packing/food tips for a week long trip

[Lakegirl]

We have our first big trip in our boat next month.:smt001 8 days on the water. 3 on the hook with no water/power other than the generator. What tips/advice do you have? I am looking at prefreezing our bottled water to double duty as ice. making chili ahead and freezing it for meals. We want to use the least pots/pans as possible for the three days on the hook. We do have a small convection oven on the boat.
Other meals I have considered.... potato soup(pre-made), jambalaya, tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches. what other meals have you made ahead with success for long trips?

We have a 3-4 five gallon water containers we will probably pack and fill up on our last day at a marina.

We plan on taking extra water hoses, extra power cord.
Storage will not be an issue. We will have plenty of room.

Lakegirl

 

[JimG]

We stay on the hook 99% of the time... sometimes for a week at a time.

I like to use the Magma grill and do dogs, burgers, chicken, and the occasional steak.

Have 2 large quality coolers... one for drinks and one for food. Only open the food cooled when necessary. Maybe even a 3rd cooler full of ice.

 

[Molson]

For our week long trip we pack both fridges with our food. We have a large marine cooler we use for drinks. Use one ice block, and the rest cubes to keep it cold. We will pre cook bacon about 80% then finish it in an alum pan on the BBQ for brekkie, or bacon sandwiches for lunch. Chicken, steaks, burgers and dogs for dinner. Salads can be pre made and packed in sealed tupperware and put in the cooler or fridge. 20 gallons of drinking water seems like a lot to me, not to mention the weight. We typically only use it for making coffee in the morning. I used to pack a large 5 gal can for it, but now only bring a couple cases of bottled water and pour that into the kettle. (we use a coffee press) Bread buns, snacks etc get stowed where we can (typically under the dinette seats)

 

[fwebster]

Any meal-in-one casserole (lasagna for example) that you pre-cook then freeze works well. Other than what I can grill, I am not a fan of actually cooking meals on the boat because of food safety and because it quadruples the cleanup..

 

[Escapade]

We do all our cooking on the Newport grill out back. Prior to having a freezer on board we used a Yeti Cooler and swear by the thing. All food was vacuumed bagged in small quantity and frozen so no left overs to hassle with. Also, the kids and I loved the popcorn on the grill at night. Have a great trip. Calm Seas to you!

 

[HUMPH]

On trips that are 4 or more days, we like to bring an ice chest full of cubed and block ice to supplement the ice chest for beverages. In this ice chest I place dry ice on top of the ice with a towel between the dry ice and regular ice. throw another towel over the top and your ice will stay frozen solid for days. You can even refreeze bottles that were frozen as they start melting.

 

[tdschafer]

We did our first big trip last month as we participated in the Northeast Flotilla. We were away a total of 10 days but mostly at marinas. I bought a 45 qt Wynter AC/DC chest freezer/fridge to supplement the two refrigerators on board my boat. We precooked as well as bought some frozen foods & stored them in the new freezer. The freezer space in my in board refrigerators is pretty small and not very useful. We had more than enough food on board as well as ice pops & ice cream cones for the kids!


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Todd

 

[CV-23]

One meal that was a staple when I was a kid was taco salad with frito's and ground beef, shredded cheese, lettuce/tomato and salsa.

Me too!

 

[sea hare]

Hot beef sandwiches works out real well for us, make roast in slow cooker, shred it up, freeze it in a container, then just nuke it on the boat.

 

[Summer Fun II]

We did hot-pockets and cold cuts and canned food.

Where we boated there was a lot of restaurants around the lake also. :smt001

 

[my DOG HOUSE]

We just started using these http://nu-ice.com/ 2 of them will extend the ice in a huge cooler by 4 days. Be careful putting anything below them that you don't want frozen, just like dry ice. They take a full 3 days to freeze, but on a long trip they will be useless after they thaw.

 

[HomePort]

We try to take as many food items out of the containers and place them in ziplock bags. You save a TON of space this way and can fit much more in your fridge and freezer than you might imagine.

Have a great trip!

 

[blu-ray]

We have one of those newer small Ice machines from Target, about 1 foot by 1 foot by maybe 1 1/2 high, They only make one small tray at a time but will dump a tray about every 8 minutes! Two small fridges for the food and the Ice Maker for the endless Margarita's "you don't need to eat that much!!!"

 

[Bella Bella]

Pre cook as much as possible and use tinfoil pans, agreed with the water, freeze it. Use the one gallon jugs, they last quite a while and it's drinking water. Tinfoil pans now come in some great shapes for stacking. Flour tortillas store well and like others said have ziplock baggies with shredded meat for a quick meal. Chili one night can become a great dip the second time around just add cream cheese and pack nacho chips. Lazagna, pasta bakes, precooked roasted veggies, macaroni and cheese, precooked teriyaki steak sliced for fajitas. Keep fresh foods to a minimum. Everything I use goes into a ziplock before I travel. If you stop at a marina most will re freeze your gallon jugs for you make everything as effortless as possible so you can enjoy the trip. Have fun, safe travels

 

[Chris Nowell]

To avoid dishes we use our grill extensively for meat AND veggies. We freeze all our meat and store it in a designated cooler with lots of ice. We choose veggies that will keep well and slice them into bite size pieces. We roast them in the grill on a special stone slab thing that we bought at a kitchen shop. It's about 2'X1' and about 1/2" thick. "Lightly" coat the veggies in your favorite cooking oil, dust them with your favorite herbs and/or spices, arrange them on the "special stone slab" thing, and crank the heat. They usually take 30 to 60 minutes to roast so you just have to set a timer to you know when your meat goes on. Clean up is easy. You let your stone thing cool while you eat and then just scrape it off into the garbage and wipe it with a paper towell. It's stored right in the grill and held in place with clamps (or I've seen them held with alligator clips too). These roast veggies are so good that you won't be able to stop eating them. We use up the things like red peppers, zuchinni, broccoli etc at the early stages of our trips and save the things like onions, cauliflower, turnips and the squashes for the last few days. Bonus is,,, you've always got fresh veggies and you don't have to spend a week precooking at home before your trip. Have fun.

 

[Chris Nowell]

We have one of those newer small Ice machines from Target, about 1 foot by 1 foot by maybe 1 1/2 high, They only make one small tray at a time but will dump a tray about every 8 minutes! Two small fridges for the food and the Ice Maker for the endless Margarita's "you don't need to eat that much!!!"

+1 :thumbsup: Our little ice machine sometimes runs all day.

 

[Turtlesboat]

I cook on the boat more than I do at home. "Camping" is fun for a couple of days, then it gets tired.

 

[northern]

This post is old so tell us how you did.
On our 28 footer we could go 2 weeks without hitting a grocery store on the 38 footer it is a month. Meat with no bones, put all meet in freezer thawed and in an order you want to take it out, one week supply of fresh vegatbles, lots of can vegitables, lots of potatos, inions, carrets, ice on the 28 footer was not a problem because we needed to fuel every 3rd day on the 38 footer it has an ice maker. Beer in cans, wine in plastic 2 liter pop bottles, pop in cans, juice in 1 liter boxes. Cloths for 2 weeks and wash by had when required or at marina if they have laundry machines.