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.

The Grill and Easy Thai Style Peanut Sauce

Since I returned to the boat I have to admit I haven't been doing much fancy cooking.  Being by myself it is hard to get inspired to make nice meals for one and by the time I get done working my day job and try to get some work done on the boat, I just don't have the time or energy to cook much. Spaghetti, hamburgers, and even peanut butter and jelly have been on the menu here when I haven't just grabbed something while out running errands.

A couple of days ago I spent some time cleaning and repairing the Magma Grill that came with the boat and I wanted to give it a try.  I had some hamburgers, but I was getting pretty tired of them so I picked up some chicken breasts to throw on the grill.  I bought the smallest package, marinaded them in a pepper and soy sauce mix and cut them up in strips and now I have pre-cooked chicken strips I can use for a variety of dinner options.  And if anyone is interested in the grill, it seems to to run a bit hot...even on it's lowest setting the lid thermometer registered in the medium heat range (like most grills, the lid thermometer isn't very good and this one didn't even have a temperature scale...just blue, yellow, and red for low, medium, and high).

Magma Rail Mounted Grill

But what to do with them.  Back when we were experimenting with recipes that might be suitable for the boat (inspired by The Boat Galley site), I came across a recipe for a simple Thai style Satay peanut sauce (sorry, I don't remember where I found it). While it is not the absolute best peanut sauce I've ever had, it is pretty good and the best part is that it doesn't require a bunch of fancy ingredients like curry pastes and coconut milk that many of the sauces do.  Instead, it is made up of ingredients that you might actually find on your boat.  I altered the original recipe a little bit and here it is:

Simple Thai Style Peanut Sauce

• 2 Tablespoons of creamy peanut butter (I prefer the natural stuff, but any should work)
• 2 Tablespoons of Soy Sauce.
• 2 Tablespoons of Brown Sugar.
• 1.5 Tablespoons of White Vinegar.
• 1 Teaspoon Garlic Powder
• 1/8 Teaspoon Ground Ginger
• Cayenne Pepper to desired spiciness.

Mix the ingredients until they are an even consistency, adding the peanut butter after the liquids and spices are mixed together.  That's it.  Obviously you can alter to your individual taste, I tend to go a bit light on the vinegar and heavy on the peanut butter.  It looks a bit darker than the typical peanut sauce, but the flavor is pretty good for something with common ingredients that can be made in just a couple minutes.

Tonight I took some of the chicken, added some heated frozen broccoli, put it over rice and drizzled on the peanut sauce.  Made for a pretty flavorful and simple dinner.

If you have any simple recipes that you think would work on a boat, please feel free to share in the comments.

Fish And A Coconut

I felt inspired to try creating a dish given a few ingredients we might have on our boat plus what we could theoretically "scavenge"...fish and a coconut.

I started with the coconut.  I placed the coconut water into a pan (conserving fresh water), heated over medium heat and added some of the fresh coconut and Italian seasoning, and used that to cook some mahi fillets .  I then removed the fish and added a little Media Crema and a little too much cayenne pepper (oops) and made a simple pan sauce for the fish.

In addition I tried the rice in a thermos thing again, and this time it worked very well.  I found the trick is to start like you are cooking the rice normally (use the specified amount of water, and add the rice to the water then bring it to a boil.  Once it boils, into the thermos it goes until it is needed.

The Mahi in a Spicy Coconut Cream Sauce over Rice, other than being just a bit too spicy, was pretty simple to prepare.  It used items I assume will be part of our standard provisions or could be "hunted or gathered" and was pretty good.  Maybe next time I'll skip the cayenne and add a little mango...mmmm....

How About Cooking

There is no doubt that many things will be different in our cruising life than it is now.  One is certainly cooking.

Pork with Brandy Apple Cream Sauce

Right now we really don't do a lot of cooking.  For a while my wife and I had different dietary needs and cooking two "meals for one" at each meal wasn't feasible.  While that isn't the case anymore, getting in a habit of cooking dinner just hasn't really happened.  So, I guess the bright side is we are fairly clean slates on the subject.

The first obvious issue is space.  A boat galley isn't anywhere near the size of our home's kitchen.  We will definitely need to be careful about what we keep and what we get rid of or we'll never get it all to fit.  Things that stack (or nest) will certainly help.

Another issue is motion.  Since we don't live in California, our kitchen doesn't really tend to move much.  A floating kitchen will definitely be different.  While stoves seem to generally be gimballed to stay level, everything else moves.  Not sure how this will impact things other than I know we want to avoid breakables (glass) and will need ways to secure stuff.

Provisioning will be another new task for us.  At home, we can just zip over to the store and pick up anything we are missing.  A little more hassle if you are at anchor near a town and impossible if you are otherwise traveling.  And with limited storage on a boat, we really need to figure out menus that use a lot of the same things so we have space for it all.

Energy is another big issue on a boat.  At home, stoves and appliances have unlimited supplies of gas and electricity.  On a boat, you have only the energy in the batteries and maybe an alternate fuel for a stove/oven (propane, alcohol, kerosene, etc.).  Definitely no American size refrigerators. Conservation is the key.  One very clever conservation idea is cooking using a Thermos.

We are starting to try to deal with meals more like we would on a boat.  One cool resource is The Boat Galley that has lots of tips and tricks (added to the research page).  For dinner last night we had fish tacos:

• Frozen Mahi (since fresh caught isn't an option in Colorado)
• Pinto Beans cooked in a Thermos.
• Cabbage, carrots, peppers, onion.
• Homemade taco seasoning.
• Sour cream made from Media Crema and lime juice.
• Salsa
• Minute rice (tried rice in a Thermos...but that didn't turn out well)

Other than the thermos rice, everything turned out well and was quite yummy.  5 minutes or so of pan frying the fish and boiling water for the beans and rice was all the energy used to cook.  Not counting the fish, salsa was the only refrigerated item (although leftover fresh caught fish would be refrigerated).  Even though I'll need to try the rice experiment again, overall I consider it a success.

And yes, the food pictured at the top of this post was a creation of mine...just because we don't cook much doesn't mean we can't. ;-)