Cooking Aboard

Andy G said:

..sorry I digress, and probably put Marin to sleep) :lol:

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No problem. When my wife and our friends start talking food and recipes I just start thinking about something else. Maybe what I need to do next in the two books I'm currently working on or even more interesting than that, what the slugs in the yard might be doing for entertainment at the moment.

Don't know if you have slugs down your way, Andy. They are in essence snails without shells. Fascinating creatures with a great sense of humor and very inventive minds. Last year they built a perpetual motion machine under the rhododendron in our back yard. For almost a week it provided power to the irrigation system they'd built to make their favorite plants grow faster. When I realized what it was and how it worked I went to get my camera to take photos so I could reproduce the thing and make millions but while I was in the house my wife threw a stick for our dog to fetch and he ran right through the machine and scattered its parts all over the place. I'm hoping they'll build another one this summer.

Oh good, I see you've stopped writing about cooking. Silly, outmoded topic. Just pick up the phone, dial a number, say what you want to eat, they bring it, you eat it, end of story. I think the single greatest achievement worldwide in the 20th century is the total elimination of the need to waste time cooking food and the even more idiotic activity, cleaning up afterwards. And then, of course, the truly staggering stupid human trick--- you do it all over again just a few hours later.

Anything you want from burgers to pizza to veal cutlet cordon bleu you can get by dialing a phone or driving up to a window. If there was an equally quick, easy, efficient, and cheap way of doing the same thing out on a boat life would be perfect.

Marin after reading that it sounds like a logical option, I've only been logical where mechanical things are involved is my problem. And using the generator while cooking is good exercise for it and that is logical;-)

I love to cook onboard using our round Magma Grill the usual BBQ also curry, stir fry, and paella for special occasions. Marsha likes to cook too but using the stove or crock pot sloe cooker

River Cruiser said:

Marin after reading that it sounds like a logical option, I've only been logical where mechanical things are involved is my problem. And using the generator while cooking is good exercise for it and that is logical;-)

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We use our generator regularly, too. To charge batteries, heat water, operate power tools we might use while aboard (heat gun, drill, etc.) and so on. But we don't use it to cook. That would be a total waste of diesel fuel and completely unnecessary and unwarranted wear on its raw water impeller.

Marin-my biggest problem is that our favorite Chinese restaurant, The Snappy Dragon, does not deliver beyond the end of the dock.

THD said:

Marin-my biggest problem is that our favorite Chinese restaurant, The Snappy Dragon, does not deliver beyond the end of the dock.

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That's why God created dinghies. Or maybe it was Noah when he got tired of the rubbish Mrs. Noah was cooking up on the Ark which even though it was crap food still had to be cleaned up after, a waste of time second only to the act of making the food in the first place.

Maybe he thought, "If I made a little bitty Ark-- I could call it the Arkette--- I could teach the two chimps to row and send them over to that Greek place on the hill to the west for some take-out gyros."

Marin said:

That's why God created dinghies. Or maybe it was Noah when he got tired of the rubbish Mrs. Noah was cooking up on the Ark which even though it was crap food still had to be cleaned up after, a waste of time second only to the act of making the food in the first place.

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There is really no telling how many more species of animals we would have if Noah hadn't cooked and eaten the best of them.

Moonstruck said:

There is really no telling how many more species of animals we would have if Noah hadn't cooked and eaten the best of them.

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Maybe the Noah crowd were all vegans. Which would explain a lot, perhaps, like their "back to the earth" hippy commune attitude. Why else would they have pissed about sawing and adzing out timbers and planks and screwing around with trying to figure out how much a cubit was when they could have done the whole damn thing with one phone call and fifteen or twenty 40' air conditioned containers.?

dwhatty said:

The wife cooks great meals, but she uses three pots when one would do and I get to do the dishes.

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I seem to have the same problem, the more utensils we have on board, the more she uses.

Bob

BobH said:

I seem to have the same problem, the more utensils we have on board, the more she uses.

Bob

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I'm starting to feel really sorry for you guys.

Marin said:

We use our generator regularly, too. To charge batteries, heat water, operate power tools we might use while aboard (heat gun, drill, etc.) and so on. But we don't use it to cook. That would be a total waste of diesel fuel and completely unnecessary and unwarranted wear on its raw water impeller.

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You make it sound great, maybe cereal, sandwiches & beer I could go with that. Thank you for showing me the error of my ways, think I'll have a cold beer now;-)

River Cruiser said:

You make it sound great, maybe cereal, sandwiches & beer I could go with that. Thank you for showing me the error of my ways, think I'll have a cold beer now;-)

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The beer's okay. You just have to pop the top or open the bottle. That effort brings a good return on investment.

With the cereal you're treading on dangerous ground. Is it pour it in a bowl-dump some milk on it, eat it with a spoon cereal? You're adding some unwanted prep activities here plus with the bowl and spoon you are now introducing the need to clean something up. This is Very Bad. Of course this can be remedied by using a throw-away paper bowl and a plastic spork or whatever.

