Eating on 'Rosy'

Whilst life on 'Rosy' continues to be fun, I don’t have oodles of loot to spend.  I can’t afford to eat out very often (and when I do eat out, I’m a bit picky about the sort of food I’m prepared to buy.  I can’t stand the mass produced (if 'good quality’), uniform stuff produced by 'Harvester’, 'Beefeater’ and other similar chains).  I’m actually quite happy preparing my own food.

Ideally, I’d go into a shop about once a week (or less) to stock up, and spend the rest of the time getting on with life.  I have a fridge on board, but consider its main job is to keep the beer, gin and Dry Martini cold.  Food storage comes a poor second.  Over the years I have tried to simplify my basic diet.  A requirement for (for example) milk is a big tie.  There are parts of the world where fresh milk is not available (like the deserts of Oman), and when it is available, it doesn’t last too long before it goes off.  Hence it can’t be bought in bulk.  Hence one has to visit shops more often to buy the stuff.  Hence I now use hardly any, and that which I do use is made up from powdered milk.

A typical day’s food intake would be:

Breakfast:   Fruit.  An apple (or banana) and some orange or grapefruit juice.

Lunch :  Bread and cheese.  Lovely, freshly baked bread is easily available in most places in Europe.  If I run out of bread, I make some Staffordshire Oatcakes (see recipe ).  Indeed, they are so good that it’s worth running out of bread every now and then.  So far I’ve been concentrating on the lovely Dutch cheeses, that can be bought as a chunk, or can be sliced up.  As a side salad, I chop up one or two tomatoes and a bit of raw onion, sprinkle on some salt and freshly ground pepper, a slurp of olive oil, a shake of balsamic vinegar, and some other vinegar.  (I only have one non-balsamic bottle of vinegar on board, but I try to buy a different one each time I run out - over the past six months it’s been white wine, red wine and cider.  What next, I wonder?)

Dinner :  Standard Mush or wok food or potatoes (see recipes ).  I tend to make do with one course - normally a savory.

I try to keep a good stock of standbys.  With these, I reckon I can last at least two - possibly three - weeks between shopping expeditions.  Standbys include:

Tinned baked beans.   Can be enlivened by the addition of an onion or two that has been gently sweated in some oil, or by some chilli or curry powder.  Can be bulked up by eating it with rice or pasta.

Jars of red pesto (which I much prefer to the green variety).  A couple of teaspoonfuls of pesto stirred into a helping of cooked pasta makes a good emergency meal.

Dried 'marrowfat’ peas , for turning into mushy peas.  (I like mushy peas, but one is supposed to soak them overnight.  This requires forward planning, that I’m not very good at).

Dried lentils (for dhall - see recipes ).

Custard powder (plus dried milk plus sugar plus jam makes a comforting emergency meal).

Pasta .

Rice (see recipe ).