Cooking up a win

For most home chefs, preparing a meal in a semi can seem daunting. Given the tight confines and lack of traditional kitchen setups, it’s easy to see why many truckers choose the “grab and go” route for meals.

However, with a little ingenuity and some planning, it is possible to prepare an award-winning dish from the confines of a truck. Carissa Johnson is proof of that.

Johnson’s husband, Jeremy, is a driver for Swift Transportation. About a year ago, Johnson joined her husband on the road, taking in the views from the passenger seat while bringing a taste of home by cooking for her and Jeremy daily.

It wasn’t long before she discovered some of the hurdles of cooking in a semi.

“In a kitchen, most of your things are just kind of out in the kitchen. But here, you have to put every single thing away. Everything has a specific place,” Johnson said. “There are only so many things you can have, so you really have to limit yourself on how you’re going to cook your things.”

Over the past year, Johnson says she’s learned through trial-and-error what she does and doesn’t need in the truck. Her setup now consists of a small electric grill, an electric skillet, a crock pot and a coffee maker.

“I think people in their truck, if they can just have a slow cooker, they can make just about anything,” she said. “You can have healthy meals in the truck. It is possible.”

Of course, preparing the meal is only part of the battle. The other part, which she said is her least favorite, is the cleanup. Being without running water isn’t easy, so Johnson says she uses a small tub to put the dirty items in and cleans up later when they have a chance to stop. She also swears by sprayable dish soaps, which help to clean when water isn’t available.

Johnson said that many drivers also face another problem when it comes to cooking on the road.

“One of the big things I’ve noticed people have issues with is the smells that are left in the truck,” she said. “Because not only do we cook in the truck, but we’re sleeping in there too.”

Johnson said she uses screens placed in the truck’s windows, along with a small fan, to help “air it out” during and after cooking. She also said that products like odor-free Febreze and charcoal bags can help keep your truck smelling fresh.

Putting those skills to the test

This past November, Johnson learned about a recipe contest hosted by a local radio station in the town where her and Jeremy’s distribution center is located. The contest was specifically for pork-based meals, so Johnson decided to enter her recipe for Smothered Pork Chops.

After the recipes were submitted, Johnson was notified by the station that hers was among eight selected for the final competition. It would now be up to her to prepare the dish, with enough to present to three judges, to compete for the grand prize.

However, unlike her fellow competitors, Johnson had one distinct disadvantage. She would be the only one preparing their dish in the back of a semi, which is the culinary equivalent of agreeing to a boxing match with one hand tied behind your back. Despite this, Johnson was undeterred.

“I cook every day in the semi-truck, so I thought it wasn’t going to be too big of a deal,” she said.

It turns out she was right. Johnson’s dish won second place – an impressive feat for any home chef, let alone one who had prepared a whole meal using an electric skillet and a slow cooker in the back of a truck.

For her hard work, Johnson took home a meaty prize – winning half a hog weighing in at 114 pounds, along with butchering. Johnson said she was grateful for the win, and her haul has already been turned into smoked ham, sliced bacon, breakfast sausages and ground pork.

As for what her husband thinks of having an award-winning chef riding shotgun now, Johnson answers with the same level of confidence she had when she agreed to the competition.

“Oh, it’s nothing new to him,” she said with a grin. LL