But if you're talking oatmeal or Cream of Wheat or something that needs maybe a measuring cup and mixing and a pan and a stove and so on, that's totally unacceptable.

As is the sandwich. Bread, meat, peanut butter, tuna fish, etc? That means getting stuff out, maybe mixing stuff up, using a knife and a plate. All that translates into a mess in the galley that somebody has to clean up.

So in my book sandwiches are right out unless someone else is going to make it and clean up afterward. Otherwise it's speed dial Jimmy John's.

Marin - you're slipping.
Sandwiches can be package to mouth. Put a clump of meat and a few slices or a squirt to squeeze cheese on the bread...mayo or mustard can also be squeezed. In the event a utensil is needed, I have instituted a procedure on Big Duck the minimizes my exposure to cleaning. Each crew member has his/her own set of knife/fork/spoon. If I use mine, I just lick it or wipe it with a paper towel and put it back. You can wash yours if you want, don't mess with mine.

jeffnick said:

Put a clump of meat and a few slices or a squirt to squeeze cheese on the bread...mayo or mustard can also be squeezed. In the event a utensil is needed, ]

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"Put," "clump of meat," "slices," "squirt", squeeze," "mayo," "mustard," "utensil"..... you already have as many steps to the process as making a chicken vindaloo.

To me cooking is limited to one action only. Either removing a top as in Ron's beer example or opening a can. Dumping the can into a pan borders on the unacceptable as this now requires the application of heat and the pan needs to be cleaned.

But frankly this is all skating on thin ice. The objective in my life with regards to food is to have NOTHING whatsoever to do with its preparation or cleanup. Zero, zip, nada.

I do not look down on people who enjoy cooking as being fools. If they enjoy it, more power to them. I gave my wife a several-thousand dollar dual-fuel range for Christmas. She can talk to it and it does what she tells it to do. Pretty cool. My wife loves to cook and she's very good at it. Great for her and great for me. I refuse to have anything to do with the process. I do not help set tables, I do not help clear them, I do not help clean up. Ever. At our house or anyone else's. I will help our friends paint their houses, I will haul lumber for them in my truck, I will help them split wood for the winter, I will help them with yard projects or boat projects. But I will not lift a finger to do anything in connection with meals in their homes or on their boats other than eating them.

Seems fair to me.

That is one advantage to having a smaller boat: fewer utensils. Both of us love to cook, and one of our favorite memories was salmon fishing out of La Push a few years ago. Dropped a crab pot on the way out to Swiftsure bank, and it was full when we got back! Add to that the salmon, and a little rice pilaf. English muffin garlic bread, and some red wine! We were set!!

Induction cook top?

Any thoughts?

Chris likes to cook and she cooks w a bit of a farm cooking flare. Shuns fancy stuff and does really really well w/o cookbooks. She's great at finding things from food to oil filters .. a great organizer .. a mental condition I'm not very close to. She kept asking for her new stove and being a quiet girl I didn't realize how eager she was to have the new stove and getting it hooked up. Wow .. it was like me w a new boat. Got a very nice proper marine SS cook stove w 3 burners and a sizable oven. Shouldda done it as one of the first up-grades on the boat. I thought she'd use the oven once and awhile but she cooks lot of things in the oven now.

Lesson to me is that I need to listen attentively to my fairly quiet wife and give serious consideration to all she says. Here's Chris and you can see how she feels about her new stove.

Jenny said:

Induction cook top?

Any thoughts?

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I have propane and no genset so I'm not in the market, but if I was shopping for an electric stovetop, this is the way I'd go. It seems to made perfect sense for a boat with its instant heat and always cool top.

This article has a good discussion of the requirements and the pros and cons. I was surprised by the need for 40 amp service which could be a problem on some smaller boats like mine. The only other small drawback I see is the need to buy compatible flat bottom magnetic pans.

manyboats said:

Lesson to me is that I need to listen attentively to my fairly quiet wife and give serious consideration to all she says.

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There is "sage advice" and then there is "wisdom". Eric just gave us wisdom.

I've shared before that my wife doesn't know anything about boats and doesn't care to either. She does however know what she does and does not like though. When she nodded her head and said she liked this boat I bought it.

If an induction cooktop, or anything else for that matter, is what will make boating a more pleasurable experience and ya have the budget to install it, buy one is my opinion. These are pleasure craft not work vessels.

I cook all the time on the boat. From fried egg sammiches for breakfast to a full thanksgiving turkey dinner. (granted I used millisecond potatoes and stovetop stuffing and made the candied sweet potatoes before and just warmed them up on the boat). Cruising is going to exotic ports and anchorages and making hotdogs. 4 years on the boat and several pounds later, I'm now making fresh veges and salads, and healthy alternatives.

I have a three burner glasstop, a toaster oven, microwave and the magma grill. (generator and invertor when not plugged in)

My plan is to learn to fish this summer - and add grouper and trout to my menus!

About those yummy looking crabs.....we have much smaller blue crab here and I want a crab pot too! Do you have to kill and gut or just boil/steam em intact?

