Provisioning Tricks and Tools

Provisioning for a longer trip is always an interesting task on a boat.  Having to plan what to cook for an extended period of time, how much to purchase, and how to store the provisions are tasks that anyone cruising on a boat must tackle (unless you are lucky enough to be anchored somewhere that has a boat "drive up" or delivery service like Pizza Pi).  In this time of COVID19 restrictions, even though many are not actively cruising, longer term provisioning is a similar task for anyone that doesn't want to visit a grocery store often regardless of if they are living on a boat or on land.  But where do you start.

My galley...which never looks this clean.

Unless you are one of those rare people that could appear on the food show "Chopped" where people whip up decent meals from random ingredients, you will probably need some recipes.  The old school card catalogs, recipe binders and books are one way to have recipes handy, but they can take up a lot of valuable space on a boat, are subject to water damage, and require a lot of manual work for  planning and provisioning.  One tool I have found helpful is a recipe app for my smart phone and tablet.  While electronics are still susceptible to water damage, having the data stored on multiple devices and taking some precautions to protect them will help ensure they are available when you need them.

In addition to storing the recipes, these apps can often help with meal planning and creating shopping lists to simplify provisioning tasks.  I originally started using an app called Pepperplate and found it to be adequate, if a bit glitchy at times.  Unfortunately, just as we were preparing for the Bahamas trip, the makers of Pepperplate suddenly sprung a paid subscription model on their users with no way to export their recipe data.  That behavior didn't sit well with me so I quickly tried to find a replacement  (they later provided a simple export after much backlash and a significant hit to their reputation among their users).  The requirements for the replacement application were:

• It must work on Android and preferably on Apple devices and Windows as well.
• It must store recipes in a local database so it works even with no internet connection.
• It must have some ability to generate meal plans for multiple days or weeks.
• It must be able to generate shopping lists from recipes and meal plans.
• It must have the ability to import/export recipe data.
• It should have the ability to synchronize data between multiple devices.
• It should have the ability to import recipes from popular online recipe sites.
• It should have the ability to scale recipes to vary number of servings.

With limited time, I narrowed it down to the two applications Paprika and RecetteTek.  Paprika is rather well regarded, but the trial was limited, purchase is per platform or per device and per major release (as best I can tell), and I didn't have time to dive very deep into its functionality before purchase as we were preparing for the trip at the time and I needed to manually rescue my data from Pepperplate before they shut me down.  I decided to give RecetteTek a try as it seemed to have most of the features I wanted and was free so my crew could also use it to help with planning without incurring an additional cost.  I'll do a review on it at some later point.  In general, these apps help make planning and provisioning easier and you end up with a shopping checklist of items to purchase without ending up with a bunch of missing ingredients or excesses.

RecetteTek with some of my
recipes and provision entries.

Another trick I figured out that is related to the recipe app is provisioning for other non-recipe or non-food consumables.  I created a "recipe" in the app that simply includes a list of snack and condiment items like popcorn, chips, candy, mustard, salt, and pepper as ingredients so they can be easily added to the provisioning grocery list.  Another has non-food consumables like toiletries and cleaners with estimated quantities of consumption for one person for one week (so you can simply scale the "recipe" for number of crew and length of time and then add it to the shopping list).  This way I don't forget to get the ketchup, dish soap, or toilet paper.

Obviously storage space is limited on a boat, and cold storage is at a premium so canned and dry goods, and recipes that can use them, are a great help.  Still, one likes to have fresh...or at least frozen...items around.  Of course, even if you are lucky enough to have refrigeration on your boat, that system has some quirks too.  Unlike the big refrigerators you find in the average American kitchen, the efficient boat refrigerators are often top loading, smaller overall size, and lack an air circulation fan.  The result is you can put a lot into a smaller space and they can run fairly efficiently on 12 or 24 volt power, but it takes a lot longer to cool or freeze items.

I've found 3 tricks to deal with the boat refrigerator.  The first is to realize the refrigerator is most efficient and works best when it is full, not empty.  So, if I don't have a lot of stuff to fill the refrigerator or freezer, I will place old milk jugs full of water in it to take up space and provide more thermal mass than the air alone.  Another trick is to never put anything warm in the refrigerator or freezer.  Since there is no circulation fan, all cooling is of a radiant nature and warm items take a very long time to come to temperature.  In the process the warm item can also warm up surrounding items which makes the whole thing less safe. The last trick, particularly for the freezer, is to package as much as possible in single serving or single use packages. Smaller packages take less time to cool before putting them in the fridge, can freeze faster than larger packages, can often make better use of refrigerator space, and doesn't require you to repeatedly thaw and refreeze items when you need some.

Turning a broccoli crown into multiple freezer packs using
the hints from the National Center for Home food Preservation.

One last thought about food storage...as this is what prompted me to actually start writing this post.  In this day of COVID19 I've found I'm taking a better look at how I am storing food on the boat.  I know that some things that we regularly refrigerate don't actually require refrigeration.  I didn't realize that cabbage, which seems to be refrigerated in the store, actually does better sitting on my counter than it does in a bag in the fridge. With the shortage of canned options, I've also been freezing some fresh stuff for later use.  I found this website that has recommendations and best practices for freezing all sorts of things (like the broccoli above).  The website theboatgalley.com also has many tips and tricks for food storage.

I hope this is helpful for your provisioning tasks...be it for a long cruise or just waiting out the current virus scare.  If you have other tips or tricks, I'd like to hear about them...so feel free to let me know in the comments below.