Sailing food

Hi Lora - first of all, let me tell you that I think you
are a saint for undertaking this! My friend who
camps a lot suggests a cookbook called One Burner
Cooking (sorry, I don’t know the author), if you are
inclined to go the the book store. I’ve had some
experience feeding a crowd where there wasn’t
much refrigeration (which I assume you have to deal
with, too), so I thought back to some of the things
we used to do.

The main thing we would do was to make things
ahead and freeze them. On ice in the cooler, they
slowly thaw and keep well.

Here are a few ideas:

~ Bake or grill chicken that can be served cold, like
oven fried chicken, or herbed chicken that can be
served sliced over a salad for the ever popular
chicken caesar salad. (your veggie can substitute
cheese and a hardboiled egg for the chicken). This
is good for a day you don’t want to do ANY
cooking!
~ Make a big batch of marinara sauce and freeze.
Cook sturdy pasta like ziti or penne and put in big
ziploc bags. To serve, bring the sauce to a simmer
and add the pasta to the pot to heat through. Take
the “green can” of parmesan (they’ll never know!!).
Good for your vegetarian, too. If you really think
they need meat, cook ahead meatballs and/or italian
sausage that can be added separately.
~ Tacos would probably work well. You could
either make the seasoned hamburger mix ahead, and
freeze it, or just freeze the hamburger and make the
dish onboard. You can do the traditional crispy-type
shells, or pack flour tortillas for “soft tacos.” Get
the kids to chop the tomatoes, lettuce, grate cheese,
etc. (for your veggie - maybe pack a can of veggie
refried beans to replace the meat).
~ If some sirloin steak is on sale (it’s only $2/lb here,
and you’d only need 3-4 pounds for this), you might
want to do an easy stir-fry. Get a few bags of the
prepackaged coleslaw mix in the produce section,
and slice some green onion and green peppers, and
stir fry, seasoning with a bottled teryaki sauce (saves
packing a bunch of different spices). You can serve
it with instant couscous, which only needs to be
mixed with boiling water and set aside to steam
while you do the stir fry.
~ If you plan on serving a good tossed salad with
every dinner, and have cold cuts, sliced cheese, and
some additional vats of salads like potato salad (the
kind without mayo), pasta salad (ditto), and fruit
salad, anyone who doesn’t like the main dish will
still have plenty to eat. Those items should be all
you need for the sandwiches and sides for lunch.
Take wheat and white breads, plus pita and cans of
tuna. With all those choices, they shouldn’t get
bored and there will be something for everyone.

Hope some of these ideas help. Good luck - it
would be fun to hear what you end up doing for
your trip. Have fun!