Since living on board I’ve come across some useful tips for living on board.

From the Boat Galley Cookbook, a gift from Cheryl friend from the Commission, it said to store bottles in cheap sports socks. Not only does this help protect them against breakage but also stops them rattling. I’ve taken this one step further and added a luggage label so I know what is in each one without having to pull out each bottle. From the same book, was advice of putting any leftover boiled water into a flask. This we use for washing and washing up mainly. Two good tips.

I was eventually persuaded with a slow cooker and despite one mishap (my own fault) I’ve used it loads. Made stews, curries, soups, rice and cooked a whole chicken in 20mins.  I went for a 3.5litre from Lakeland which is probably a little small even just for two of us but storage wise suits the space I have in the galley. Also as it has 2 small handles and not a long one again saves on storage space. It also came with a glass lid so can be used as a regular saucepan and into the oven.  I have been surprised by how fast it cooks. I also bought a pressure cooker cookbook which seemed to be the one most highly recommended, The Pressure Cooker Cokbook by Catherine Phipps.  Have to say I’m not overly impressed. In the poultry & game section, out of 12 recipes only 5 recipes are for chicken and the other 7 are for pheasant, rabbit, duck etc. whilst I like these I think more chicken for the mainstream would be more useful.   Best price I got this book for was just under £14.00.

More useful is The Pressure Cooker Recipe Book by Suzanne Gibbs. It is an American book so cup measurements and American names for veg etc but for £1.00 (yup, £1.00 from The Book People).   Clear recipes with serving size, prep time and cooking time (seemingly including the release of pressure time) all listed above the recipe.

Another addition to my cookbook collection is The Boat Cookbook by Fiona Sims  mainly for those who are inland cruisers but some great recipes including some pressure cooker ones from Sir Robin-Knox Johnson.

Tips on saving space, time, energy and multipurpose tools are all welcome and some of them are invaluable when living in a small space with finite resources.