When we talked about getting a boat (after we got bored looking at each other in our condo in Key Largo) my husband said he wanted to get one with a little cabin so I could make blender drinks in it. I’m not sure why this thought occurred to him, since I rarely make blender drinks at home, on dry land. I do like margaritas, but take them over the rocks, not frozen.

At any rate, we got an Open Fisherman (even though we’ve yet to fish on it), so it has fishing rod holders, but no cabin. We took ‘Bout Time out once to watch the sunset; I brought a simple charcuterie plate to go with our bottle of wine. After trekking out to Alligator Reef recently to swim, I really wished we would’ve packed a picnic lunch, since I became famished.

This all got me started thinking about Boat Food, and what meals are ideal for dining on the boat. Some boats have cabins in which to prepare a simple feast. We do not, so I wanted all the meals to be: easy to prepare at home, simple to transport into a cooler on the boat and easy to eat out on the water. Here are my suggestions.

• Deviled Eggs, Cold Chicken (either grilled, baked or fried) & Watermelon Slices. All of these items are relatively easy to make, can be made the day ahead and are perfect served chilled. Use chicken thighs, legs or wings for easier eating.

• Sandwiches, Chips & Apples. Another “no brainer” of a Boat Meal, the easiest option is to buy a Publix Sub. They are known for their Chicken Tender Subs and Italian is always a good option, but you can order whatever custom sub you want. But, if you want to go all out, make the Muffaletta sandwich (from the New York Times Food Section) Kelley prepared for our outing to Alligator Reef. The best thing about it? It gets better with age, as the seasonings and olive tapenade soak into the meat and bread. I like Cape Cod Chips (there’s even a lighthouse on the bag) and small Honeycrisp apples to finish the meal.

• Sushi. When out and about in the deep, blue sea, it’s nice to eat some fish. Make it cold fish, surrounded by seaweed, chilled rice, with wasabi and ginger on the side, even better. Publix sells sushi (Sushi Maki) but I prefer buying it elsewhere, like Num Thai in Key Largo. This is something you want to buy the same day you eat it, as one-day old sushi is no bueno. To go with it, I would serve Edamame. You could make the Edamame ahead, toss with soy sauce and sesame oil and put it in a heat proof container or, serve it cold.

• Jerk Shrimp. This recipe comes from my Mom’s friend Roxy Karnes and was in the Serve It Up! Tennis cookbook. It uses shrimp (Florida Key West Pinks would be great) and features tropical flavors like Jerk seasoning and mangoes. After you prepare it, it sits for a couple hours to let the flavors blend, so if you make it in the morning, it should be perfect for lunchtime. Serve with Tortilla Chips or over lettuce.
• Ceviche. Ceviche is a no-brainer when it comes to Boat Food and, in fact, while passing the Sandbar last time, we saw a boat selling Ceviche. Serve in bowls with plantain or tortilla chips, with hot sauce on the side. I offered a Ceviche recipe in a previous Foodie in Miami post- Easy Shrimp Ceviche– on July 1, 2021.

• Lobster Roll. A lobster roll is essentially lobster salad stuffed into a hot dog roll, making it a perfect, summer-time treat. Pack the lobster and rolls separately and serve with chips and pickles. Read my This is How we (Lobster) Roll, June 8, 2021, for more info.

• Crab-stuffed Avocados. I love Crab-stuffed Avocados, a very indulgent and Country-Clubby kind of treat. I would pack the crab salad in the cooler and halve the ripe avocados separately. Bring a small cutting board to slice in half and assemble. The salad pictures is from Riviera, where they served it on butter lettuce, with candied pecans on the side. Fruit salad and grilled pita bread would make perfect side dishes.

• Orzo with Roasted Vegetables. My friend Martha serves this Ina dish as a side with Roast Meat or Chicken for dinner, but it would make a perfectly acceptable Main Dish, especially for vegetarians. If you want to make it more Main Course, add shrimp, grilled chicken or sliced meat to it.
• Mezze Platter. My go-to Airplane Meal, this is an easy feast to throw together. Hummus, Pita Chips, Veggie Sticks, Cherry tomatoes, Olives, Grape Leaves and Tabouleh make for a varied and healthy Mediterranean Spread. Read more at A Moveable Feast, previous FIM post.

• Charcuterie Plate. Back to my original Boat Meal, if you have cured meat (like salami or prosciutto), a hard cheese (like Toscano or Parmesan), some crackers or a loaf of good bread, fig jam or honey, nuts and olives you are good to go! If you want to get fancy, you can add homemade Camponata or Pickled Eggplant (both featured in the Serve It Up! cookbook) that would be wonderful, but not necessary. A bottle of wine goes well with this meal.

