Cruise provisioning

[JumbleDuck]

My mind is starting to wander towards the first cruise of the year and looking for your provisioning/recipe ideas for a week's cruise. On board fridge is more a coolbox so not the best at keeping stuff cold.

So beyond fray bentos pies, tinned haggis and corned beef - what's your staples for cooking on board?

I have an ice box on board, which melts about 2kg/day in the hottest Scottish weather and 1kg/day off-peak. I use that to carry meat (raw and cooked), cheese, butter and other things which like to be cool. If meat is buried at the bottom I can keep it for a week. Otherwise spuds, onions, part baked bread, oatcakes, tinned chicken in white sauce, FB pies, lots of pasta, jars of pasta sauces, Baxter's cullen skink, Heinz cream of tomato. Heinz tinned macaroni cheese used to be nice but is now foul. I'm teetotal, so lots of fruit juice, also apple and pear juice concentrate from Suma.

 

[Sandy]

'In Norway we have a local delicacy... Cod's Tongue... you can stow your Tasmanian delicacies........

Tinned reindeer meat is vile. A pal on a climbing trip to Trondheim thought he was giving me a treat. We are just about speaking after 20 years

Kangaroo is a real treat.

 

[Sandy]

Thinking out loud I have friends who sailed from France, through the Panama Canal, down to Cape Horn and over to South Georgia, then back up the mid Atlantic ridge and back to Europe all with no fridge. It can be done.

 

[PurpleKate]

Great ideas, Ive just switched to a boat with only a cool box. Store cupboard favorites for my crew used on Fastnet are: Pasta+Pesto+Tinned salmon+tinned peas.... feeds a crowd,
Channa Masala (Chick pea curry) in a sachet (Tesco/Waitrose +Rice,
Look what Ive found Chilli with extra tinned tomates and tinned kidney beans.
Premade and Frozen lamb Tagine is always a favourite in the first days - just spicy enough to be warming
I have to say Ive yet to find a nice tinned curry - even M&S was a bit dodgy - any recommendations?
Heinz have just brought out some soups in square cartons which look easier to stow and lighter than cans. The parsnip was a bit tasteless, the tomato is ok a bit sour but adding milk helped and yet to try the Thai carrot.
Hoping to take part in the AZAB race this year so looking for all recommendations possible as dont want to have to resort to expedition food

 

[Sandy]

I freeze the Covent Garden soups, all part of my cool box strategy and quite enjoy them.

 

[prv]

'In Norway we have a local delicacy... Cod's Tongue... you can stow your Tasmanian delicacies........

I believe Haggis is a 'local delicacy'.... along with some strange things the locals do with herring...

In Japan they have natto, slimy mouldy soybeans that smell of drains. Even many Japanese people don't like it, so it's a good trick to play on visiting foreigners.

Luckily I'd anticipated something like this and was able to retaliate with Marmite, which they tasted with small dabs on the end of a chopstick.

Great amusement all round, and it was agreed that our "local delicacy" had beaten their "local delicacy" in a close-fought fight

Pete

 

[Neeves]

Tinned butter (and cheese) is still freely available, I think Bega, a town in Oz and giving its name to a dairy coy. The butter is fine and tastes (unsurprisingly) just like butter! (tinned cheese is pretty average, but gets better the longer you are away from a decent supermarket). Oddly tinned butter is best available in, some, Chinese supermarkets. But a good hard cheese lasts, almost for ever.

You can always make a fresh cheese from fresh yogurt, which you can make from 'dried' yogurt mix from the NZ company Easi Yo or Hansell. Hansell also make some good 'instant' desserts, Panna Cotta, Creme Brûlée (but I think you need a fridge, and blow torch for the latter).


Denigrating Tasmanian produce?

Next time you can beat freshly caught Tasmanian cray fish - let me know.

