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Current Location: St. John in the U.S. Virgin Islands. We’re slowly circumnavigating this small island, moving from one beautiful beach to the next. Almost all of the island is part of the U.S. National Park System, so it’s great for hiking and natural beauty.
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One of the questions we got recently, and answered in a post, was about what we eat on Meraviglia. I thought I would follow that up because yesterday I did the cooking and, well, it was pretty good! Yesterday being Mother’s Day, I wanted to do something special for Kim. Her idea of a perfect day is pretty much sitting on the beach all day, so that’s what we did. My “love language” is food, so I wanted to make her something special. When we lived on land, Kim generally did the day-to-day meal preparation: weeknight dinners. I then cooked on the weekends. I really enjoy stretching myself and trying new things, so my meals tended to be pretty elaborate or involved attempting things we had never done before. On the boat, that tended to go away. First, we are obviously more limited in our kitchen tools. Second, we can’t just run to the store for special ingredients. And third, I have usually been beat after fixing the boat all day. As a result, I have not done much cooking. Breakfasts sometimes and anything that involved the grill have been the limit of my cooking contributions on board Meraviglia. With Mother’s Day, I wanted to start to change that.
For breakfast, I made a “skillet”. It’s not something I have a recipe for-it just depends on what I have available. I usually make a “crust” of shredded potatoes in a cast iron skillet, then pile in sauteed onions, peppers, and bacon (because, while we don’t eat much meat, Kim LOVES bacon). Over that, I pour beaten eggs and top it with cheese. I broil it until browned and serve. Voila! This time, I added some baking powder tot he eggs to get some rise/fluffiness and it turned out pretty well!
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At the end of the day, I moved on to dinner. Italian is may go-to, so that’s what I did. Finally, after 10 months living aboard, I brought out the pasta maker! Making fresh pasta always sounds super fancy, but it’s really pretty easy: mix together flour and egg into a dough, knead, roll out, and cut. Deceptively simple. And the difference between fresh and dried pasta is HUGE! On land, I used a combination of different flours to adjust texture, etc., but on board, AP flour works just fine. Fortunately, the pasta machine is hand-crank, so no power needed! I also made a marinara from scratch-also super simple. We like Marcella Hazan’s recipe for marinara. There are only four ingredients: onion, canned San Marzano tomatoes, butter, and salt. Throw it all in a saucepan for 45 minutes and you have a great marinara. It also gave me a chance to use our immersion blender! After that it was just a matter of grating some parmesan cheese, warming some bread, and we had a great Italian dinner on board. Pretty darn fun, too! Hopefully now as we settle in to this life, I’ll have the motivation to do more cooking. I hope so anyway! So does Kim.
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May 13, 2024 at 11:37 am
Looks delicious!
May 13, 2024 at 12:23 pm
What time is dinner tonight? We’ll be there! (We wish)
ps- Aunt Betsy wants me to tell you both that the Stephens stayed on St. John’s when she was 11 and your Dad was 18. They chartered a sailboat around the island and had dinner with the Oppinhimers several times. And Aunt Betsy swam with their daughter. (Sorry about not spelling their name right- no auto-correct here).🤣
May 15, 2024 at 10:19 pm
Fancy!
May 13, 2024 at 2:56 pm
Yummy. I’m getting hungry already.
May 15, 2024 at 10:19 pm
It was pretty good, even if I do say so myself.
May 13, 2024 at 5:12 pm
Anything for Kim! She raised two incredible children with you
May 13, 2024 at 5:27 pm
You’re riding’ easy in the harness! This is how it’s supposed to be!’
May 14, 2024 at 5:19 pm
Some day I’ll tell you the rest of the story of our crossing the Anagata (sp) Passage. 24 hours of storm & a huge hatch coming off soaking your grandmother, your dad says “this is the life”, your grandmother says “SHUT UP”.
May 15, 2024 at 10:20 pm
That sounds just about right!