Now, to drink on the boat we take water, Beer and La Croix (Key Lime Flavor) to which vodka can be added, making it kind of like a White Claw (which I find awful). You could also bring Iced Tea and Lemonade, to make it more festive and make an Arnold Palmer, if desired. At sunset, I enjoy a glass of wine, sparkling or otherwise, to drink.

Other add-ons to the Boat Food scene are Banana Bread, Muffins of any kind, or Cookies for dessert. Fruit Salad is always a welcome side, or dessert and can be purchased, pre-made, at most grocery stores. Tupperware, or some other reusable plastic container, is a good idea to pack the food in. And a picnic basket, or other bag, can be used to house the dry goods.

I usually use paper plates on the boat- I like the Chinet with dividers, so the varying components don’t blend together- but Melamine plates are a great idea and prettier than paper. And although I usually use plastic silverware, cheap stainless (like from the Dollar Store) or Bamboo re-usuable is a better idea.

Paper napkins are the norm, but cloth are better for the earth (and sea) and are less likely to blow away. If we have wine, I take plastic wine glasses aboard. Definitely avoid anything breakable (except the wine bottle) and screw-off tops make life easier, which is all about what life in the Keys is about!

Don’t forget a little garbage bag and some wipes, while packing your Boat Food. It does take time and energy to prepare to dine “a la sea”, but (kind of like camping) it just seems like everything tastes better when eaten outside. Turn on a little Jimmy Buffet, relax and enjoy your Boat Food!

My Mom’s Deviled Eggs

Recipe by Lyla Lee RiceCourse: AppetizersCuisine: AmericanDifficulty: Easy

Servings

24

servings

Prep time

10

minutes

Cooking time

20

minutes

Calories

100

kcal

My Mom’s recipe for her famous Deviled Eggs (shown here at Courtney’s Baby Shower). It’s a perfect app for the boat, but I would rejoin the two halves for easier transport; you can even take them in the egg container they came in.

Ingredients

• 12 Hardboiled Eggs (put 2 tsp baking soda in water for easier peeling

• 1/2 cup mayo (Hellmans preferred)

• 1/4 cup Miracle Whip

• 1 teaspoon grated onion

• 1 1/2 teaspoons hot dog mustard
  

• 1/4 teaspoon salt

• 3 Tablespoons sweet pickle relish

Directions

• Peel eggs.
• Slice in half and remove yolks.
• Mash yolks, add other ingredients and combine thoroughly.
• Fill mixture in egg white halves. Use pastry bag to fill for nicer presentation.
• Decorate with paprika, parsley or pimento.

Notes

• This recipe is in the Serve It Up! Cookbook, as are the Jerk Shrimp and Orzo recipes. A lot of tennis recipes work for Boat Food because they’re prepared ahead and last at room temp.

Up Next: Book Club

My husband and I took a quick trip to North Carolina to his family’s cabin in Waynesville. It’s not normally my favorite place to stay since “rustic” is a generous way to describe the accomodations. The ancient dishwasher from the forties needs to be hauled across the kitchen floor and hooked up to the sink; this no longer operates at all, so all dishes have to be hand washed. Since it was just the two of us, this wasn’t much of a problem.

The bed in the “Master bedroom” (and I use this term loosely) takes up almost all of the available floor space and, even at that, isn’t very big so, when sleeping (or attempting to) we’re right on top of each other. Every wiggle results in an adjacent wag and neither one of us gets a good night’s sleep. After the first night of this mayhem, I took to sleeping in the guest bedroom in a cozy twin-size bed. I missed my two-ton weighted blanket!

The pre-fab bathroom, with vintage linoleum, a rusty metal storage cabinet and dusty duck decor from the 80’s, is now equipped with a rain forest showerhead, which proceeds to cover every square inch of the shower stall. I don’t know whose brilliant idea this was, but obviously not a person who cared about keeping their blow-dried hair dry intact. I was forced to go purchase a hideous pink shower cap.

We arrived in the middle of a violent rain storm and were greeted with dirty towels, left by the previous visitors, dirty sheets on the dryer AND a forecast of rain all week. I can take rain and I can take cold, but rain and cold is not Muy Bueno!

Yet still… There’s a little stream that runs by the cabin and it’s a very relaxing way to go to sleep. Kind of like a meditation app, turned to “mountain stream” and there is something to be said about “fresh mountain air” and waking up with a view of the Great Smoky mountains. It was also refreshing to be in a location where they actually experience seasons; Spring had just started emerging in North Carolina and luckily the rain forecasted did not turn out to be true.

I enjoyed using my plant app to investigate different plants and trees around the neighborhood. The yellow Forsythia were brilliant on my many walks up and down the hilly streets, the sour cherry were blooming in delicate white and pink flowers that showered down on the ground, and a sweet little Lily of the Valley bush adorned the corner of our street. Robins, something I rarely see in Miami, were abundant in North Carolina, with their red breasts crowding on front lawns and in trees. If there was ever a harbinger of Spring, it is the robin.

