I took this entire week off to work on The Trimaran with my son, and now we have just about done everything we planned to. We cannot start on something new, because I had not planned to have additional epoxy ready in case we got ahead of schedule. So, here I sit wanting to talk about something besides diesel engines and filters. How about another food thread? They are always fun. We shop, cook, and eat pretty much exactly the same at home as we plan to do someday when Doulos is built and I can return to the water again. That is to say, we buy staples in bulk, store them, and cook almost everything from scratch. A freezer is more of a convenience than a necessity. Lane strongly recommended that I buy a powered grain mill, which I have now done. I which I had bought a larger one, only because the entire family and various friends come over for fresh ground flour. Now that they have figured out how good bread tastes when home made out of fresh ground flour, they are all as hooked as we are. The Lane recommended that I buy a vacuum packing device called a "Food Saver." I bought it, and now I wonder how I could have gotten by without it for so many years. Clearly, it would make live on board so much easier. I had always intended to buy a vacuum bagging device, but I was thinking more of a commercial sized one. My reasoning was to save some of the more expensive fish better. I may still buy one of them when Doulos is under way, but this little home model is sure nice for now. Refrigeration has become so cheap and compact in the commercial fishing world, that even day boats as small as 25 feet often have a refrigerated box good for 500 pounds of fish or so. These units would be the perfect way to go for a recreational trawler operator. I like the chilled brine units for what I plan to do with them, and vacuum bagging my food would enable me to keep it in the same chilled brine freezer that I would keep the catch in. (Figure four degrees F.) That would give me an unlimited provisioning range. I could literally freeze ten years worth of food for my family, if I were so inclined. More realistically, six months would be more reasonable for most cases. Of course, these commercial units are also available in conventional dry freezers down to about minus 50 degrees F; so you can buy whatever you like. Cindy was very busy caring for her ill mother yesterday, so I decided to make dinner. It was a favorite cheap and healthy meal, that would be very easy to prepare and/or to store on the boat. I made re-fried beans in the pressure cooker, and fajitas meat strips, and wrapped them up with chopped onions, peppers, and cheese in a soft shell tortilla, burito style. The beans are a favorite recipe of mine. I'm not sure of the exact measurements, since I vary them every time I make up a batch; but it goes something like this: Put a little less than a quart of dried pinto beans into a six quart pressure cooker. Just take about a quarter or a half cup out of a quart of them, or else the pressure cooker will not be quite large enough for the brew. That is the only thing about this recipe that is critical to measure correctly. Chop up an onion and a large bell pepper, and throw them in on top. Add about a tablespoon or a little less of salt, about the same of chopped garlic, about a quarter cup of chilli powder, about four ounces of chopped and fried bacon bits, and then leave it that way for a while. Use about two or three pounds of your cheapest roast beef to cut up and to make your meet strips. Now prepare your favorite marinade mix. Mine comes in a little dry package from McCormick. Now you can either marinade the meat over night, or else you can do it in a vacuum jar with your Food Saver. It works just fine with mason jars. In this case, I used a wide mouth half gallon jar; and it was about the right size. Otherwise, you can do it in more than one batch, if you do not have a jar that large. Just pull a vacuum on it, open the pores on the meat, and then release the vacuum. The meat will suck it right on in, and you will be done with the marinade. Now stir fry the meat in a skillet or a wok. That will produce lots of juices, which you can drain into your pressure cooker with the beans. I had to drain it four or five times as I stir fried the meat. When done, set the meat aside or put it back into refrigeration. Now add whatever amount of water to the beans as is required to bring the level to within an inch or so of the top. Heat uncovered until boiling, and stir. Put the lid on and bring up to pressure. Maintain 15 psi for 45 minutes, and cool. Drain and retain most of the liquid. Mash the beans like potatoes, adding back a little bit of fluid if too dry. Put the beans onto a soft tortilla, add meat, cheese, and whatever else you like to that; and roll it up. We nuke them in the microwave barely enough to melt the cheese. If you do not like it rolled, then use two tortillas and make sort of a sandwich out of it. If you do that, it is best to eat it with a knife and fork. This recipe is enough to serve our family three times, so I cut it in thirds when complete and saved two of them. This is how I did it: Cindy has several little pots that she loves to cook stuff in. I lined two of them with plastic wrap, and packed the beans onto the plastic. I then put the pots into the freezer until the next day. With the plastic wrap, they were easy enough to get out as hard frozen blocks of re-fried beans. I wrapped a third of the meat strips in plastic, and set them on top of these blocks. I then put the entire thing, beans and meat, into Food Saver bags and vacuum wrapped them. The whole thing was then labeled and put into the freezer. Now, any time she wants, she can defrost the beans in her favorite pot, since the block fits it exactly; and then warm them up. She can then reheat and serve quickly. Since the pot is microwave safe, she can either nuke them, or she can use her stove top. The total cost for feeding our family three times is about twelve dollars total, or about a dollar per serving. (I forgot to mention: You can either buy the tortillas, or they are fairly easy to make from bread flour. We used to make our own, until Walmart began to stock a variety that we like a lot.) In actual operation, it is our plans to prepare food like this at home, and then provision Doulos from the home stores. This would be a very excellent and much appreciated meal for some hungry fishermen. There is little free time to prepare something like this from scratch on a fishing boat, but a recreational cruiser with lots of free time would have no trouble doing it all on his boat. Oh, well; Paul III tells me that the epoxy is dry. It is time to go use the last little bit of it on these ribs. That should pretty much finish them off. If there is interest, perhaps this would be a thread worth continuing? +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ :: Paul and Cindy Kruse :: KJV Joh 14:27 Peace I leave with you, 165 South Kenneth Court :: my peace I give unto you: Merritt Island, FL 32952 :: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. E-mail: plkruse@iu.net :: Let not your heart be troubled, 407-453-6206 :: neither let it be afraid. :: +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++