When I put the food in, I turn it down a little lower than I’d actually like. The oven stays pretty hot, but then, doesn’t end up firing up to keep it at the hotter temperature. I also set the timer for about half the time that I’m planning to bake. Then, I turn the pan and cook for the other half of the time.
Before we bought our first trailer, I was a Pampered Chef Kitchen Consultant, which is a fancy name for Sales Person. Lucky for us, kit enhancement month where I got to buy whatever I wanted out of the Pampered Chef catalog for half price, was the same month we acquired the trailer. I stocked the kitchen with Pampered Chef! Crazy as it sounds, I included in my trailer kitchen with a pizza stone, and square baking stone, and a round baking stone. The stones help disperse the heat even more. We now leave a pizza stone in the oven and bake everything in another stone on top of that.
We love “fancy breakfast.” That’s when we break open one of those Pillsbury tubes of biscuits or cinnamon rolls, scramble some eggs, cook up some brown and serve sausage, and make a little fruit salad. Fancy, huh? We had trouble burning the bottom of our biscuits and cinnamon rolls, until we figured out that we could flip them over like pancakes about 3/4 of the way through the baking (after we turn the pan 1/2 way through the baking, of course). They look weird, but they’re cooked perfectly! I haven’t had the heart to flip over my cookies. My kids will find cookies that are a little crunchier on the bottom and say, “these must be trailer cookies.”
Another problem with RV ovens is their size! We have had to adapt some pans to make them fit – like bending up the sides of cookie sheets. Of course, had we measured before we bought the pans, we may have purchased the right size of pan! Word to the wise, measure first, then shop!
Over our 14 years of trailering, we’ve gotten things down pretty well. I’m proud to say that we can arrive at a campsite and get things partially set up enough to where I can go inside and start dinner. I can get our trailer pizza started and in the oven by the time my husband finishes up with the outside. We make salads while the pizza is in the oven and enjoy the views while we wait for the pizza to need to be turned, reset the timer, and bake the rest of the way. It’s a nice way to start a trip.
I hope this has helped keep you from burning your biscuits and made cooking in an RV kitchen a little better for you.
Next blog post – The 8:00 Rule. Why One of Our Favorite Vacation Memories is From Cracker Barrel.
Trailer Girl's Guide to Happy Camping 