Besslb said:

Do you have to kill and gut or just boil/steam em intact?

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The crabs illustrated are Dungeness crab and they taste like lobster. Best-tasting crab on the planet as far as I'm concerned, and yes, I've had crab from the southeast in Charleston.

They can get quite large. We've caught them in places in the San Juans and Gulf Islands where the shells were more than a foot across. Usually they are a bit smaller than that. You can boil them whole if you want but the only parts most people eat are the legs and claws and the "attach" point of the legs. Boiling them whole means you take up a lot of pot with stuff you're not going to eat.

So Carey of this forum taught me a really clever method of "cleaning" a Dungeness crab which is too hard to describe here but basically involves holding the crab in both hands in such a way that it can't get its claws on you, hooking one end of the shell under a cleat or bullrail and then folding your hands in towards each other. The two claw/leg sections break off intact while the entire shell section with the guts and all drops away into the water. Very quick, clean, and you only have to put the parts you eat into the pot.

Marin says "They can get quite large" re Dungeness Crab.

Well Marin I'm going to assume you've not eaten any King Crab.

And re the taste ..... almost as good as Dungies

And super easy to eat.

Yes, I've eaten plenty of King crab. Not my favorite. A lot of work for very little reward (meat). And I think they taste very bland compared to Dungeness and the eastern crab varieties. I never order King crab anymore because you pay through the nose for what is in essence mostly shell and the meat is always a major disappointment once one gets used to Dungeness.

Snow Crab, the marketing hype name for Tanner Crab, is much more flavorful then King crab in my opinion but not as good as Dungeness.

I personally think King crab is a marketing rip-off. Sort of like "Copper River Salmon" which is just a marketing name for an early run of salmon. I've had it, it tastes no different than "ordinary" salmon (wild salmon, that is, farmed salmon tastes like rubbish).

"Chilean Sea Bass" is another marketing scam as it's a name for a fish that doesn't exist. Chilean Sea Bass is a catch-all name for a whole bunch of different bottom fish. I learned this when we did a project in Chile with Lan Chile, the air cargo company that ships "Chilean Sea Bass" all over the world.

I do love Dungeness, and King, and Snow. But alas, if I throw a pot in the water, I will get cute little blue crabs. The claws are actually bright blue. I asked a local guy who was crabbing off the waterfront in New Bern to see inside his catch cooler. So these little guys will fit in my pot for sure.

Maybe we can get one of those moderators do split us off to a how to catch, kill and clean your dinner thread? I have much to learn about catching dinner outside of the grocery store and hope to have many hours at anchor to ponder this idea.

Besslb said:

I have much to learn about catching dinner outside of the grocery store and hope to have many hours at anchor to ponder this idea.

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I don't cook (anymore) as I have stated, but I do catch and clean stuff for my wife to cook. I have a hell of a lot to learn too, but I'm pretty good with halibut, ling cod, salmon, and Dungeness crab. Smaller fish I've not had much experience with at all.

Nor lobster. I mean real lobsters, not those wannabe lobsters from the Pacific like we had in Hawaii that they tried to pass off as having class by calling them "Spiny Lobsters." They're fake lobsters, everyone knows it, enough with the marketing hype.

Duplicate post.

Marin said:

Nor lobster. I mean real lobsters, not those wannabe lobsters from the Pacific like we had in Hawaii that they tried to pass off as having class by calling them "Spiny Lobsters."

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My wife and I were out for dinner a few days ago and we each had one of each. The Maine lobsters won, hands down, for taste . (I try and get her out at least twice a year for a nice dinner.)

My wife's uncle was a hardhat diver in the Navy. One of his jobs was to dive on recently sunken vessels and ditched airplanes and recover the bodies. He saw what happened to the bodies after they'd been in the water for a bit and what ate them. After seeing that he never ate crab or lobster again.

God's working title for the lobster project while He was working on it was "Cockroach of the Sea."

Besslb said:

About those yummy looking crabs.....we have much smaller blue crab here and I want a crab pot too! Do you have to kill and gut or just boil/steam em intact?

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As Marin pointed out, these are Dungeness. We like them better than any other crustacean, lobster included. Cooking both ways is acceptable. I have had people tell me the meat is sweeter if you clean them first, but I cant tell.

There is a trick to cleaning them if you have an older, barnacle encrusted shell and want to cook them whole. Flip them on their back and lift up the apron with a small knife. Under the apron at the base will be a cone-shaped dimple. Push the knife into the dimple about one inch. This paralyzes the crab so you don't get pinched while your cleaning or scrubbing the shell! Works every time!

Marin;My wife's uncle was a hardhat diver in the Navy. One of his jobs was to dive on recently sunken vessels and ditched airplanes and recover the bodies. He saw what happened to the bodies after they'd been in the water for a bit and what ate them. After seeing that he never ate crab or lobster again.

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Marin,we were having a nice conversation talking about great food and and ways of preparing it(no tins or takeaway) and you give us your wife's uncle's day job. You have destroyed my signature dish of chilli mud crab,coconut cream with shaved limes and crustos. .