Also, in North Carolina, ramps (also known as wild leek) emerge from the soil in the Spring. They are something of a delicacy since they’re only available for three months in the Spring and have to be foraged in the forest. Chefs go crazy for them. When we visited the Farmer’s Market in Asheville, however, the ramps that were left were puny, little green stumps.

“They’ve only just come out this week,” the hefty man at the Farmer’s Market explained. “They’ll probably be bigger next week. Have a Blessed Day!”

We’d come to get ramps and some kind of meat to Bar-B-Que, but the meat person wasn’t at the Farmer’s Market so we left, empty handed. We were taunted by signs saying “Don’t forget the meat!” and when we went back to the car, there was something in a plastic bag in the trunk of the car. I opened it up. It was pork chops we’d purchased at Ingles grocery store the day before.

“Looks like you forgot your meat,” I said to Zeke.

We’d arrived Thursday night in the middle of a violent rain storm, so, as we unpacked the car, the pork chops got left behind. We went to a Butcher Shop in Asheville (The Chop Shop Butchery) and got a pork chop and steak to take home and grill. The steak was HUGE- like a Fred Flinstone Brontosaurus Steak, but my favorite was the Pork Chop. I whipped up a quick rub and Zeke grilled it. Served with boiled corn on the cob from the Farmer’s Market (ironically from Florida), grilled asparagus, sliced cherry tomatoes and garlic bread, it may have been the best pork chop I’ve ever had in my life.

My thoughts while in North Carolina, however, were on my grandchildren, my future grandson Phoenix, and my daughter A.J.’s family baby shower on Saturday after we got back. I was making Spaghetti sauce, Meatballs and Sausage for that and already had my Cotsco list ready, when it dawned on me, Easter was Sunday. I’m not a particularly religious person, so this could be the reason it escaped me, but more likely than not, I just have a lot going on in my life. All good, so no complaints, but busy!

Luckily A.J. had a Honeybaked Ham from Christmas she’d frozen. I’m rounding out the menu with Buttermilk Biscuits, Mustard Sauce, Broccoli Salad, Potatoes Gratin and a Carrot Salad. The Carrot Salad (Gajjara Kosambabi) was one of a whole series of Indian recipes from the New York Times Food Section that I was planning on making, but they called for so many ingredients I didn’t have, I just gave up and made the carrot salad. I’m not sure I’m crazy about it, but carrots remind me of bunnies, and bunnies remind me of Easter, hence why I made it. I did try a fun technique for lemon juice which I saw on the internet. If you only need a little amount of lemon juice, poke a skewer in one end and squeeze out the amount you need. This eliminates the seeds and helps the cut lemon from going bad quickly. Kind of like when you would stick one of those plastic thingamagigs into a fresh orange to suck the juice out. The video is below.

While I’m still on the carrot kick, I might make a colorful and fragrant Carrot Ginger Soup to go with the meal if I get a chance, although with a toddler, a five year old and a newborn baby eating with us, any kind of an attempt at a civilized meal with more than one course is dicey, at best. Emma’s bringing Corn Dip, Courtney a Fruit Salad and Chris a Coconut Flan he’s had his eye on but couldn’t justify buying. We will have an Easter Egg Hunt at some point in the day.

I have just hard boiled thirty eggs. My first attempt was in the Insta Pot, which resulted in two cracked shells. The Insta Pot is great for hard boiled eggs if you’re going to just eat them, as it makes the shells easy to peel, but I went back to my original method for hard boiling eggs to dye, which left me with no broken shells.

Fool-proof Hard Boiled Eggs

Place eggs in a heavy duty saucepan. Fill with cold water that comes 1″ over the eggs and put heat on high. Once the water boils, cover the pot, remove from heat and let sit 20 minutes. After 20 minutes, put in a cold water bath with ice and water.

I usually have asparagus at Easter, so I will give you my favorite asparagus recipe. It’s easy, quick and I think the addition of fresh lemon juice pairs perfectly with the Spring-forward asparagus spears.

Roasted Asparagus from Joy of Cooking

4 servings

Preheat the oven to 500 degrees.

Snap off the bottoms of 1 pound of asparagus. Arrange the spears in a single layer in a shallow baking dish and drizzle over them very lightly Extra Virgin Olive Oil. Toss the spears to coat lightly. Roast until tender but still slightly firm, 8 to 10 minutes. Sprinkle with: salt and pepper to taste, Extra Virgin Olive Oil and 2 tablespoons minced fresh parsley, tarragon or chives.

Serve garnished with lemon wedges to squeeze over.

Have a Blessed Easter, Happy Passover or just Celebrate Spring!