This is a photo of Raconteur's galley, taken today from the companionway steps. I am doing a little pre-cooking for the trip, as mentioned. Last night I did pork chops with potatoes and carrots in the pressure cooker; it actually tasted pretty good. It was a VERY basic recipe (no experimenting with more complex or expensive items, though meat and fresh vegetables are plenty expensive in the Bahamas, since nearly everything is imported), but the flavor was absolutely remarkable, and the cooking time amazing. The prep is very similar to conventional recipes (no avoiding peeling and chopping duties) and it is best to brown meats first, which I did, but once the chops and the veggies were in, it took about 10-12 minutes to come up to pressure, and 15 to cook, and then maybe 10 or so before I put it on the table. Pork was not overcooked, veggies were tasty, and if I wanted I could easily have thickened the sauce for a proper gravy.
Today I tried chili. It came out a little less thick than we normally like, but we sampled a bit for lunch and again the taste is amazing considering we typically cook our chilis for hours and hours - this was 13 minutes under pressure. Put three medium and two smaller Sterilite containers in the freezer.
This is the floor space of the galley - I can put one foot in front of the other five times from the aft cabin door to the sink, and three times from the oven to the companionway steps, four from the fridge to the bottom of the companionway.
The Force 10 oven holds a 10" pizza pan, and though we don't have one, it would JUST hold an 11X13 baking dish. We store the 6 quart pressure cooker there when we aren't using it or the oven (it hangs out in the aft cabin while we are baking). Here's the oven and stove, and yes that is a little microwave built into the cubby above the stove. We don't use it a lot, though when we are making passages, we switch on the inverter and use it to reheat our dinner (things like the pre-made chili):
The giant cutting board you can see in the first photo is one of our best investments - it is custom made to fit on top of the stove, providing additional surface. It's heavy and you have to watch to keep your fingers out of the way when moving it around, but it's a great thing.
There is never enough fridge or freezer space, and what is there is awkward, but many earlier boats don't even have the luxury of such systems. You may remember we replaced "the system" in 2010, and I say nice things about it every day. So what is in there now?
Fridge: English muffins; celery, carrots, spring onions, small sweet peppers, two heads of romaine, oranges, limes, lemons, two and a half semi-ripe (!) tomatoes, six leeks, a half pint of cream, various canned drinks (tonic, club soda, beer, ginger beer, V8, coke, ginger ale...) a plastic bottle of cranberry juice, several pints of OJ, two 16-oz containers of sour cream, various cheeses including extra sharp cheddar, colby, a wedge of "Italian", some shredded parmesan, two kinds of butter...that's what I can think of without looking.
Freezer: newly made chili; beef tenderloin bought whole and untrimmed and cut into a 1+kilo roast, nine 200-300 gram steaks, and a 250 gram "tail"; a large pork tenderloin; ten pounds of chicken quarters; a bottle of gin, a bottle of vodka, one and a half large bags of ice cubes; one package of English muffins; a one pound bag of tiny frozen scallops; a one pound package of bacon; a smoked sausage link and a kielbasa link, and some brown-and-serve sausage.
So you can see what is on MY mind today...
We are getting ready to set off toward Long Island (the north coast) tomorrow morning, and then from there to Conception. We are too out of practice to take on a 45+ mile journey all at once! Susan and JP replaced the bung for the dinghy, and did some stainless polishing (read: rust removal) while I was cooking this morning, and all that will be left is to top off the water tanks today, and stop for fuel on our way out of the marina in the morning.
Probably no internet until we hit Rum Cay later in the week.
