Cooking at Sea

My suggestion of the week is to plan ahead. Don’t decide what you are going to make for dinner after lunch is cleaned up. If you do it’s a rush to thaw, and do I have the ingredients? Quality suffers. I always had a 2 week menu plan. Plan at least a few days out. It’s okay to make some changes, but this way you can properly thaw something in the refrigerator/walk in and you will be better organized.

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Anyone using an Instant Pot? I got one a couple of months ago to replace my old rice cooker.

Every Saturday my grandmother used to put a pot of beans in the wood stove and we’d have them for supper. Took all day for them to cook

The Instant Pot is a “smart” pressure cooker. It’s fast.

I just started my beans cooking now for supper tonight.

New England Style Baked Beans

Ingredients

1 pound Dried Navy Beans
1 Tablespoon Salt
3 cups Water for soaking

Clean and soak beans according to package, 6- 8 hrs soak time

3 slices Thick Bacon roughly chopped
1 medium Onion roughly chopped
3 1/4 cups Fresh Water
1/4 cup Maple Syrup 
1/3 cup Molasses
1/4 cup Brown Sugar
1/3 cup  Ketchup
1/2 teaspoon Salt
1/4 teaspoon  Ground Black Pepper

Instructions

Cook bacon

Add bacon and onions to the cooking pot and cook till the onions are soft. Add 1/4 cup of water and continue cooking until water has evaporated,

Add beans, water, Maple Syrup, Molasses, Ketchup, Brown Sugar, Salt
and Pepper to the cooking pot and stir to combine.

Cook 50 minutes to an hour.

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My mother kept a notebook, wrote down what she made for dinner every day for sixty years. Good place to look for inspiration.

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Wow that book is gold!

We used to have on a regular basis Boston Baked Beans which is, as I remember it, quite similar to your concoction. Boston was I believe the molasses capital of the US.

Yes, Boston Baked Beans. We used to have the B&M canned beans here from time to time which are very close to what my grandmother used to cook every week but it takes all day to make them at home in the oven.

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Now with the pressure cooker I make them every week.

Don’t forget the brown bread. Still get “store-bought”.

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One way to dress up the store bought beans is to cook a pound of hamburger, drain, and add it to the beans. Add some mustard, ketchup, and/or brown sugar to desired flavor. Dump it all into an 8x8 inch glass casserole dish and top it with some half cooked bacon. Put it in the oven for 20-30 minutes at 350 degrees.

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Not in my house.

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Understood.

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Takes Burnham and Morrel all day too. Their cookpots were about a thousand years old last I knew.

Boston might have been the Rum capital – they were part of the Triangle trade; slaves to Barbados, molasses to New England, rum to everywhere.

Somewhat more recently Boston had a notorious disaster when a gigantic elevated molasses tank burst and flooded a neighborhood. People drowned.

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Enterprising lot there in New Egkand, so I understand. Horrible way to die.

On a tanker I once sailed on we had a full cargo of molasses which spread a sickening smell all over the ship during the loading. At sea and after the discharge the foul smell still clung on to all things, even to your socks in a drawer. Even after months,when we returned to the ship after a shore exercise, we could still smell it…

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When I moved to Boston in '78 it was rumored that on hot days you could still smell the molasses in the North End. It happened in 1919.

How about Chili Mac, got a recipe that?

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Of course! Here you go-

Chili Mac
3 tbl butter, 1 medium yellow onion (chopped), 1 yellow or orange bell pepper (cored, seeded, and chopped), 1 tbl minced garlic cloves, 1 lb ground beef, 1 tsp oregano, 1 tsp basil, salt or garlic salt (to taste), 1 can (14.5 oz) diced tomatoes, 2/3 can tomato or V8 juice (the small single serving cans), 1 can (14.5 oz) tomato sauce, 1/4 tsp sugar, 1/4 cup tomato paste, 1 box (16oz.) elbow macaroni
In a large spaghetti pot, melt butter. Add the onion and pepper. Stir and cook until soft (about 5 min). Add the garlic. Stir and cook for 1 minute. Add the ground beef. Cook until done (about 10-15 minutes on medium). Add the spices and salt. Add canned tomatoes with their juices, tomato sauce, paste, and juice. Add sugar. Simmer while you cook the pasta based on packages directions. Cook the pasta al dente, drain, and add to the sauce. Add additional salt or garlic salt as necessary.

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Last First Class dinner on the triple screw steamer Titanic.

Second Class menu, quite a difference with the First Class. I personally would go for the kidneys and American Dry Hash au Gratin. I suppose Texas Hash had not yet been invented. Watercress after the tea and coffee, special!

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What the heck is a “Yarmouth Bloater”?

Sounds like they come in with the tide.

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Kippered (cold smoked) herring but unlike regular kippers completely whole with head and tail and not gutted.

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Yarmouth Bloaters and Ox Kidneys… Note to self: skip breakfast.

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