nob:
I've just read through El Pinguino's and SWL's lists, and was thinking you must feel overwhelmed.
Let's start over, here, remembering you have an O'Day 28. Imagine that you're about to go from
Seattle to SF,
offshore route.
Sit down and figure out what you could stand eating for two weeks, and think about where you're going to stow it. Bring about one onion per day. [Raw onions can be added to any canned
food --except chocolate cake, imo
--and will improve it.] One or 2 cloves garlic. 3-5 small jars of your favorite spices. If you don't have any, omit.
Salt pepper, sugar?
For now, stick to bread that is chock full of preservatives (to eliminate the
mold factor.)
You can, for now, buy granola and supplemental dried fruits. (Later on, if you really stay
offshore, you'll be making your own granola;
recipes online.) Use powdered skim or whole milk. Mix it with the granola, and then just add
water for breakfast. [I used to do this for backpacking.]
The
advice you had for beans was good. Basically, pick them over and remove any gravel. Slosh them over to rinse off dirt. Set to soak. You'll have them for dinner tomorrow. Think what you might like to add to them. Garlic and onion for starters, hot sauce of your preference (I like chilpotle). If you got some brown rice, you can soak them together, and, cooked, they make a complete protein.
Long term non fridge stowed veg and fruit: carrots, cabbage, potatoes, honeydew melons, pumpkin, onions, apples, grapefruits, navel oranges.
Eggs do not require
refrigeration, nor does mayonnaise. With the mayo, always use a fresh, non-contaminated knife in it. We've been doing this since 1983 with no noticeable ill effects.
think what you want for little treats. (Is it fruit, cookies, chips, chocolate, other?)
Coffee or teas to your preference. We started with instant coffee for Jim, but soon took to grinding our own beans for it.
Since it's only a couple of weeks plus about 5 days you need to provision for on this imagined journey, you might even go to REI and get a few backpackers'
meals: they make great
emergency rations, when you're too tired to cook at all.
Finally, if you've never cooked before, pick your 7 favorite
meals, get
recipes online to try for fixing those foods--choose the simpler variations--and learn to fix 'em now. Or, which is harder, learn to fix peasant
food from 7 nations, using tinned ingredients, or dried ones. Peasant foods, as Jim and I call them, tend to have less meat, more veg, and some grains or beans. These recipes will lead to the herbs and spices you want to use to vary the flavors.
Pack yourself a special treat for celebrating the completion of your first offshore trip.
For cookware, you need a small pressure cooker (maybe from Salvation Army or similar), but get a new
gasket for it, and a good quality 10" skillet with a lid. Buy more as you learn what you want.
Much baking can be done with the P.C. with the
gasket removed. (This leads to flour (s), yeast, sugar, and
oil.) But you don't have to do it all at once. You'll become more interested in breads when you get sick of store bought and when you're where there is no store.)
Ann
on edit: we often have toast for breakfast, for that, we use a toaster for use on a camp
stove. It folds flat in a large ziploc for
storage.