I buy lots of TV dinners and tons of salad, fruit and breakfast stuff.

If we are driving around - we eat at a restaurant. If we come back for an afternoon nap (because kids get tired) - we will eat the TV dinner and salad, fruit, yogurt etc.

We try and go to eat out in a fancy restaurant at least a few times for dinner.

I will pack bars, fruits and water - for snacks at the beach - but nothing fancy!

Anonymous wrote:If you are willing to bring a crock pot here is a simple meal that my kids love and it's ridiculously easy and healthy. Take skinless boneless chicken breasts. Get a good jar of salsa. I try to find a low sodium- organic kind so I don't feel guilty about processed food. Dump the jar of salsa over the chicken. Add about a teaspoon of cumin in and squeeze of fresh lime juice. Turn on slow cooker on low. Head to beach. About 6 hours later when you are back, a delicious simmered chicken is ready. So tender. We pull apart and then use the meat to make tacos and burritos. Grill some corn on the side and some homemade guacamole and you are set!

And it is Paleo, Low Carb, Atkins, Diabetic...

If you are willing to bring a crock pot here is a simple meal that my kids love and it's ridiculously easy and healthy. Take skinless boneless chicken breasts. Get a good jar of salsa. I try to find a low sodium- organic kind so I don't feel guilty about processed food. Dump the jar of salsa over the chicken. Add about a teaspoon of cumin in and squeeze of fresh lime juice. Turn on slow cooker on low. Head to beach. About 6 hours later when you are back, a delicious simmered chicken is ready. So tender. We pull apart and then use the meat to make tacos and burritos. Grill some corn on the side and some homemade guacamole and you are set!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If I had to be that cheap, I would rather stay home.
How sad.

What a spoiled entitled brat you are. Maybe you should stay home with your condescension. Neither of you is welcome out in public.

I also think it sounds like a lot of cooking. It's a vacation and not a hamburger helper cook off. Make some salad and sandwiches and call it a day!

Seeing as we eat out once/week at home, going on vacation and eating out every other day is about all we can handle of eating out. I cook a lot better and healthier than what we get in most restaurants and frankly we're all happier if we eat at home a few times while out. Eating out for 7-8 days straight would not be very enjoyable. That feels like being at home and barred from your kitchen while the contractors rebuild your kitchen.

Just spent an 10 day vacation eating out EVERY night at mostly farm-to-table restaurants. Healthy, super yummy, and no shopping or dishes to do. Felt like a vacation.

What was your food budget? Vacation budget?

s/b "an 11 day"

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If I had to be that cheap, I would rather stay home.
How sad.

What a spoiled entitled brat you are. Maybe you should stay home with your condescension. Neither of you is welcome out in public.

I also think it sounds like a lot of cooking. It's a vacation and not a hamburger helper cook off. Make some salad and sandwiches and call it a day!

Seeing as we eat out once/week at home, going on vacation and eating out every other day is about all we can handle of eating out. I cook a lot better and healthier than what we get in most restaurants and frankly we're all happier if we eat at home a few times while out. Eating out for 7-8 days straight would not be very enjoyable. That feels like being at home and barred from your kitchen while the contractors rebuild your kitchen.

Just spent an 10 day vacation eating out EVERY night at mostly farm-to-table restaurants. Healthy, super yummy, and no shopping or dishes to do. Felt like a vacation.

I always bring a honey baked ham. I usually make a pasta sauce and then cook some pasta and serve bread and a salad. Then we grill two nights and order in pizza, bbq or asian food. The ham is dinner and then lunches.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If I had to be that cheap, I would rather stay home.
How sad.

What a spoiled entitled brat you are. Maybe you should stay home with your condescension. Neither of you is welcome out in public.

I also think it sounds like a lot of cooking. It's a vacation and not a hamburger helper cook off. Make some salad and sandwiches and call it a day!

Seeing as we eat out once/week at home, going on vacation and eating out every other day is about all we can handle of eating out. I cook a lot better and healthier than what we get in most restaurants and frankly we're all happier if we eat at home a few times while out. Eating out for 7-8 days straight would not be very enjoyable. That feels like being at home and barred from your kitchen while the contractors rebuild your kitchen.

