Hi Matthew
Here's the ship's cook's response re one-pun cooking aboard BR20 Ella:
Last year I got a week's rations into 2 x11-litre clip-top plastic food storage containers of suitable size for Ella's lockers, and the kitchen kit in a small Curver open top plastic crate.
I made some useful online purchases of dried food to make soup, and supplement meals-:
Pack of organic whole dried milk
Pack of dried leeks
Pack of dried mixed veg
Pack of lentil flour.
Supermarket purchases of dried foods were-:
Dried mashed potato, the superior one by Sainsbury or Smash
Garlic granules
Marigold bouillon powder( in the stock cube section)
Couscous ( waitrose whole meal couscous doesn't need cooking, just steeping in boiling water)
Instant pasta packs Mac cheese flavour
Other foods were
Salami sausage
Tinned mince beef(as quality as poss)
Sachets of main meals
Tinned corned beef
Oat cakes, Nairns boxes have small packs inside, useful serving sized, variety of types eg plain, seeded, cheese
Tinned sardines, single serve tins tuna
Packs of individually wrapped cheese portions
Dried fruits, variety
Deluxe snack bars eg Lidl cashew cherry and dark chocolate nut bars
Nakd fruit/nut bars
Mini choc snack bars, I get Lidl or Aldi versions of mini Mars bars
Small choc bars again Lidl or Aldi come in packs of 5, plain choc is excellent
Robinsons Squashd 66ml pack
Small pack spreadable butter (lives in kitchen box as do teabags and current bottle of made up milk)
We also take a food flask and 2 drinks flasks of about 500ml, plus just one Jet boil and spare canisters (stored in appropriate snap top plastic containers)
On to what we eat:- recipes follow
Breakfast is tea, and put porridge mix in food flask, top up with boiling water, stir and shake flask well, leave about 10 mins. At breakfast make lunch soup, put 1 mix into flask, top up boiling water and shake very very well. It will be ready and cooked for lunch. Also we make a flask of hot black currant for later, from the Squashd, 2 good squirts is plenty
Lunch is soup, small pack oatcakes each with tin sardines, tuna or 2 cheese portions each, plus a Nakd bar or snack sized food bag containing mixed dried fruit(pre packed by me)
Snack packs for day typically contain lunch snack as above plus e.g a cereal bar and a chocolate treat or any combo. I prepackage 3 snacks a day each into Waitrose snack bags, organisation of food is key!
Dinner is a sachet meal ,there are some good ones called "look what I found" in Waitrose. I make the mash or couscous first in the food flask then heat the food on the jet boil after boiling the couscous or mash water. With corned beef or salami I add some extra dried veg, pre packed like the soup, to boiling water for a few mins before making mashed potato, then it's mixed in.Some sort of cake/flapjack or pud to follow. Tea. Maybe wine!
Porridge mix
Put I small cup of oats in food processor with 30g dried milk, whizz together and pack into polybags for 2 servings. I like to add some raisins or sultanas too. One mix as above goes into the food flask.
Soup mix for 1 flask 500 ml serves 2, fits in Waitrose snack size food bag
2 dessert spoons dried mixed veg
1 dessert spoon dried leeks
1.5 rounded dessert spoons lentil flour
1.5 level teaspoons Marigold bouillon powder
Pinch cayenne to taste
Black pepper to taste
Quarter teaspoon garlic granules
Warning- no salt, there's lots in the Marigold even the reduced salt one
We find it useful to preheat the flask with boiling water, we use it to make second cups of tea
We use dried milk for tea and take it in amounts in little polybags for 250 ml at a time, using a 250 ml plastic drinks bottle (shaken hard) with a wide neck for ease of use. Last year we obtained fresh so didn't use it all. I don't like Marvel skimmed dried milk, but this milk needs pre mixing.
We didn't use all our food last year because of being able to supplement or have tea at a pub or whatever. However we do not rely on being able to re -supply for a week, food or water. I kept dinners in one container, breakfasts lunches and snacks in the other as far as possible. It gets easier through the week, and the see through sides of the containers are helpful.
Maybe our food takes more pre-prep and maybe takes a bit longer to prepare, but we didn't lose weight and we enjoyed our food! I haven't calorie counted it though.
