Cruise and eat well on a small boat

[Ross]

Normally I don't record what I put into a stew pot but today I made an exception.
For luch I am cooking a pot of lamb stew from some leftover roast lamb from last week. So here it comes:
One fist size potato cut into half inch dice
one large carrot cut the same.
one stalk of celery chopped
half an onion
6 ounces of lamb diced into half inch cubes
half a cup each frozen corn and green beans
a pint of stock
salt and pepper
thickened with a roux made from left over lamb fat and turkey fat.

I make roux in large batches at least a cup at a time and stir into the hot broth a spoonful at a time until it is as thick as I want .

The yield on this wll be two meals for Nancy and me.
Most people if they were eating these ingredients as separate items would eat a potato, a cooked carrot and 6 ounces of meat with no trouble at all . My parish priest weighs about 250 and is well over six feet tall he would want seconds on the stew. But for him I also serve bread.

 

[Joe11688]

Ross,
Email me and I'll send you a few of my favorite recipes. One of my recipes is called the "Florentine Garden Ring" and it's a little complicated to describe how it's put together, so I took pictures of it in various stages. My wife showed me how to prepare it and the only way I could remember how to put it together was to take pictures of it. It's main ingredients is left-over chicken, ham, or a combination of both, and spinach, onion, carrot, cut up fine. Then shredded swiss cheese, mayonnaise, and garlic go into it. The dish is set up in a pizza pan using two 8 oz. packages of Pillsbury crescent rolls to form the ring and the filling goes into it. I also tried making this dish in two 10" round pans so I can make it in my boat. I cooked one in my kitchen oven and the other one in my Stanley Ovenette on my boat stove, and they came out just as good. I have that recipe with the pics, plus Sandra Lee's "Chicken and Dumplings", which is one of my all time favorites and it's so easy to make. For the dumplings, she uses Grands prepared frozen buttermilk biscuits. There's no provision to upload pics in the private messages on this forum, I don't think, but if you email me; sailtrinkka1986@verizon.net I'll send it to you.
Ahoy!
Joe

 

[Ross]

For those of you who have a pressure cooker/canner and are not yet using it for canning this book is a must have. Make your soups and stews and canned meats at home and enjoy them on the boat with no concern for the need for ice.
http://www.goodmans.net/item.asp?n=BL-21400&k=BL-21400&sc=NXTG

 

[Ross]

Thirty cents worth of biscuits.

 

[Joe11688]

For those of you who have a pressure cooker/canner and are not yet using it for canning this book is a must have. Make your soups and stews and canned meats at home and enjoy them on the boat with no concern for the need for ice.
http://www.goodmans.net/item.asp?n=BL-21400&k=BL-21400&sc=NXTG

Thanks Ross, I'll check that book out.
Joe

 

[Grizz]

"Ross' Recipes"

Just in case Phil is keeping track, this is what I've copied into my Galley files, including the image of the 30¢ biscuits. The Recipe idea is a good idea, in case votes are being tallied.

Looks like there may be a pressure cooker in the offing. Good thread that may lead to some good eats.

 

[Boompa]

Lots of good info here! I'm considering a dutch oven so we can have fresh rolls, bread and biscuits. I planned on putting it on top of our Origo but someone mentioned making bread with a pressure cooker. Thats new to me. [The biscuits pictured above didn't come out of a round container...they look great.] So whats better, Dutch Oven or Pressure Cookers?

I'm a newby here and all these great recipes do 'scream' for a recipe forum.

 

[Ross]

A good dutch oven is made from cast iron and is twice as wide as it is deep and has a heavy lid. On a flame burner it should have a flame spreader under it to avoid hot spots on the bottom. A pressure cooker is always aluminum or stainless steel and has a gasketed lid and a pressure regulator. Pressure cookers are not intended for dry cooking and dutch ovens can not be used for canning. If you can find in a yard sale an aluminum skillet with a tight fitting venting lid you could bake in that conveniently. Any skillet with a tight lid would serve but the aluminum spreads the heat more uniformly.
I have a receipe for a single layer 8 inch cake that can be baked in a skillet as an upside down cake.
The attached pix is of a flame spreader.

 

[Peggie Hall HeadMistress]

Cast iron heats more evenly than aluminum unless you're referring to anodized cast aluminum. You shouldn't need a flame spreader with either one. However, although cast iron is VERY inexpensive, it does have one drawback that makes it impractical to store on a boat--it rusts unless kept absolutely dry. Good quality anodized cast aluminum is pricy, but will last a lifetime and doesn't rust.

 

[Ross]

Peggy, I cook on a gas stove and have both cast iron and aluminum skillets and kettles. Both are high quality The iron is griswold and the aluminum is wearever with a small simmering flame pancakes will burn in the center before the edges are browned in the cast iron but not so in the aluminum. however the pancakes will stick in the aluminum but not in the iron. I keep two cast iron skillets on the boat and they won't rust if they are kept oiled and stored in the oven.

