James: Cool! Everyone will LOVE my muesli recipe!
Me: Yeah, but, uh, our favorite RV breakfast is my
homemade three-ingredient-pancakes recipe.
I wrote about those.
James: Why would you do that? They have BANANAS
in them. The world hates bananas.
Me: The only world that hates bananas is Planet James.
It’s a good thing opposites attract.
If you asked me to describe James in a few words, I’d probably use: mind-numbingly organized, tenaciously meticulous, highly-intelligent…all which are nice ways to say he’s an obsessive geek. I mean, really? Building a clear blank tank to run RV dump experiments?! Who would do that?
If you asked me to describe myself the same way, I’d say I’m: affable, occasionally erratic (come on, I’m female), and significantly less systematic than him. I’m okay with a little disorder and my floor being slightly crunchy (because apparently the RV floor is “crunchy” whenever one of us [not me] feels a speck of dirt). Luckily my go-with-the-flow nature counterbalances James’ need for rules & strong opinions. So it works. MOST days. But as I sat there listening to him criticize our favorite RV breakfast, and it dawning on me I’d have to completely rewrite the article just because he was unable to understand that my pancakes were his favorite breakfast, I realized this wasn’t one of those days.
I guess they say compromise is the key to a happy marriage, right? So now, you get two healthy RV breakfast recipes. His favorite: Muesli. My favorite: Banana Pancakes. And, okay, I’ll be honest; I really do love his muesli recipe. I just don’t plan to ever admit that to James.
I adore these so much. First, they are so simple it’s ridiculous. And simplicity is a requirement of mine whenever cooking during our RV trips. Second, the texture, sort of like a crustless French toast, is dreamy. I love the creamy spongy way they sort of melt in the mouth. And lastly, the taste…oh so enjoyable. When eaten plain, you can definitely pick up on the mild banana flavor, which I love. I’ve never been a big fan of traditional pancakes. The taste is a little too bland. Perhaps that’s why I love these so much. There’s actually something happening in there.
| Ingredients | |
|---|---|
| 1 banana | |
| 2 eggs | |
| 2 Tablespoons quick oats |
Mash the banana up with a fork VERY thoroughly. This step is important, folks. If you leave chunks, it’ll be more like eating scrambled eggs mixed with banana pieces. Not pleasant. Next, add the eggs and whisk everything thoroughly.
Once you’ve got yourself a lumpless batter, stir in the oats. Spray or grease your griddle however you prefer, and then just cook them like you would regular pancakes. Easy breezy!
In the picture, I topped them with my healthy homemade caramel sauce and some crushed walnuts. The caramel recipe’s a super simple healthed-up version of regular caramel sauce. I make the caramel sauce ahead of time and take it with us on our RV trips. It’s also a great dip for apples and mixes well with Greek yogurt. If interested, you can see the recipe here. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with good old maple syrup, strawberries, or whatever your preferred pancake toppers might be. (I’d actually love some topper suggestions for these, so leave me some comments!)
James eats this muesli recipe before any cycling competition. Not only that, it has come to be a popular breakfast whenever we are RVing and have a big day of activity ahead of us…hiking, exploring, sky-diving, what have you. Well, okay we’ve never actually sky-dived. But if we did! You can be sure we’d eat our muesli first. This muesli recipe has a great ratio of protein, fat, and fiber…which works to slow how fast the carbs are absorbed. Its carbohydrates are low on the glycemic index, which can help prevent blood sugar spikes. So, a breakfast like this will give you long-lasting energy. This is why James uses it as his fuel of choice for bike races. Plus, I love that we make it before bed. No food prep in the morning, bonus!
| Ingredients | |
|---|---|
| 1 cup oats | |
| 1 cup milk | |
| 1/3 cup of non-fat vanilla yogurt (or just use 1/2 the yogurt cup) | |
| 1 apple, diced | |
| 3 TBS chopped walnuts | |
| 2 TBS honey | |
| 2 TBS raisins |
Combine all ingredients THE NIGHT BEFORE, and store in the fridge overnight.
Eat it cold right out of the fridge; do not heat it up!
So there you have it! His and Hers favorite breakfast recipes. Healthy, yummy, and packed full of nutrients to start your day’s adventures. But which should you make tomorrow morning for breakfast? My advice? Keep peace in the RV. Make both.
James and I still hold full-time jobs. Since we only get so many days off a year, we like to pack as much as we can into every RV trip. Which means we end up having some long…VERY long…driving days.
Take our next trip, for example. We will be heading back east with stops in Minnesota, Michigan, Ohio, and Canada. That’s over 4600 miles and 71 hours round-trip, if we take the most direct route – which we won’t! It would be a dream to slowly wind our way up there like the full-timers do, making lots of stops to see roadside America along the way. But our vacation days are limited. We will be driving sometimes as much as 10 hours a day on this trip; ouch! Most of roadside America will go by in a blur.
Even though James and I have a lot of fun rolling along during our marathon drives, driving for long periods of time without taking breaks can wreak havoc on the body. I don’t know about you, but at the end of a long drive, I can feel totally sapped. It takes all my energy to open the door and assist James in doing the hookups. Okay, okay, in truth, I just stand there and watch James do the hookups. But even that feels like work!
It makes sense, when you think about it. There are actual physiological changes your body goes through on those long driving days; for both the driver and the passenger. For instance, your inactive lower body muscles send a signal to your brain to slow your metabolism. Your blood circulation slows as well, which leads to all sorts of ill-effects: foggy brain, raised blood sugar levels, fluid pooling in the lower legs, and inflammation, amongst many other joyful things. Google “sitting disease” and you can get all the gory details. So that post-drive sluggishness isn’t just me! It’s an actual “thing.”
To counterbalance it, James and I have a two hour rule. For every two hours we’ve been driving, we have to stop the RV and be active for 15 minutes. Since we have a smaller RV, stopping frequently is no problem. It’s one of the great things about staying compact; there is no park, pullout, or roadside attraction we can’t stop at. Any of the RVs in the Leisure Travel Vans lineup will get you this same flexibility. I imagine it’s a little more challenging when you’ve got a 60 foot rig towing a Suburban and a boat behind! You can see an example of our rest stop recharges in the video at the top. Not only is it more healthy for our bodies, it also really does help us stay energized during long driving days.
Anyway, with our two hour recharge rule, the more we drive, the more we wind up exercising. On an 8 hour driving day, we will actually have to exercise 4 times: that’s 60 minutes…nice! During some of those stops, we will simply walk or jog the entire 15 minutes. But, that gets a little boring; plus it neglects our upper bodies. To keep things interesting, we like to come up with “rest stop recharge” workouts.
While all the hours behind the wheel will be hard on our upcoming trip, at least we will be racking up the exercise minutes along the way. And as a bonus, we get quite a few funny looks from our fellow rest stop visitors!