This is us as well.
I don't enjoy eating out especially several nights in a row. It takes so much more effort, so much more time- and I'm just not as satisfied with the food because it's never as healthy as something I can make myself.

We've traveled a few times to St. John USVI and rented villas over there and brought our own food- lasagna, steaks, seafood, sandwich meats, hotdogs, salad, fruit, etc. It was fantastic to not have to take 10 people in cars to head out to restaurants at night. We were able to enjoy the beaches so much more and the pool in our villa so much more. All the food in the island is imported anyway so really, there would not have been anything THAT exotic in the restaurants that we couldn't live without.

Anonymous wrote:If I had to be that cheap, I would rather stay home.
How sad.

What is wrong with you? There are other reasons to cook on vacation besides saving money. We are about to go on a 10 day beach vacation with another family, staying in a beautiful and very expensive beach house. I'd prefer to not have to cook, but eating in is actually preferable than dragging 6 young kids out to a restaurant every night.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If I had to be that cheap, I would rather stay home.
How sad.

What a spoiled entitled brat you are. Maybe you should stay home with your condescension. Neither of you is welcome out in public.

I also think it sounds like a lot of cooking. It's a vacation and not a hamburger helper cook off. Make some salad and sandwiches and call it a day!

Seeing as we eat out once/week at home, going on vacation and eating out every other day is about all we can handle of eating out. I cook a lot better and healthier than what we get in most restaurants and frankly we're all happier if we eat at home a few times while out. Eating out for 7-8 days straight would not be very enjoyable. That feels like being at home and barred from your kitchen while the contractors rebuild your kitchen.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If I had to be that cheap, I would rather stay home.
How sad.

What a spoiled entitled brat you are. Maybe you should stay home with your condescension. Neither of you is welcome out in public.

I also think it sounds like a lot of cooking. It's a vacation and not a hamburger helper cook off. Make some salad and sandwiches and call it a day!

Anonymous wrote:If I had to be that cheap, I would rather stay home.
How sad.

What a spoiled entitled brat you are. Maybe you should stay home with your condescension. Neither of you is welcome out in public.

If I had to be that cheap, I would rather stay home.
How sad.

We usually go for vacation for a couple of weeks and stay in rented furnished cottages.

We stock up the refrigerator with frozen entrees, pizzas etc. And then buy fresh produce and essentials as well.

While we love to eat out - after a few days my kids want comfort foods and I will cook different things. There is always a choice available for the kids during meal times and we always have fresh salad and fruits as well.

The point is that no one wants to eat out all the time and kids can be particularly fussy eaters. I draw the line at cooking a meal from scratch - but I can definitely do semi-homemade like Sandra Lee.

Also, by saving on breakfast and lunch and snacks - we can usually eat dinner at a fancier restaurant without breaking the bank.

Anonymous wrote:Lasagna... you can do all the prep and put it right in the oven (think Stouffer's style)

I've gone to a beach trip where every other day we went out for dinner and the in between days each person/family cooked one meal. I made a lasagne, froze is and put it in the bottom of the cooler for the trip to the beach. It kept the cooler very nice and cool for the trip and then was popped in the fridge, not the freezer when we arrived. It was ready for dinner the second night just right to put into the oven.

Beef stew is another good make ahead and freeze meal, just toss into a pot with a layer of water (about 1 inch) in the bottom of the pan. The water will help the stew to thaw and reheat evenly. I make sure to make it with extra potatoes so that it thickens up extra thick and then water in the pan will thin it back to what I consider a normal consistency.

Not make ahead, but easy to make. Buy refrigerator pizza crusts (in the tubes). Unroll into a rectangle, then put layers of roast beef and horseradish cheddar, or ham and cheddar or turkey and smoked gouda, whatever combination you like. I also like to put some mustard on the dough before I put the lunchmeat and cheese on, but my wife doesn't like it so I often skip that. Roll the whole thing into a log. Make two of them and bend the log into a arc and put two on a cookie sheet into a ring. You can pinch the ends together or not,. Then bake according to the instructions on the pizza roll. Take it out, cut into slices and you have a great hot baked sandwich. I usually make the two halves into different sandwiches so that people have a choice. It takes about 3 minutes to put together and like 15 minutes to bake. Easy enough to feed a crowd on with a lot of combinations.