Smooth-Sailing Recipe: 1-Pot Cooking

One of the pleasures of cruising in my 27-foot sailboat is the challenge of cooking meals on my two-burner alcohol stove. I’m not only captain of my little vessel, but also cook.

My wife has claimed for 14 years that she will not cook aboard because generating the gimbaled stove, with its flare-up of flames, frightens her. Our arrangement is that, as first mate, she does the dishes and makes lunches, mostly sandwiches, and I prepare the hot meals.

Over the years I’ve evolved a number of one-pot meals that are both healthy and sustaining, such as clam and fish chowders and chicken with vegetables. It wasn’t until a week ago, however, when we cruised up and down the northern coast of Santa Catalina Island for eight days, that I christened a new pot. It is a heavy, aluminum dutch oven. With that wonderful pot, which distributes the heat evenly, even though it is slightly too large for a burner, I was able to cook several of my old standbys more efficiently and with greater culinary effect.

I can even bake now, after the fashion of the big boat galleys with an oven. For breakfast one morning I made drop biscuits in that dutch oven which were light and golden brown.

One-pot cooking, a boon for the small-boat cook, has an appealing flexibility. When the ice in the box is gone after about five days, and you’ve depleted your fresh meat and poultry, but you still have a goodly store of vegetables that keep well, you then turn to the canned meats.

Those hardy vegetables--carrots, celery, cabbage, potatoes and onions--can be combined with canned corn beef, chicken, tuna and beef with interesting results. White sauces and mushroom soup provide tasty bases. Wine, spices and garlic should be on hand in every galley.

I even found that fresh tomatoes and parsley kept well after the ice ran out. On the seventh day out, I made a good marinara sauce with those tomatoes, diced onions, fresh parsley, garlic and dried basil. While it simmered in the dutch oven, my wife and I peacefully “harbor watched,” in the Herald Bird’s cockpit, while the setting sun made long shadows across the tawny hills of White’s Landing.

Of course, this was not strictly a one-pot dinner, for the pasta must be boiled on our second burner. But dishes such as this are perfect for the two-burner stove. Another is canned stewed tomatoes heating on one burner while hamburgers fry on the other other. If you’re particularly hungry, dump a can of chili con carne over the hamburger, just long enough to heat it and not overcook the meat. This is an especially good quick meal for the first night in a port when you’re tired from a long passage.

And now I’m going to reveal one of the easiest and greatest one-burner breakfasts for cooking while under way--smoky links fried in a pan with tortillas piled on top the links and the whole covered with a lid to warm the tortillas. Put in one more tortilla than you plan to eat. Keep this one on the bottom of the heap while you turn the others. The bottom tortilla absorbs the grease and is given a sea toss. Butter the tortillas and spread with English mustard, roll up a link in it, wrap in a paper towel and hand it out to the person at the helm. Be ready to serve each person more than one.

Sailing Notes If you’re looking for the little, white, wooden, pyramidal structure that held the Long Point light, look no longer. It has been torn down and replaced with a prosaic light on a pole and a couple of red and white range finders. I guess they’re more visible from the sea, but I’ll miss the old light.

The largest indoor sailboat show in the nation will be in the Long Beach Convention Center from Oct. 25 through Nov. 2. More than 400 boats will be exhibited, from eight-foot sailing prams to 51-foot cruising yachts. The show will open from 3-10 p.m. on weekdays and from 10 a.m. on Saturdays and 11 a.m. on Sundays to 7 p.m.

Two intrepid Canadian adventurers, Jeff MacInnes, 23, and Mike Beedel, 30, have sailed a Hobie 18 nearly 1,200 miles through the Northwest Passage on the first half of their trek through the entire length of the arctic seaway. The sailors are attempting to complete the first sail-powered journey through the passage. The team left Inuvik on July 20. All provisions are carried aboard the 18-foot cat in waterproof barrels and in a small kayak towed astern. Hobie Cat of Oceanside supplied the vessel, which was especially strengthened for the voyage.