Road Trip Food

I LOVE road trips but I absolutely hate the way I feel when I have to eat a bunch of junk on the road! It always tastes so good at the time but leaves me feeling like absolute poo for several days after the fact. On our most recent road trip to Ohio, I decided to pack all of our meals/snacks in order to save money and avoid eating processed junk.

Now those of you who know Jon and I know that we eat a lot... I mean, A LOT. We are not the kind of people who can get by on just a bunch of snacks. We need meat. We need substance.  And I think I successfully provided these things on the trip.

Here's what I packed:

Cooler Items:
Pasta and bean salad
4 cold cooked steaks
Gallon of milk

Homemade Dressing
Greens (portioned into sandwich bags)
Sliced cheddar cheese
Nectarines

Sliced cucumbers in vinegar and spices

Iced Coffee

Non-Cooler Items:
Organic Morning O's (Whole Foods' version of Cheerios)
Triscuits
Raisins
Trail Mix
Cookies
Bottled Water

Plastic Cups
Plastic Forks

Plastic Spoons

For the pasta salad I just combined whole wheat macaroni pasta with cucumbers, green bell pepper, kidney beans, navy beans, onion, garlic, lemon juice, olive oil, red wine vinegar and some herbs. We just ate it out of plastic cups with forks. It was really good and also very hearty.

For the cucumbers I just sliced them and placed them in tightly sealed mason jars with peppercorns, salt, apple cider vinegar and some water.

In order to save cooler space I packed the greens in sandwich bags. When we wanted to eat them we just poured on some dressing and ate it directly out of the bag.  I made a simple dressing with raw apple cider vinegar, olive oil, garlic, dijon mustard, salt, pepper and a bay leaf.

Everything else is pretty self-explanatory.  We were able to fit everything into a 48 qt. cooler and a paper grocery bag. It really saved us a lot of time and money on the road, and kept all of us full for the duration of the trip.  We even had leftovers when we got home!  This is the first time we have been able to eat ONLY what I packed for an entire trip, usually we end up hungry and have to buy something along the way.  I will definitely be repeating some of these things for our next road trip!