Grouper Fingers

A traditional Bahamian meal.  Grouper fingers typically uses Nassau grouper, but for those that don’t have access to grouper, any white fish will do.

Grouper fingers with mayo-sirachi dipping sauce

2 fillets of grouper

1-2 eggs – mixed in bowl, add a couple tablespoons of water to mixture

Small bowl of flour – mix in salt pepper and other seasonings (we use Old Bay)

Vegetable oil

Panko (optional)

Cut the fish into bite size chunks.  Next dip in flour mixture, then coat in egg batter, optional dip in panko.  Once skillet is hot with frying oil, drop in fish and cook for a couple minutes on each side, until browned.  Fish should be flaky when cut open.

Grouper fingers in panko 

Enjoy with a side of peas & rice and/or coleslaw!

Pumpkin Soup

I found a similar recipe in the Joy of Cooking, but modified it to work with the ingredients I have on the boat.  Pumpkins are a locally grown produce in the Bahamas, so finding unique, savory ways to eat them is key!  Pumpkin pie is the first thing that always comes to mind, but you can eat that for a meal, at least not on a regular occurance.

Ingredients:

1 pumpkin (~2 pounds)

½ cup chopped onion, sautéed

3 cups chicken broth

¾ cup whole milk

2 tbsp. brown sugar

1 teaspoon minced ginger

1 teaspoon cinnamon

Salt & pepper to taste

Bake pumpkin whole in oven at 350F for 30 minutes, until softened.  Remove seeds and skin.  Saute onion in pot using 1 tablespoon of olive oil.  Add chicken broth and pumpkin and other ingredients, heat on medium, 30 or so minutes, until soft enough to mash or blend pumpkin.  Pour broth into blender and puree or mash with fork.  Reheat and serve – Delicious if served with toasted cayenne pecans!

To make pecans:

Lay pecans on cookie sheet.  Toss in the following mixture: 2 tablespoons brown sugar, 3 tablespoons butter, 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper, 1 teaspoon cinnamon.  Bake in the oven for 20 or so minutes at 350F until toasted.  Remove and let cool.  Sprinkle on top of soup or eat as a snack!

Mike's Bahamian Coleslaw

Cabbage is one of the staples in the Bahamas along with pumpkin and tomatoes.  No matter which island you are at, you are likely to find this local produce.  I'd say we provisioned our boat extremely well for our first time cruising the Bahamas, but you still have to rely on the local food when you want something fresh.  That's not to say that we haven't been able to buy other produce, but a lot of the stuff is limited and brought in weekly to the islands by mailboat from the US.  Here's Mike's famous coleslaw recipe.  It's delicious served alone as a side or on top of fish!

Mike's Bahamian Coleslaw

1 white cabbage, thinly sliced

1/4 cup yellow raisins

1 carrot, shaved

3/4 cup mayo 

1/4 cup apple cider or rice vinegar

1-2 tbsp. sugar

Yellow Curry powder, to taste

Mix dressing, pour over cabbage, carrots and raisins.  Refrigerate.  Serve.

Sushi Anyone?

Seared tuna

With all of our fishing adventures, what comes next is preparing and eating.  Which part is best is hard to say, I LOVE the catching, but the eating has not let us down.  We’ve been dining most nights aboard the spacious 40-foot trawler, Twilight, preparing some of the most elaborate meals that you couldn’t possibly find in a 5-star restaurant.   Not only has each meal surpassed the last, but fine dining has taken a new level as we’ve enjoyed: sushi, sashimi, seared tuna & wahoo, fish tacos, seafood pasta, fish bruschetta, lobster pizza and on and on.  Do I have you drooling yet?  If not, I think you will once you see the meals below.  Check out our boat food page for more pictures and information.

mahi fish taco

lobster

Seared tuna with asian slaw and brown rice

Wahoo and macaroni salad

Blackfin Tuna sashimi

Blackfin Tuna sushi

Blackfin tuna sashimi prep

Cutting tuna sushi rolls

Tuna bruschetta

Wahoo sashimi

Seafood paella (prepared by Daubie)

White Bread

The first loaf of bread baked aboard Tanqueray, besides banana bread, was a success.  Try it out yourself.  It's delicious served warm directly out of the oven with a slice of butter.

