Airstream Interstate Tour | Kitchen Edition | What's in my Pantry! | Class B RV Living

What's up guys? My name is Christine. I'm with Irene Iron Fitness. My husband Aaron and I both quit our jobs of 15 years so that we could start our own business where we online personal train and nutrition coach directly from this 2014 Airstream Interstate while we travel the country. And today I'm going to give you a tour of my tiny kitchen. Let's go! So Aaron and I eat 99.99% of all of our meals right here in the van. I cook everything. Breakfast, lunch, dinner. I feel like I'm always in this spot. So I want to show you what we have in our kitchen and some of our equipment. Even some of the spices and stuff that I use. And we're going to start right here with our basics. With our refrigerator. This is a 3.1 cubic NovaCool. It's pretty small but it does the trick for us. We can fit about five to seven days worth of groceries in here. I have to get it crammed up super tight. It takes a lot of strategically packing things. I usually have to take things out of their original packaging and put them into my own packaging so that I can get things to fit in here. I also use special containers to help go against the condensation because there's a lot of moisture in here. I use Ziploc bags I use a lot for when I'm taking things out of the original packaging and need to condense it down. And then my freezer. It's super tiny and I try to keep some backup forms of protein in here. I also have some frozen vegetables in there and peanut butter because Aaron is a peanut butter addict. We're starting to get it under control but he likes it cold. He likes to eat it. It's kind of like his ice cream. All right so that's the fridge. If you ever say that your fridge is too small to eat healthy you're lying because you can do it. Those that don't have a fridge at all that's a different story and that's something that's harder to work with. So from the fridge there's my flip-up Dometic. I have a double burner gas stove top propane. This burner is very slightly larger than this burner and when I use them I can fit two two items on here one on each burner only if this one's like pretty small. So I can't use two large pieces of equipment but I can use one large one small or two mediums or two small. So you have to think about what type of a skillet you're going to use when you're trying to use both burners. Next is my Dometic sink. Pretty classic in an RV. Swivel hot cold water knob. Not much to say about the sink. This Cuisinart it is a convection oven microwave. It has features that I haven't even fully tested out yet such as like a grill. I store my food scale in here which I use my food scale a lot so I like to have it somewhere where it's very convenient to grab and I store my potholders in here. Other than that I do not use the microwave for storage because we do use it from time to time. We don't use it a ton but when we do use it I want it to be not a pain to use. We have our Maxxair fan. It's a 10 speed. I use it all the time because I'm always cooking right here on my stovetop. This really helps suck the smoke out and it does have an auto temperature control so we can use it while we're sleeping. It will help keep the air inside at a certain temp and it will go on and off throughout the as needed so it's not just constantly running. One more piece of kitchen equipment that's in here. It's way in the back. It's my smoke alarm. It goes off every single day hands down without a doubt. Sometimes two three times it's just impossible to cook in here without setting it off. I'll show you next my pots and pans and I store those up in my wardrobe. This coach is a double wardrobe floor plan. It's a very uncommon floor plan for Airstream Interstate but we really fell in love with the double wardrobe floor plan because we didn't have a need for a third seat here. A lot of the models have a third seat. We opted for this and it's working out really good. So in this wardrobe we do share it with our clothes and I'll just show you the kitchen parts. What we use it for in our kitchen. It does have a light that goes on and off and back here we keep a paper towel roll so we just made like a makeshift paper towel holder and it actually works out to be pretty convenient. Down at the bottom very bottom we have a tote that we put shoes in and then underneath that we store our bubbly water. We drink a lot of bubbly water and this perfectly holds four 12 pack cases or if you buy bulk at Costco or Sam's Club or something like that and you get the cases of water it can fit two cases side by side. So that works out really well for us and we love it. We're in this water closet all the time. And then up at the top I put all of my pots and pans. So I'm constantly in and out of here. You have to be careful with your arrangement because this is a high point while driving so you want to make sure that things are in here in a way that they're not gonna fall out when you make a turn. So I'll show you my pans really quick. I'll just pull them out and lay them out for you. Once you start pulling this stuff out you really get a sense of how much you can really store in a rig. This was the only item that I didn't bring initially that I grabbed to add on. This is my knife sharpener. It's a chef's choice. I love it. Originally I thought it would be too big too heavy to bring but that was a big mistake because I'm using my chef's knives all the time. So now I'm going to be really happy to have this. I have a 12-inch skillet, I have a 10-inch skillet, and I have an 8-inch skillet. I store the skillets in these paper bags. They work really well so that they protect each other from themselves and it also protects the inside of our cabinet from getting some grease residue or other grime inside of our closet. So it keeps our closet clean and it keeps our pans looking like new. I have my leecreset and I use this dutch oven all the time. It's heavy so it is something that I don't bring out unless I absolutely need it but a lot of my recipes do call for it. I like it because it has a lid. It's super high quality. This is something that it's definitely worth the investment. We got this as a wedding gift and I absolutely love it and it's beautiful. I get a lot of comments on this. Moving on to sauce pans. This was another item that I didn't have with me before that I added on and I use this for things like rice and quinoa and bulk grains. So when I first packed on the van I was planning to use this for bulk grains. This is just a little too big and it's a little too heavy to be pulling in and out so this is much more practical. And then this little guy is awesome because remember when I said I could only put a small item with a large item on my stove top? So this lets me do that. I can use this tiny sauce pan along with my 12-inch skillet and share the double burner no problem. And then finally this is the last piece that I have up top there. This is where I house my immersion blender. It's a Cuisinart and it's a four piece. It comes with the motor, a whisk, the immersion blender, and then it also has like a classic style food processor that's in this cabinet. I'll show you that when I'm in there. But that's everything that goes on my top shelf in my wardrobe. I'm going to pack this on up and then we'll move on to the next wardrobe. Here we are at our second wardrobe which we call the pantry. We share this with toiletries and kitchen items. When we purchased the RV it came with a rack here that extended out so that you could hang clothes this way. But we knew that we weren't going to use it for clothes so we took that out right away. And I'll start at the top. We have all of our coffee stuff at the top. Loose coffee and we use a pour over system. And we use this Dr. Hetzner electric water kettle. It's really cool. It plugs in and it is 1000 watts so we can run it on our inverter if we're not plugged in. So that's our coffee situation. We store like supplements and more supplements and more supplements. This is all food. This is like peanut butter, quinoa, lentils. This is like dried goods. And then I have two of these totes. These are also dried goods. So in these I have things like noodles, Kodiak cake mix, and other odds and ends. Coconut flakes, olives. This is all full of canned salmon. I like to have canned salmon as a backup protein because it's all about being prepared. So you might think like, wow why do you need a tupperware full of pancake mix and a tupperware full of salmon? But we still bulk shop. We always are watching our budget. We're counting our dollars. We're stretching them out. And I think it's very important to bulk shop. And we're using this as a house not as a weekend RV. So we want to treat it like a house. We want to live like we normally did back home. Take advantage of warehouse shopping. And definitely save money and be well stocked on things that you need to nourish your body in a good way. I have my cutting board rolls. I've talked about these before. Basically you trim it to a size for a cutting board. Ice cube trays. Ice cubes are a luxury for us because our freezer is so small. We usually don't have the space for these to go in there. But when we do these are really great. We love them. They're the nice big cubes. Here's the other part of my Cuisinart immersion blender. And I also forgot to show you this. This is where the you can actually use the blender stick into. And it double functions as a measuring cup. So this is my only measuring cup. I love this. Down below these drawers which are originally intended for like socks and underwear I'm assuming as a wardrobe we use for more food storage. So we have more supplements in here. We have kitchen towels. Kitchen towels I use a lot of because they get dirty so fast. Down on this one I have tea and more dry goods. And things like napkins and plastic wear. And this is like an overflow section of cans. You'll see other dry goods storage up above. But this is like my overflow section where I try not to get too much stuff in here but I always do. Condiments. I love my condiments. You got to find healthy condiments that make your food taste good. So here I have chili garlic sauce. I have had this for a long time because I won't open it up until my sriracha is gone. And you can only open so many condiments at a time while living in a van because one your fridge space is limited, two your pantry space is limited. So one at a time is good. Cholula. These are just things I keep around to help. And also because I'm making recipes all the time like I want to have options if I get an idea of something. I might have a little bit more of certain spices or pantry items than you would because it's part of my job so I need to have this stuff. Going up into our everyday cabinets. This is where I store our plates. Things that we use every single day. So anything that you're using multiple times a day you want to have within reach. So I have plates for serving, bowls for mixing, prepping. This little mini cutting board. I absolutely love it. I use it all the time when I have my spread out stuff and my space is limited. This is key. I also do have a full-size cutting board which at times it's necessary to use. And then canned goods. So for canned goods I buy a lot of legumes and I try to buy bulk. Black beans, garbanzo beans. I go through a lot of light coconut milk and we do go through some soup. So lentil soup. That's what this is filled with. And then these little Tupperwares are great. Again more canned goods. Cocoa powder. Here's a good tip. So in spices when I buy my spices bulk I will take them out of the ginormous containers that they come in. They're plastic and huge. And I pour them into Ziplocs because I can condense it down. So if this was all in bottles I'd literally have this area full of just bottles. So this is a huge space saver. And then I just refill as necessary. Tomato sauce. Chopped chilies. More coconut milk. Dried peppers. This green curry paste I love. So you just find things that flavor your food and you guys eating healthy. If you like good food the key is to flavor it with spices and other flavorings