As said earlier, eat as you would at home (or in a decent restaurant) - rely on produce from the sea - your needs are then long life dairy (tinned butter, long life milk etc), veg (rice, pasta, noodles - easy!), bread - bake your own. Dried eggs and easily available. The big issue is reduced to veg and fruit. Tinned and dried fruit make a good substitute (fresh apples last well). Choose your cabbage with care and it will last months - though very tedious and onions last well.

For more discerning and argumentative crew - a decent supply of alcohol is a good answer - and anyone demanding ice in a decent malt - walking the plank is inadequate!

Jonathan

 

[Sandy]

For more discerning and argumentative crew - a decent supply of alcohol is a good answer - and anyone demanding ice in a decent malt - walking the plank is inadequate!

I quite enjoy a malt with a single ice cube on a warm summers night.

I usually use a blended grain whisky to make a Whisky Mac on a cold winters night.

 

[Solent sailer]

JSurprised no one’s mentioned the packets of microwave rice. Does not need to be microwaved, just boil a kettle and pour it over the rice, leave for a couple of minutes then drain.

If you are having the rice wirh tinned curry just mix the rice in and warm it all up togeter, the chicken curry is rather good on a cold night.

 

[Frank Holden]

.......
Denigrating Tasmanian produce?

Next time you can beat freshly caught Tasmanian cray fish - let me know.


Jonathan

Is there a prize?

Centolla. Fresh orf da boat.....

Cost us about $5 of antibiotics.. one of the fishing boat crew had a nasty tooth abscess....

 

[Frank Holden]

I quite enjoy a malt with a single ice cube on a warm summers night.

I usually use a blended grain whisky to make a Whisky Mac on a cold winters night.

Its not just the quality of the whisky but also the quality of the ice....

 

[Kukri]

Its not just the quality of the whisky but also the quality of the ice....

“Matured over decades!”

 

[JumbleDuck]

In Japan they have natto, slimy mouldy soybeans that smell of drains. Even many Japanese people don't like it, so it's a good trick to play on visiting foreigners.

One of the most exciting culinary experiences I ever had was when I mistook a lump of wasabi paste for a broad bean (same colour and next to some beans) and ate it whole on its own. I thought my head was going to split around the equator. Dear God, the pain. Otherwise a very nice Japanese restaurant near the British Museum, so dedicated to the ex-pat community that the menu was wholly in Japanese.

 

[Minchsailor]

Why all this enthusiasm for microwaveable rice?. Rice must be one of the easiest things to cook on boats - boil some salted water, chuck in about a handful of rice (dependant on hunger and number of people to feed), simmer for a 2-3 minutes, turn off heat, leave for 20-25 mins. Eat with whatever.

 

[Cardinal]

On the subject of cooking rice, I agree it is so very easy, and generally there is a superabundance of salted water available although half and half is usually best.
Usually there is surplus cooked so that goes in the morrow’s soup.

 

[Neeves]

I'm waiting for someone to mention instant rice - which will lead to the ultimate in culinary horrors - instant porridge! (worse than ice in a decent malt).

Jonathan

 

[Kukri]

Potatoes can be boiled in seawater, of course, and rice absorbs all the (fresh!) water used to cook it, but pasta is an outrageous extravagance!

Porridge has the same water conserving virtues as rice.

Tinned butter is not to be had in Britain. Camping shops used to carry it but not for some years now.

 

[Frank Holden]

I rarely bother with rice..... and use spuds and carrot instead....
Pressure cook spuds and carrots for 2 minutes.... set aside
Have a beer..
Make curry in pressure cooker... cook for 25 minutes.
Have another beer...
Drop in vege... bring back to pressure and turn off gas.
Serve with beer......
Only one pot to wash.....

 

[Frank Holden]

Never mind your haggis or your cod's tongue... here is a real treat that should be in every well stocked galley...

 

[Neeves]

Potatoes can be boiled in seawater, of course, and rice absorbs all the (fresh!) water used to cook it, but pasta is an outrageous extravagance!

Porridge has the same water conserving virtues as rice.

Tinned butter is not to be had in Britain. Camping shops used to carry it but not for some years now.

Tinned butter used to standard in compo rations? What do they offer now?

Jonathan