Mike & Sara aboard with bread Twilight

Ingredients

         2 cups warm water 

         2/3 cup white sugar

         1 1/2 tablespoons active dry yeast

         1 1/2 teaspoons salt

         1/4 cup vegetable oil

         6 cups bread flour

Directions

1. In a large bowl, dissolve the sugar in warm water, and then stir in yeast. Allow to proof until yeast resembles a creamy foam (About 20 minutes).

2. Mix salt and oil into the yeast. Mix in flour one cup at a time. Knead dough until smooth. Place in a well oiled bowl, cover with a damp cloth and allow to rise until doubled in bulk, about 1-2 hours.

3. Punch dough down. Knead for a few minutes, and divide in half. Shape into loaves, and place into two well oiled 9x5 inch loaf pans. Allow to rise for 30 minutes, or until dough has risen 1 inch above pans.

4. Before baking, sprinkle a little olive oil and rosemary on top of the bread.  Bake at 350 degrees F for 30 minutes.  Enjoy!

Mary's Upside-down Pineapple Cake

By, Mary Missig Daubenberger

It is called Upside down cake or skillet cake because, technically it can be cooked on top of the stove and because a cast iron fry pan seems to work to keep it from burning- even in the oven.  Good Luck.

You can also substitute any other fruit that you have. (apples and peaches, require a little LESS sugar)

Preheat oven to 350

Melt in a skillet:

1/4 to 1/2 cup butter

Add, cook gently and stir until dissolved:

1/2 to 1 cup brown sugar

Remove pan from heat and place over the butter and sugar mixture:

Slices or halves of drained canned fruit

Cover the fruit with the following batter.

Sift together:

1 cup cake flour

1 teaspoon double-acting baking powder

Beat in separate bowl:

4 egg yolks

Add 

1 tablespoon melted butter

1 teaspoon vanilla

Sift in a separate bowl:

1 cup sugar

Whip until stiff but not dry

4 egg whites

Fold in the sugar, 1 tablespoon at a time; then fold in the yolk mixture, and finally the sifted flour, 1/4 cup at a time.  Bake cake for about 30 minutes.  Immediately upon removal from the one, reverse the cake onto a serving plate.  Allow pan to remain over the cake briefly to let brown sugar mixture coat the cake.  Remove pan and serve upside down.

And, like I said- you can easily vary the recipe for you convenience.  I'm certain I never sifted anything on a boat or beat anything in a separate bowl!

No matter what- it will get eaten!  :)  

Boat Food

Check out the Boat Food tab on our homepage to see updates on the food that we've been making and eating aboard the Tanqueray.  Lots of rice & beans, baked goods, fresh fish, lobster and conch.

Banana Bread

I’ve been baking this recipe long before living on a boat, but it’s a keeper and Mike’s favorite.  Plus, it’s simple and cuts down on waste – what a great way to use up over ripe food!  Living in a tropical climate definitely speeds up the ripening process!

Ingredients:

3 ripe bananas 

1 egg

½ cup sugar

1/3 cup butter, softened

1 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon baking soda

2 cups flour

Mash the ripe bananas with a fork or mixer (if you are lucky enough to have one of those), and then add the egg, sugar, and softened butter and mix.  It is key to not use hard butter or melted butter.  Next, mix in the dry ingredients and then pour into a bread pan.  Sprinkle with sugar on top.  Bake for approximately 40 minutes or until golden on top and a knife comes out clean.  Can be served as breakfast, snack or dessert – Enjoy!