 

[Bill Bell]

Try canned Meats

We've been packing the boat for a 4 month Bahamas cruise that starts Feb 1. We have taken home canned meats with us for several years. This started back before we had refrigeration and freezer. It is so handy we continue to go this way. We are taking 60 pints of chicken, pork, beef, brats, etc. Many times in the Bahamas if you want to buy meat and are not in Nassau, Georgetown or Marsh Harbor, you have to buy a chunk of mystery meat from a freezer and it might be 5 pounds. So the canned meats are very handy. We do take about 2 weeks worth of frozen foods and a raft of dry and other canned foods. We used to make bread in a pressure cooker or oven, but now take a breadmaker that makes a loaf in 59 minutes while we top off the batteries and make hot water.

For those of you retired in the snow country, there is a better life down south.

Bill

 

[Ross]

Bill, My experience has been that turkey tolerates canning better than chicken. Doesn't seem to get quite as willing to fall apart when I reheat it.

 

[themacway]

" For those of you retired in the snow country, there is a better life down south.

Bill "

man, have you got that right! being a native (west) texan, i remember snow skiing in my late teens and twenties being great times, even at temps near zero. after that, the only cold i can really stand are the mountains of colorado and new mexico in the summer months only, and that's temps of about 60 degrees or so. don't know what it is about old age - well, i'm only 50, but i can feel the bones startin' to get all creaky - so i guess i should just say 'the second half of life,' especially since both my parents are a very healthy 85.

jack b in midland, tx usa

 

[Ron20324]

For those of you retired in the snow country, there is a better life down south.

Bill "
Bill, the song goes "White Christmas", not "Bright Christmas".

All the same, I'll be in Ft Myers next Sunday for a week and wonder what is the name of the place with a row of shops then a restaurant looking out over what I think is Charlotte Harbor or Bay? Planning a trip there the 30th.

 

[Rob Hessenius]

Ron- That is called Fishermens Village and it is in Punta Gorda. Love the Grouper sandwich and a ice cold beer at Harpoon Harry's

 

[Ross]

This has been languishing. So I offer a question and also one posible answer. When you want to make soup, how do you do it?
I search for a piece of meat with a bone in it and set it to cook in some water with some salt and pepper. I add some onion and celery and some carrot if I have some. I cook the bone for quite a while perhaps an hour or more. Then I add some rice or some barley or a cut up potato some red pepper flakes, a little tomato or V-8 juice. If I don't have rice or barley or potato I add some pasta. Check the seasonings and get out bowls and spoons, some crackers and call, "SoupsOn!" and eat.

 

[Joe11688]

This has been languishing. So I offer a question and also one posible answer. When you want to make soup, how do you do it?
I search for a piece of meat with a bone in it and set it to cook in some water with some salt and pepper. I add some onion and celery and some carrot if I have some. I cook the bone for quite a while perhaps an hour or more. Then I add some rice or some barley or a cut up potato some red pepper flakes, a little tomato or V-8 juice. If I don't have rice or barley or potato I add some pasta. Check the seasonings and get out bowls and spoons, some crackers and call, "SoupsOn!" and eat.

I have to admit Ross, that I very seldom ever make soup on my boat because it's so easy to open a can and add water to heat it up, and the amount that it provides can be consumed in one sitting. With that said, I have made a clam chowder from scratch on my boat, and I've also made a Lentil stew with my pressure cooker on board, but unless you have enough people on board to share it with, the problem arises of where to store it in a full cooler. Cooking a soup on a small boat to me, sounds like a fun thing to do on a rainy day on the hook in your favorite cove, but unless you cook a large soup, the fuel consumption isn't worth it. I use an alcohol Origo boat stove, and as you know, alcohol is very expensive today. So hence, the can soup is for me personally. I know, Ross--- I can see you cringing at me right now. On the other hand, last year I picked up a Turbo Cooker in a thrift shop which can cook foods as fast as a pressure cooker. So don't lose heart, I'm going to try out your recipe because I think that it sounds great!
Trinkky

Phil,
A recipe section. Please tie a string around your finger so you don't forget. We need more of Ross' recipes.
Trinkky

 

[Ross]

Soup will keep in the pot in cool weather for the time between meals. You don't have to make a gallon at a time.

 

[Joe11688]

Soup will keep in the pot in cool weather for the time between meals. You don't have to make a gallon at a time.

I understand that, Ross, but if I have soup for lunch, I don't want it again for supper. I'll probably want my usual chicken pot pie with French Fries, or a left-over pork chop with beans, brought from home. :dance: I know what you're thinking, and I'm planning on going on a diet real soon.
Trinkky