Planning for a Road Trip

Oh what great timing!  I'm in the middle of my Cohen diet and I'm leaving for Sagada tomorrow.  What to do, what to do?  I've never been to Sagada so I don't really know what to expect.  Fortunately, my dear friend Bubut has made arrangements to rent a private home for our 5 day stay.  He says I'll be able to cook my meals there, but do I pack raw chicken, fish and beef?  Can I just purchase fresh produce up there?  On my, what to do?

Option 1:  Bring raw proteins
I'll be taking a bus up to Sagada.  It'll be a 12 hour trip so I think this is risky.  Raw protein can just spoil along the way.

Option 2:  Do marketing in Sagada
I've never been there and I won't have a car (do they have car rentals up there?  hehehe- hellur!) so this isn't a good idea.

Option 3:  Cook my meals and make baon
This seems to be the best option so far but this will entail a lot of work.  First I'll have to plan my menu for 5 days and then I'll have to do major measuring and cooking ALL DAY TODAY!!!

The Battle Plan

1.  Simplify the menu
I heard there is a place that sells yogurt in Sagada.  That should take care of breakfast.  But just in case my intel is a dud, I'll pack 3 boiled eggs.  That should give me 3 days to worry about not finding any yogurt.

For lunch and dinner, I thought I'd just bring Adobo and have that for the next 5 days.  But isn't that just miserable?  I always say, dieting should not be miserable.

I'll prepare chicken and beef dishes for the entire trip.  I'll measure my chicken allowance for Meal 2 and then my beef allowance for Meal 3.   This way, I can have some variety.  I can have Meal 3 for lunch and Meal 2 for dinner on Day 1; and then Meal 2 for lunch and Meal 3 for dinner for Day 2 and then switch again.

So here's my Meal Plan for 5 days

I chose Chili Con Carne because it's a complete meal in itself.  It already has the vegetable allowance and I just need to pair it with Jacob's Crackers to complete the meal.

I then decided on Breaded Chicken because it's a dry dish and when we eat in a restaurant, I can just order my allowance of vegetables to complete the meal.  This is a dilemma I always face when I bring my baon to a restaurant.  Not all restaurants welcome "food from outside".  So sometimes, I order vegetables or my diet 7Up (which most times they don't have) just so the waitresses don't frown when I pull out my plastic container.  Maybe Cohenites should band together and explain to these restaurants that we're really on a medical diet, we've got Fat Disease!

 2.  Cooking marathon

Cooking 5 servings of Chilli Con Carne

I don't want to have to measure and cook 10 separate times so I will just do batch cooking.  I'll add up all the chicken, beef and vegetables I'll be consuming for 5 days, cook the 2 dishes (Breaded Chicken and  Chilli con Carne), then divide into 10 small containers.

Here are my total quantities

Chicken  575 grams
Beef  600 grams

3.  Packing the meals

I discovered that the EZ Lock plastic containers are a perfect size for 1 Cohen meal.  These containers are also stackable, making it fairly easy to pack.  If you're doing a lot of travelling this Summer, I suggest you purchase a medium sized cooler and some ice packs.  If you don't know where to get ice packs, check out Japan Home Stores (the P88.00 stores).  I like the collapsible coolers just because it's easy to store and it's light weight.

 All packed:  5 servings of Chili Con Carne

Since this is a 12-hour trip, I'll line my cooler with newspapers for additional insulation.   What I remember from Grade School science is that cold air travels down so I'm stacking my ice packs at the top of the cooler.

Now I'm all packed and ready to go!  Sagada, here I come...