Jen

Cat wrangler. G-free 4 life.

No-mato sauce 2.0: AKA Awesome Sauce (tomato-free marinara, also vegan, corn-free, soy-free)

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David calls this Awesome Sauce. Awhile back, I thought I’d come up with an ideal (for us) nomato sauce. It’s good but requires more work and ingredients than I have energy for most nights, and I don’t have the energy to put much forethought into food prep lately. Sometimes you just get into a rut. Having to be constantly vigilant about ingredients and not being able to eat out if you want a change of pace gets really tedious. So here is No-mato 2.0, AKA Awesome Sauce. This recipe requires a blender or food processor (we used our Nutri Ninja with the 16oz cup), but an immersion blender makes quick work of this too. Fair warning: this sauce is nuclear-pumpkin-safety orange. It’s delicious, but I haven’t been able to make it any redder. Since I don’t care and I think it’s delicious, I’m posting my recipe. Ingredients 1-12 ounce jar …

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Rambling Redwoods Campground and RV Park – Crescent City, California

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We’ve slowed down our travels a bit for a few reasons. The first is Covid-19. We wanted to protect ourselves and slow the spread, and avoiding crowded areas was our best option. The second is David’s Mobile RV Service, which has many great clients who refer other great clients, and David has built himself an active business in the Crescent City area. We still identify more as tumbleweeds than redwoods, but if we’re going to put down some tentative roots, among the redwoods is where we’d like to do it. This campground might be the best-kept secret on the Northern California coast. Nestled in the redwoods along Highway 101, you can sleep among the trees and be part of the forest, but without giving up things like cellular service and easy access to groceries. We decided to hunker down for the winter here, and moved to a long-term spot back …

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Faux Tuna Salad: gluten-free, soy-free, vegan

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We like this on thin rice cakes, cucumbers, chips of all kinds, and Siete tortilla wraps. Makes a good picnic snack or a quick lunch. Ingredients 1-16oz can quartered artichokes, unseasoned 1/3 cup mayo of choice (we like Follow Your Heart Soy-Free) 1/4 cup dill pickle relish or chopped pickles 1 tbsp mustard, any variety 1 sheet nori, crumbled (optional) Black pepper, to taste Instructions Drain and rinse the artichokes, then chop or shred into small pieces in a medium bowl or storage container. Mix other ingredients into artichokes until well-combined. Season with fresh cracked pepper to taste. Notes Nori is optional but makes it “fishier” and tastes salty. We like pickles a lot. You might prefer less relish. Chopped celery is a nice addition. If you eat onions, you might like to add some. Banana flower works well in place of artichokes, if you have access to them. Stays …

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Rambling Redwoods Campground and RV Park, Crescent City, California

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We are spending the winter in the redwoods! We spent most of the summer on the coast in Crescent City, but by October, the coast gets extra windy, making the RV feel like a boat. So we moved a tiny bit inland where the wind is blocked by these magnificent trees. We love this area so much that we decided to stay through the winter. We have never experienced a Pacific Northwest winter, so that’s an adventure in itself. We were warned to expect lots of rain and to prepare for moisture control. Honestly, the rain was an understatement. We did get a dehumidifier to help with the condensation inside and it’s helped a lot. We had a white Christmas: with hail! Big huge hail that looked like snow more than a few times. We’re staying at Rambling Redwoods, which is right on US-101. It’s an appropriately named park, with …

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Siete Foods Appreciation Post

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Note: This is not an affiliate post or a sponsored post. We just love Siete this much. It’s so hard to have food allergies and celiac disease in this world, so we love sharing our rare good food experiences. Confession: we have tacos pretty much every day for breakfast. Not breakfast tacos, but dinner tacos (vegan meat, vegan cheese, lettuce) for breakfast. It started out as a quick and easy safe filling breakfast awhile back, and it’s become the best breakfast idea ever. So we buy our Siete tortillas in bulk direct from their website, and have them shipped wherever we’re staying. We also buy their chorizo seasoning to add to Beyond Beef (vegan ground meat substitute) for taco filling. Siete does have actual taco seasoning and it’s definitely delicious but it also contains tomatoes, so we stick to the chorizo, which is tomato-free. And probably THE best pre-mixed seasoning …

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Gold Beach, Oregon

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We did not plan well this summer and didn’t line up a park for July 4th in advance, so in May, we realized we could be boondocking on the beach if we didn’t figure something out. (Which sounds fun, but we need shore power and neither me nor the cats like fireworks.) We also heard the Crescent City area LOVES its fireworks, and we didn’t want to find out how much. We got lucky and found the last spot at Oceanside RV Park in Gold Beach, OR for a nearly-two-week stay that included July 4. It wasn’t the cheapest place we’ve stayed, but it had full hookups and it was right on the beach, and it was available. It was really nice having a short drive to a new place we’ve never been, and the cats appreciated that, too. There were tons of birds for the cats to watch, and …

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A generic update!

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It’s been awhile, friends. Work has been keeping us both busy, and there just hasn’t been a lot of energy leftover for blogging. Which is great in some ways— David loves his job as an RV tech! And tiring in others— I’m a tax preparer, and I haven’t had much of a break thanks to covid. Living with chronic illness and disability means I’ve got time to work or time to take care of myself, but not both. (Let this be a lesson to anyone who thinks full-time RV life means full-time vacation!) We are still in Crescent City, California. We absolutely love this area, and hope to explore more of the Pacific Northwest when we are able. We’ve decided to spend the winter here in Crescent City, and experience a PNW winter firsthand. One of the reasons we’re sticking close to our current favorite city is Covid-19. It had …

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An ant infestation with a happy ending

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A couple weeks ago, we woke up to the worst infestation of ants we’ve ever had. We’ve only had a few (and only once before in the RV) but wow, this was a doozy. We’d moved to a new park the night before, and I guess they thought we were a new food truck rolling into town. We discovered them when we opened the pantry to make breakfast the next morning. The ants were everywhere. They marched right up the rear jack beneath the pantry, and found an entry point. They were also entering through the front door, but that must’ve been very new because they hadn’t reached any food yet. They were just wandering aimlessly. The pantry in the RV is quite large, and it was full. We lost about $100 worth of food. We’d become a little lax about the types of open packages that stayed in the …

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Keeping the Spices on the Spice Rack While Driving Down the Road

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This project isn’t technically complete, but I’ve wanted to do something like this since we first moved into the rig, so I’m sharing my proof of concept. I’ll probably update this when it’s prettified. This spice rack was designed and handmade for me by David, when we first moved in together. Back then, he had converted his garage to a full wood shop and made incredible furniture and projects. This was also back when cooking was just a hobby. Since the celiac diagnosis and the discovery of food allergies and sensitivities, we have to cook EVERYTHING at home, and a well-stocked spice rack is the key to making that not suck. There was no way I was giving up my spice rack when we moved into the RV. Since it was very tall, David cut it into two pieces. It now fits perfectly in our RV kitchen: the larger portion …

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