Bonarie Travel Notes

For this post, I will use this blog for it's intended purpose - a way for me to track and archive my own recipes, meals, and other food-related issues. If you regularly travel to small Carribbean islands in which you do not have access to regular grocery stores with regular hours, you might also find this list helpful. Mostly I wanted to remember what we used on the trip and keep it in an easy-to-access place. This is also a pretty good list of car-camping foods. Also, we had 3 couples each bringing food, and then combining it when we got there, so there isn't a lot of harmony on this list, and overall, I think we can all agree that we brought too much of some foods. There are also some foods we simply didn't get around to eating.

What we brought / What we ate:
Quinoa - 1 lb bag / 1/2 bag
Dried beans (1 lb black beans; 1 lb white) / 1 lb black
Pasta salad mixes from target / both eaten
1 small jar (3 inches high) and 1 regular jar peanut butter / small jar lasted the week - for sandwiches and apples; brought large jar home
Powdered pasta sauce / didn't eat
Velveeta Shells and Cheese - 2 boxes / eaten in one night
English Muffins - 1 pkg wheat, 1 pkg regular / both eaten
Frut snacks, rice crispie treats, trail mix / eaten
pistachios / eaten
peanuts / not eaten
pre-made beans mixes / not eaten
Mrs. Dash spice mix / went through about 1/2 a jar
butter / ate about half the container
rice - 1 lb bag /ate half the bag
canned corn - small can / eaten
granola / ate half a bag
canned tuna / ate about 2-3 cans
canned salmon / Mom and Dad Barefoot ate about 6 foil pouches
canned chicken / ate 1 can; Mom and Dad Barefoot ate about 4 more??
mayo / did anyone eat this?
salad dressing / used some to make the worst pasta salad ever
barbecue sauce / really good on mac & cheese, did not use otherwise
whole wheat pasta - 1 lb bag / this was a terrible idea
cereal - 1 box / didn't work that well b/c couldn't get milk until mid-week. ate half box.

Can be purchased in Bonaire - relevant for next trip - all items can be found at both Warehouse and Cultimara unless otherwise indicated:
Indian curry sauce mix/other mixes (at Warehouse Supermarket)
Tomato paste & pasta sauce
Sandwich meat, cheese, tomatoes (at Warehouse Supermarket)
Yogurt
apples (at Warehouse Supermarket)
garlic, onions (buy these at Cultimara if you don't want 10)
frozen veggies (peas and green beans mostly)
shredded cheese (Warehouse)
Cookies, delicious snack food, dutch sprinkles

Can't always find:
milk, stuff to grill, produce, salsa

In the future, we will probably bring, in addition or differently from what we brought this time:
1-2 cans of beans (heavier than dried beans, but worth it to not have to soak, and didn't eat full pound of dried beans that we cooked.)
taco seasonings and salsa (we did taco night midweek and it was a great idea)
tortillas (all that was available was frozen, bringing your own from the non-perishable section of the grocery store would not go amiss)
regular elbow macaroni and 1-2 packages of italian dressing (not whole bottle)
more pasta salad mixes
small package of bbq sauce
pizza crust mix/premade pizza crusts
spice mixes - hopefully we'll get these when we register and can fill them with delicious spices.

Good Post-Dive Meals
taco night (this was a really good idea, and done early in the week so we had plenty of leftovers)
mac & cheese (delicious after a night dive)
pizza (we didn't try this, but we will in the future)
grilling (if you can get fresh fish to grill - we did this in Caymans and it was fantastic)

Family Barefoot, feel free to chime in with your own comments on what worked and what didn't.