Hey Chelsey and Jatty,

Thank you so much for being a part of this interview and telling us about your love of food and your tiny kitchen.

Tell us about your small kitchen

We have all the essentials built into our kitchen including a sink, running water, oven, gas stovetop and large fridge/freezer. A kitchen with everything a home offers was very important to us from the beginning of our build, because we both adore cooking! We didn't want to sacrifice the ability to make meals that you can create in a regular house.

One of our favourite kitchen features would definitely be our large, reclaimed timber benchtop; it brings so much character and warmth to the kitchen, built from old floor joists Jatty salvaged from a building site he was working on with over 70 years of life engrained into it.

“Having an oven in the van is such a game changer, we absolutely love it. Ain’t nothing like home cooked lasagne in the middle of the bush!”

The hanging jars we installed are not only good for storage, but make it easier to find what you're looking for as you don't have to rummage through the cupboards to find what you need. We also love that our kitchen features plenty of art. We have a recessed resin artwork with LED lighting, a custom laser cut wood piece by our dear friend and a funky resin splashback.

Name three key pieces of equipment in your small kitchen

A quality knife - Makes cooking so much easier when you're using a nice sharp knife!
Cast iron Pan - Easy to clean and you can use it to cook on the fire if you want to cook outdoors.
Deep kitchen sink - Keeping a tiny kitchen clean is crucial! Your kitchen can get cluttered really easily, so having a nice deep sink where we can clean everything is much more efficient than washing up outside.

What are some food ingredients you always have in your pantry?

Flour, and yeast (we love having fresh bread on the road)
Baked beans (Jatty's guilty pleasure)
Coffee/tea
Pasta (for a quick easy meal when you pull up to a campsite late)

What are a few dishes that are on high rotation and why?

Teriyaki salmon with Asian greens & coconut rice - It's super fresh, healthy and always hits the spot!

Pumpkin Risotto with burnt butter sage - You don't need a lot of ingredients and you can make it all in one pot, so it’s easy to clean up.

Mushroom burgers - This is a quick, cheeky one! We marinate portobello mushrooms with garlic, soy sauce and oil. They end up super succulent, paired with salad on a brioche bun.

Miso Ramen - We love Japanese food and ramen is one of our favourites! If you have some time, it's great to cook it slowly over the fire to get all the flavours.

Do you have any tips for minimising food waste and packaging?

We try our best when doing our shopping to minimise plastic packaging. For example, instead of buying pasta in plastic, we buy it in the cardboard box. We then often use the cardboard to start our campfire rather than using firelighters.

We also have our jars filled with nuts, lentils, ground coffee etc. Some wholefood stores allow you to bring your jars in to fill up, preventing using plastic bags at all.

We pretty much always plan our meals and generally shop for the next four of five days.

“We find planning our meals leaves us with little food waste. ”

If we cook up a big dinner and there's leftovers, we always have them for lunch the following day, which is great because we have a quick lunch and have more time to go out and see nature's beauties!

Is it important to you to eat with sustainability in mind?

We love buying fresh local produce. Luckily, when you're travelling you can get large boxes of fruit and vegetables on the side of the road for much cheaper than large grocers, without any pesticides or preservatives. The produce is always delicious and it's nice to help support the local community and, more often than not, saves a trip into town for fresh supplies.