such as these. Another thing I like to have are almond butter packets because they're portion controlled. And nut butters especially are a huge trigger food. People have a really hard time portioning them out. So the packets are good for that. And then also like to take hiking or something like that they're not messy. Next is my spice cabinet. This is my favorite cabinet. This whole thing is all spices. And this is where the magic happens. So like these little guys is where like for example garlic powder. I don't know where it is in here right now. Right here. So when this is empty I have my bulk bag up there that I refill it with. And I try to stay organized by you can see I have these labeled on the top. So when I'm looking down into this I can see which container is what and I don't have to sit there and pull everything out if I'm looking for something specific. So it takes a little bit of time on the front end but boy does it save time afterward. So spices. These are my like sriracha. I try to find things that I don't have to refrigerate. So buffalo sauce, salt, pepper, olive oil, liquid aminos, pepper, rice wine vinegars. So I like spicy things. You gotta have some vinegars. You have to have some spices and dried herbs and that's what this is. Up here again it's just extra storage. So you found my chocolate stash. Okay and working our way down we have to include the fruit tray. This is a joke with Aaron and I because we always said we're never going to have a banana hammock and we're never going to have a fruit hammock. And after living in this for probably a month we found we always had produce piled up on this corner and we're like I can't take it anymore. We gotta get something. So we found this double tiered rack. It's actually backwards. It goes this way because these slide out. But when we're driving we turn it around so that the drawers don't fly into the hallway and we actually just end up leaving it this way. And I love it. So onions, things like tomatoes, peppers, any produce that I don't have room for in the fridge I'll put here and then as room clears up in the fridge I'll transfer it down into there to help make it last longer. But like tortilla shells, pepitas, rice, any open items that I currently want to make sure I don't forget about I'll put that there. Moving on here we have utensils, spatulas, measuring cups, graters, pizza cutter. We use these for quesadillas. Wooden spoons, things like that. Nothing crazy. Here is our sponge drawer. Literally just have a sponge in it and things like rubber band and twisty ties. Down here, what a surprise, more canned goods. I have them squirreled everywhere. More canned goods. I have pens and markers in here because I write on all my cans. The same trick as my spices, I write on the tops of my cans so that I can just look down and see what it is. I have vitamins in here. Lots of vitamins like fish oil, ZMA's, magnesium, milk thistle. Those are things that I like. Dixie cups I use for like portioning snacks or nuts, things like that. These are all Ziploc bags. I wash, reuse, put them in here so that I know these are my multiple used Ziplocs. And then over here, which I have more new Ziplocs. I have garbage bags, aluminum foil, kitchen cleaner, and we have our Brita filter. Not everybody that lives in a van has to have a Berkey filter and we use this and we love it. It was affordable. The filters last, I think they're supposed to last six months, but because we use it so hard it lasts us more like two or three months which we're okay with. But we get our water from an RV park. When we're in an RV park, we filter our water on the hose coming in. So we double filter it by filtering it first outside and then second in here. And while we're traveling on the we get our water from Plant Fitness. We have two jugs that are 64 ounces, so it's like a half gallon water jug. Aaron and I both have one that we carry water every day to fill this up. And it's great and it's right here and it doesn't take up much space. We have cleaning supplies and then this is where I keep my oils. So coconut oil, balsamic vinegar, again this is all bought bulk because oil is very expensive but if you buy it in bulk you save a grip, guys. So again, two people, absolutely there's a need for bulk. You know when people say, oh it's just the two of us, we don't shop bulk, well you're just not, you're just eating too much variety or not eating the right things because I'm a huge advocate for bulk. And then we have like this big oil too. So I like to use the big jugs and pour them, like this one's also avocado, pour them into bottles that are easy to pour and easy to manage and then just refill them as needed. So that's that. Next we have our utensil drawers and this is everyday utensils. Spoons, forks, knives, butter knives, steak knives, chef's knives. I have like a couple of these big ones. Can opener, kitchen shears, I love these, use them all the time. Tongs, wine openers, measuring spoons, that's it for this. And then the last thing in our kitchen tour is our table set. We have one extension countertop here. I use this every time that I'm preparing food in the kitchen because it gets so crowded up here. I always use this, whether it's like just having my serving plates on so I can quick plate things up or I'll eat here. We also have a table that goes here. We have a pole in the back and then our tabletop goes here. So we have a couple eating options if we did want to actually eat formally at a table together. So that's it guys, that's my kitchen. I hope you enjoyed the tour and I hope you had fun snooping to see what's in my cupboards. I know I always like seeing what other people have going on. It gives me ideas. If you have some suggestions for me, like you think I'm a hot mess in some spots in my kitchen, let me know. I'd love to hear your thoughts. And check us out every Wednesday. We do healthy recipes and fitness videos. Sundays we do RV lifestyle, RV travel, RV upgrades. And if you haven't yet, hit that subscribe button and give us a like. And we'll catch you next week.