Provisioning for Our Trip Up the Inside Passage

This Costco shopping cart doesn’t look all that bad, considering we bought some stuff for the boat and some stuff for home!

I thought I’d share with you some of our favorite Costco provisions, since I’m focused on this subject right now.

Shelf-stable Organic Bake-at-Home (or bake-on-a-boat) Sourdough Bread. This stuff is amazing. It comes in packages of three loaves and lasts forever. Maybe not forever, but we found a loaf in the way back of our cupboard a couple weeks ago…must have been from the first or second summer in Alaska. I sliced it lengthwise and baked it as garlic bread for the shakshuka I made and it was just as delicious as the garlic bread I made last summer, or the summer one before. 🙂

Golden Grill Hash Brown Potatoes. These are small cartons of dehydrated shredded russet potatoes (100% russet potatoes, sold in a package of 8 cartons). You simply add hot or boiling water to the carton, close it up and wait for 10 minutes or so, then cook up some hash browns. Easy, shelf-stable, and more compact than potatoes! Last summer when we were buddy boating with Sam, we added an egg to the mix and cooked them in Sam’s waffle iron. Latkes!!

Capers and kalamata olives.  I’ll use these to make kalamata olive tapenade (I like this recipe) for happy hour snacks or whatever. Capers are nice to add to tuna salad, or smoked salmon/cream cheese spread, or that delicious chicken piccata recipe my dad sent me. Kalamatas are good on their own, thrown into a greek chicken dish, or even in martinis! (Costco has some olives we really like for martinis — Tassos Double Stuffed Jalapeno and Garlic olives (not shown, but I got some of those as well).

Better Than Bouillion. Making homemade chicken stock on the boat is usually a no-go. And carrying cartons of the free range organic stuff I can get at the store is not a good use of space. This little jar makes a summer’s worth of soups and sauces and takes very little space in the fridge after it’s opened.

Garofalo Organic Pasta – variety pack. Of course. Pasta is always a good backup plan when you haven’t gotten any fish or whatever and you want an easy meal. (Also good for potluck dishes.) We don’t eat much pasta (or bread, or potatoes for that matter) at home, but it can be tough to find frequent sources of fresh vegetables and non-starchy alternatives in some places…and, well, y’gotta eat.

Organic Diced Tomatoes. I always have a use for these. Soups, sauces, shakshuka, salsa…super versatile to have a flat of these canned organic diced tomatoes on board. I’d bring along several cases if I had a place to put em!

We also picked up a supply of NyQuil and DayQuil, because last year we both got sick (as did our friends Tiffani and Deke while they were visiting, unfortunately) and this stuff is hard to find in some of the smaller village stores (and if you DO find it, it’s often expired and expensive). I’m hoping that since we’re all prepared this time, no one will get sick.

One thing we’ve done the past two summers is cooked up a bunch of barbeque on the Traeger at home, vacuum sealed it into serving sizes, frozen it, and then stocked the freezer on the upper deck. Leave with brisket, pulled pork, and baby back ribs, come home with salmon, crab, and halibut! So we’re doing that again this year (just brisket and ribs this time).

Additionally, I bought some fresh green beans and asparagus. I blanched the vegetables for a little less than a minute, then vacuum sealed them into serving sizes for two and froze it all. I haven’t done this before, but I hear it’s a pretty nice way to have “almost fresh” veggies when there are none to be found. Will get back to you on that one!

I’ll make a trip to Trader Joe’s closer to right before we head up to the boat to pick up a few last minute things (maybe I’ll do a post about the TJs favorite items too!), and I’ll place the huge order of Nespresso pods to last us the summer. Also on the “Get” list: SodaStream CO2 cartridges.

Over at Slowboat we recently posted a helpful webinar called Packing and Provisioning for Extended NW Cruising that you might also find helpful. Check it out, and if you feel like it, share with us some of your favorite provisioning items!