If you self cater on holidays - what sort of meals do you make?

[NewShoesForSpring]

Just curious about this.

When dc were small we always stayed in apartments on city breaks / holidays so we had more space in the evenings when they'd gone to bed. Plus we could use the fridge for milk / juice / water / wine / beer

We'd stock up on cereal & bread for toast for them & fruit & snacks etc but I never really did much actual cooking

We'd eat out or if dc had eaten enough one of us would go to pick up a lovely takeout when they were asleep.

As they got older we'd all go out for dinner.

I've found fully self catering hard as whikr it's easy to pick up fish or veg etc in market / supermarket there's none of the other ingredients you need to season/ make a dish & if I'm away for a week I'm def not buying olive oils / spices etc

If you self cater, what sort of things do you make?

@Katypp

the typical holiday day she describes does sound really nice though

if you don’t need to be back home in the evenings for very small children, why wouldn’t you want to go and explore??

How much are you all spending eating out on holidays?!! Our kids have allergies so we generally have to find a fairly expensive pub etc to cater properly. Eating out easily costs £150 per meal these days and we just can't afford it more than once or twice on holiday.

We explore. Perhaps not in the same way as NewShoesForSpring though. Perhaps not in the same way as most people.

Presumably by not having multiple children with allergies.

We make a "bag" of staples we bring with us - olive oil, garlic granules, butter eg. And of course cleaning utensils etc.

We usually pick up more indulgent foods - this week we've been away and had chicken breast in sweet chilli, burgers, pork belly. We keep it quite simple as in it's either bbq or meat and veg meals rather than ambitious like lasagne!

We usually have one bbq when we are away, and one chinese take away (our bi annual!)

Oh lunches, we will have lots of picky bits but also hard boil eggs and have tons of tuna on hand. We always have cooked breakfast on holiday 😂

Easy stuff, very simple, eg tin of tomatoes, jar of tuna, pasta. A whole fish/ prawns/ sausages on the barbecue with salad. Stir fry with miso ( which I take with me) Melon with whatever the local ham is, dips with bread. A frozen pizza or in Greece a spinach pie.

I always say we should cook that simply at home but we never do!

Certainly not £150 per meal.

Last time we ate out on holiday it was around £70-£80 and that was only that price because now exh had alcohol and meat which usually accounted for around 50% of the bill

Similar prices when we went to Spain We would go to Tapas bars and pasta restaurants etc Myself and dc are vegetarian/vegan

I think if it was dc and myself (dc are adults) we would have spent around £40 per night

I would love to sail around the Caribbean or anywhere like that but I have been sea sick on the Mersey Ferry before now.

Yes, it is.
We love cooking and spending time cooking on hols is a lovely part of it for us
Eating out in a restaurant every night is absolutely not my idea of fun.
And throwing a pizza in? I wouldnt do that here, i hate the things.
People like to do different things on hols, cooking local food from the local market and fresh fish from the catch is one of them.

Really really easy ones.

Microwave jacket potatoes, frozen pizzas, potato salad, ham, coleslaw, bagged salad, chicken legs (all the precooked stuff from the supermarket), microwavable pulled pork and rolls, beans on toast, filled tortellini and ready made sauce, garlic bread, bacon sandwiches.

Well we do all of our exploring during the day. We are going to Norway next month and expect to walk 12-15 miles a day. After that, an early night. Horses for courses

Depends where we are and the facilities. UK we've done BBQs, picky teas, elements of ready made things like fresh pasta and a sauce, we made pork burritos once in a lodge in Cumbria.

Abroad we've done everything from just really light stuff like salads, breads, dips to BBQs and in Sicily we had a great time raiding the supermarket to do fresh pasta dishes. One of the best dishes was simply chicken, fresh red pesto, fresh pasta, cherry tomatoes and salad.

Nothing particularly complicated ever, but especially abroad we like to take advantage of the fresh produce you can't get in the UK. I think one year in Greece, we lived on pitta bread, tzatziki, salad, feta, extra virgin live oil and things like anchovies 😂 there's worse things we could be eating!