Chapter 94: About the Food…

“What do you eat on the boat?” It’s a question we get all the time. And I mean ALL the time. The answer is easy: salt beef and hardtack.

Just kidding. That was ship rations in the 19th century. Along with the grog, of course. Fortunately, progress has been made.

Kim and I are foodies. We love great food. We love to prepare it and we love to eat it. For us, figuring out eating on board was a top priority. Eating canned foods every day is not going to cut it. Fortunately, I think we’ve been fairly successful. Obviously, adjustments have been made. Our galley is a fraction of size of the kitchen we designed and built in our home. No more double oven. One will do. And we rarely use that one because it heats up the inside of the boat. No microwave-uses too much power. No full-size fridge/freezer. No electric mixer. No food processor. No induction cooktop. No electric griddle. No waffle maker. No bread machine. (Ohhhhh, we had all the toys.) We have a 3-burner cooktop, oven, small rice cooker, immersion blender, small fridge, and small freezer. We also have a gas grill. That’s it for appliances. And we brought our pasta maker. Because….PASTA!

Shopping obviously is different. We no longer make our weekly trip to the grocery store. We provisioned in Brunswick back in February. Since then, when we find a store, we have bought produce and then some snack-type foods. Otherwise, we are working with what we bought a couple of months ago. We bought pretty large quantities of stuff, considering there are two of us. We then portioned it out, vacuum-sealed it, and froze it. We also have a supply of canned goods such as soup, beans, etc. We also bought a bunch of freeze-dried veggies and powdered milk. And from those supplies, we make our meals. So what does that look like?

Well, for breakfast, Kim makes herself avocado toast on English muffins. I love oatmeal with brown sugar and dried cranberries. For a treat, we have made pancakes, french toast, and egg/bacon/veggie skillets with hash browns. Lunch is generally leftovers or peanut butter crackers or, for me, cereal (I have a serious cereal problem.).

Dinner is generally Kim’s domain. We have not been big meat eaters for the last few years. It’s not a conscious decision so much as we find we don’t enjoy it as much as we used to. So we eat a lot of veggies. Salads are great when we have produce available. We also do a lot of chickpea curries over either rice, riced cauliflower, or couscous. Kim makes quite a few pasta recipes. Some with tomato-based sauces and others with pesto or peanut butter sauce. We’ll throw beans in there for protein. We like Impossible burgers and there are several kinds of chili Kim makes, from vegetarian to turkey-based. And yes, they have beans. Because, while we lived in Texas, we’re not FROM Texas. Oh. And pizza. We also have a thing for pizza. LOVE. IT. So we make it on board. We have a supply of yeast, so I’ll make up the dough in the morning and then use a baking stone on the grill to bake pizza for dinner. Yum! (I miss you, Home Slice!) And speaking of yeast, we’ve also baked bread on board. Because bread doesn’t keep and, I’m sorry, carbs are my life.

So, are we as fancy as we used to be? No, I would have to say not. But we manage a good variety of healthy meals using quality ingredients. We can live with that. Fortunately, you know what doesn’t require an oven? Rice Krispie Treats! Did I mention I have a cereal problem?

And for a bonus feature, if you want to see what using the cooktop underway looks like, you can check out this video!