Tony and I cooked this meal in our hostel after an exhausting day of hiking in Patagonia. The mixture of brown rice, veggies, and sausage was the perfect combo to revive our tired bodies – and fill our grumbling stomachs. We love our spicy food so the added hot sauce gave this dish the extra kick that it needed.
Added bonus: This meal was so cheap that we had money left over that night for some cheap (yet delicious) vino!
Prep Time: 5 minutes
Cook time: 30 minutes
Ingredients:
- 2 green bell peppers
- 1 medium onion
- Brown rice
- 1 can of sliced mushrooms (use fresh if available)
- 2 large hot Italian sausage links
- Hot sauce
Cooking Instructions:
- Dice the green bell peppers and onion
- Prepare brown rice per package instructions (takes roughly 20-30 minutes)
- Sautee pepper, onion, and mushrooms in a pan with a dash of olive oil until golden and tender
- Cut the sausage in ½ inch thick round slices
- In a separate pan (or in the same pan you used for the mushrooms and pepper) pan cook the sausage until golden brown
- Once all ingredients are cooked, toss them together and stir in desired amount of hot sauce.
- Plate immediately and enjoy!
Total Cost in Chile: Considering we made enough for leftovers for lunch the next day, the price per person for this dinner was roughly $3.50 USD.
You would not believe the amount of “wow you must be rich!” comments I got from people back in the states when I told them about our RTW trip.
Well, I hate to disappoint people but Tony and I are anything but.
We have been able to afford this trip because we were diligent with our savings over the past couple of years and we have established a strict budget to follow when we are on the road. Some of our greatest expenses include flights, medical insurance, accommodations, and of course (this is me we are talking about afterall), food.
Early into our trip, we discovered that eating out three meals a day adds up quick. We also noticed that food seems to be the easiest expense to control… and to get out of hand.
Sure, we love to occasionally splurge on a nice dinner out to sample the local global cuisines, but eating out every meal was taking its toll on our wallet and, quite frankly, it was getting a little boring.
We decided to spice things up and bust out our cooking skills in hostels and soon learned that the cheapest way to keep costs down in the food department is to cook meals as often as possible when on the road.
Most hostels abroad offer fully equipped kitchens for their guests, so why not take advantage of this? Trust me, your wallet (and waistline) will thank you.
A hostel kitchen that you are unfamiliar with might be intimidating and daunting, but with these 10 simple rules, you can turn any foreign kitchen into a Mecca for cheap, balanced meals while at a hostel.
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Scenario: I am on death row. The prison official asks me what I want for my last meal.
My answer:
“Oooooo anything chocolate please… and preferably in the form of ice cream. Thanks officer!”
By now you probably can get an idea for how much I absolutely adore chocolate ice cream. I can eat it anywhere, anytime, and no matter how full I am from a meal, I always have a little side tummy dedicated to dessert. Some might say I should see a doctor, but I find my ability to house ice cream to be one of my greatest strengths.
My sister-in-law, Maggie, is one of the few people who can keep up with me in this department. She is always down for eating ice cream, which is awesome because then I don’t feel like a complete fatty eating it by myself.
Being the good sister that she is, she was genuinely concerned about my ability to find ice cream in some of the places Tony and I had on our RTW list. Thus, she did her research on Santiago and found a gelato place, Emporio La Rosa, for Tony and I to try out once we arrived down here.
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This past week has been highly entertaining for me and Tony. We traveled down to the Patagonia region in Chile with absolutely no plans beyond the day ahead. We thought by doing this, we would be travelling like true bad-ass nomads…
… Well, the joke is on us now!
Travelling without a plan to some places is perfectly doable, but down in Patagonia, we are learning the hard way that sometimes it is necessary to have a plan.
As our RTW trip progresses, we are learning first-hand lessons on how to travel efficiently. We also have picked up some helpful tips from our favorite travel bloggers. Here were some great reads this week:
