Differently confined kitchen

 Last weekend I stayed in a Pontins chalet for a dance weekend. While I love the weekends, the accommodation leaves a lot to be desired. I often joke that you need to pack everything including the kitchen sink for these weekends. 

While the chalets have a kitchen it is randomly equipped (let's not talk about the time I ended up drinking my tea from a bowl as there were no mugs!). Cleanliness is not a particularly strong point either. Added to that mealtimes can be somewhat erratic - fitting around dance classes and social activities.

Luckily this is my seventh weekender - the events overall are fantastic, despite all the shortcomings of the chalets. Over time I have worked out the best way to approach them. In kitchen terms this involves taking a few items of crockery - most importantly a mug and also a plate and bowl. I grate cheese and pack that into a tupperware container. For main meals I take advantage of the fact that I often cook two portions of my favourite dishes and have leftovers. This means I have homemade 'ready meals' to take with me which just need reheating in the microwave. This time I had three bean chilli with cheesy tortilla chips, and gigantes plaki with toast. I did also cheat with a mushroom pappardelle ready meal from M&S. 

As well as taking the effort and time out of food prep it also reduces the decision making required at the local takeaways. The full event schedule with lots of classes running alongside each other means lots of decision making - taking one decision away reduces the overwhelm.

Along with a few kitchen essentials such as bread, butter, teabags, and marmite this usually serves me well for the weekend. Lunches are often something simple grabbed from the onsite shop but at least I know I have a good supply of healthy food to fuel me for the hours of dancing.

Naturally I forgot to take any photos of my weekend meals - so I've included today's dinner of sprouts, artichoke, and stilton gratin to illustrate this blog, and a couple of the dancefloor.

Now to start planning for the next one in March!