Conch Cleaning

Imagine giant sea snails, with lots and lots of slime.  That’s what conch are like and this is what we eat!  They live in beautiful pink shells that people like to collect for horns and are easy to spot when snorkeling, once you know what to look for.  They lie on the sea floor bottom usually disguised in grass or sand.  However, cleaning conch is a whole other story.

Luckily for us, Mike is an experienced conch cleaner and very sophisticated in his cleaning method.  He taught me, on day one, how to clean a conch without being slimed!  This is a huge deal for those that know what it means to be slimed by conch.  The stuff doesn’t come off for days!!  

Step one: Gather tools (hammer, screw driver, mallet, knife) and head to the beach, far away from your boat as possible!

Step two: Hammer slit with screwdriver between second and third ridge on conch shell, about 1-2 inches in length.

Step three:  Place knife in slit and cut muscle away from shell.  Knife must be sharpened.

Step four:  Grab claw and pull conch out of shell.  If it does not want to come out, continue with step three.

Step five:  Most Important step if you do not want to be slimed!!!  Only hold on to claw and cut eyes and nostril off conch immediately, as well as the slimy pink skirt.  You should be left with just the white meat and brown skin that needs to be shaved off with the knife.

Step six:  Once cleaned, set conch meat on fish cutting board and hammer with mallet until almost see through.  

Step seven: Use in conch salad, crack conch or fry up into conch fritters and enjoy!!

Thanksgiving

We set sail at 8am this morning and no longer than an hour into motoring, we stopped the engine, hoisted the sails and sailed 7 hours straight at a clipping 7.0 knot average. You are wondering how fast that is? Well, 1 knot equals 1.14 miles per hour, so that was a good 8 mph. I know that doesn't sound very fast, I mean, I could probably run that, but sailing at that speed on a 32 foot vessel, well, that is moving!

Plus, today is Thanksgiving day and we have not been to a grocery store in over 3 days and we are planning to cook our big meal today! Luckily before we left St. Augustine I had gone on a legendary grocery run (1.5 miles out), running there and trekking the way back with 50 lbs. of groceries that I had to balance between two bags, one which ripped along the way. Thankfully, Mike met me half way and helped carry the bags back, if it weren't for his help I would have had to leave more of the groceries behind, due to weight constraints on my carrying behalf (2 smashed bananas were, unfortunately, left behind).

Being Thanksgiving and all, we thought we would have a short travel day, giving us time to prepare the big meal, but that did not happen. We were on a beam reach! This is the best point of sail for any sailboat and we were not going to stop until dusk, even if it was Thanksgiving! We made a good 60 miles, plus Mike said it was a family tradition to go out sailing on Thanksgiving. So, at around 3pm, I thought it would be prudent to start prepping the food and at least put the turkey in the oven.

This was my first solo Thanksgiving meal preparation and I was a bit unsure how I was going to get it all together, especially given the fact that I was cooking in a galley (this is the boats kitchen and also means a 3x4 foot area, which leans at least 20 degrees at most times and usually is rocking and rolling, especially when you are trying to prepare food and consists of only one pot and one pan and a handful of miscellaneous kitchen utensils). Thank goodness for the oven gimbal (this is the hinge on the oven that allows you to cook at an angle when the boat is heeled over)!

I had the following ingredients to work with: 3 lb. frozen turkey, white potatoes and sweet potatoes, acorn squash, biscuits, green beans, pomegranate, and champagne.

What I made was a baked turkey breast rubbed with salt, pepper and indian curry cooked in our one cast iron pan along with diced acorn squash served with mashed potatoes, using lots of butter and evaporated milk from a can, baked sweet potatoes with butter and brown sugar, sautéed green beans with an olive oil, garlic, apple cider & soy sauce dressing, and bellini's, a pomegranate infused champagne.

The meal turned out great! Most food on a boat does taste great, even if it's not, it's kind of like camping, where all your food tastes 10 times better, same thing here. So I think it would have tasted great to the real world as well, but it was definitely satisfying to Mike and I. I'll post pictures of it soon. Bon Apetite!