Provisioning for an offshore cruising trip can be a bit daunting at first, especially if you aren’t sure what people onboard will want during the trip. When I was seasick, I could really only envision eating peanut butter sandwiches, pasta with butter and salt, almonds, and Ritz crackers. But, when you’re feeling well, what do you eat?
I read this before and I think it is true; at sea, you tend to eat what you eat at home. I can tell you I have had little desire to stand for hours in a small galley kitchen whipping up a gourmet meal, but we have “real” meals for dinner most nights. Here’s what our week has looked like so far:
In port: The first night we arrived in port in the Bahamas, Ariana was dying for some pasta with vodka cream sauce. I made some homemade vodka sauce and we had that with spinach fettuccine and salad. The next night, we went out for dinner. Our last night, I made pizza on the grill. I made pizza dough from scratch in the morning while the kids were doing school and I had stocked some Boboli pizza sauce (easy to store). I had shredded mozzarella cheese, pepper jack cheese, Boar’s Head turkey pepperoni (that stuff is good), and green pepper. I made two pizzas on the grill and we had some salad. (I didn’t love my pizza crust this time, though.)
First night out to sea: We had Szechuan chicken stir-fry with jasmine rice. Our stir-fry had grilled chicken, fresh green beans, a bit of green onion, fresh carrots and canned water chestnuts. The kids don’t like spicy stir-fry so I made theirs more plain with soy sauce chicken before I added our zing.
Second night out to sea: We had hard tacos with organic ground chicken, shredded Mexican and pepper jack cheese, fat free refried beans, and tomatoes. I also made up a few small cheese quesadillas. We had salsa (of course) because we can’t live without that.
Third night out to sea: One of my throw-everything-in pasta dishes with angel hair pasta, (previously frozen chopped) spinach, tomato, broccoli, Boursin garlic cheese, and a bit of tomato and herb feta thrown on top for good measure.
Fourth night out to sea: Red beans and rice. Not homemade (the packaged kind that you cook), but super good out here on the ocean. Dan and the kids had a turkey hot dog too.
Fifth night out to sea: Okay, tonight it is ROUGH. We are going to be happy with bean and cheese burritos, or I might get sick.
Sixth night out to sea: Still rough. Still not feeling great. Pasta with marinara is the menu tonight—with garlic bread.
For breakfast on these two legs, I have made cinnamon French toast with turkey bacon, biscuit breakfast sandwiches with scrambled egg, cheese and soy sausage patties, a “scramble” of eggs, black beans, cilantro, and turkey sausage crumbles eaten in taco sized tortillas with avocado (and salsa, of course!), warm croissants with honey, and another meal of scrambled eggs, Applewood smoked chicken sausage links and grilled English muffins. Other days’ breakfast has been a bowl of cereal (we have 5 different kinds onboard right now), a bagel with cream cheese, or a piece of (unsweet) homemade Bahamian coconut bread that we bought in New Plymouth, Abacos based on the recommendation of two very nice, young American women we met in MacIntosh restaurant while we were eating lunch.
For lunch, we sometimes have a sandwich (I bought Boar’s Head chicken breast and froze about three pounds of it before we left. I also bought five kinds of packaged cheese and split them in half—one half for the fridge and one half for the freezer for later). We have also eaten soup, angel hair noodles with herbs and butter (the boxed kind), and Ryan has partaken in a nice can of Chef Boy r Dee Beef Ravioli! Much to Dan’s chagrin (he and his family love the cold sandwich), the kids and I prefer “hot lunch” so lunch could be a number of things, but never too difficult to make.
We anticipate having another 7 or 8 nights out here, before we reach the BVIs and I have written out about 8 more dinners I have the capability of making onboard prior to provisioning again. Examples: pork fried rice, turkey hot dogs or fish sticks with frozen vegetables. If we go longer than eight more nights, well, I have enough food on board to make a bunch more meals, but we may have to repeat some or not have every single ingredient we normally have!
I also have a lot of snack foods. We have chips, Gold Fish crackers, Power Bars, Bel Vita Bars (my favorite!), apples, bananas, cashews, almonds, peanuts, cookies, pizza rolls, etc. WE LOVE PIZZA ROLLS AT SEA!