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food

Edible memories

Jan 24th, 2013
by Sara.
1 comment

Ruby's Granola Recipe
Like I’m sure you have at home or on your boat, there is a small three-ring notebook in my galley that is filled with our favorite recipes. At least half of these we’ve collected over our nearly 15 years of wandering over the water from other cruising friends. The fact is that cruisers just love to share – books, movies, music and of course recipes. My recipe binder is almost better than a photo album; I can flip through the various pages with mostly handwritten recipes and instantly recall the evenings we spent sharing pastas and desserts, breakfasts and brunches munching on scones and salads with our friends. Remembering the tastes of the delicious food we’ve shared brings me right back to all the cockpits, salons, sunsets and smiles of friends along the way.

Here are a few of our favorites:

Ruby’s Granola

In French Polynesia last year, Leah came home from a sleepover with Ruby on Convivia and raved about the granola Ruby had helped cook for breakfast. At a loss for quick and delicious breakfasts (that everyone likes and doesn’t start with the letter “P”) aboard Wondertime, I asked Leah if she wanted to get the recipe from Ruby. A few days later Leah brought back the hand-written recipe and it has been our favorite breakfast ever since. We especially like it on top of homemade yogurt (simple to make in something like the Easiyo made in NZ).

  • 1 giant spoonful of peanut butter
  • 2 scoops brown sugar
  • fresh or dried fruit [and nuts, seeds, etc.]
  • 2 cups of oats (or more)
  • some maple syrup [we use honey as maple syrup is like gold in the South Pacific]

Stir over low heat for 3-5 minutes in a cast iron pan. Serve warm.

Kula’s Spicy Peanut Sauce

On our first trip down the US Pacific coast in 2002, we had dinner aboard another boat from Seattle, Kula, at Angel Island in the San Francisco Bay area. I’ll never forget how giddy all of us were to have arrived safely in S.F., the most difficult part of our journey to Mexico behind us. Christine had cooked up an amazing peanut sauce served over broccoli, chicken and brown rice. We traveled with Kula off and on towards Mexico but parted ways in Cabo as they were heading to Zihuatanejo for Christmas and we were heading towards Puerto Vallarta. As it happens far too often, we never got the chance to say goodbye in person but came back to our boat one evening to find a farewell note. And a copy of their amazing peanut sauce recipe.

  • 2 T. minced garlic
  • 1/3 cup cilantro, chopped
  • 1/2 cup crunchy peanut butter
  • 1/2 cup light soy sauce
  • 1/4 cup brown sugar
  • 1 t. rice vinegar
  • 1 – 1 1/2 T. chili oil

Mix this all together in a bowl and serve over steamed veggies, rice, tofu, chicken, noodles, etc.

Diva’s Favorite Ginger Cookies

In British Columbia one summer, we found ourselves hunkered below waiting out a rain and wind storm in a cozy anchorage. New friends on a nearby boat hailed us on the VHF and invited us over for cookies. After a wet but quick dinghy ride over, we spent the afternoon laughing and playing games and gorging ourselves on the most amazing cookie dough ever – and even a few baked cookies – while the rain poured outside. These cookies are also excellent on passages!

  • 2/3 cup butter
  • 1 egg
  • 1/4 cup molasses
  • 1 cup white sugar
  • 2 cups white flour
  • 2 t. baking soda
  • 1 T. powdered ginger
  • 1 t. cloves
  • 1 t. cinnamon
  • 1 t. salt

Mix everything up, plop on cookie sheets and bake until done. You’ll definitely want to double this recipe!

Countdown to cruising: 1 day to go

Jun 29th, 2011
by Sara.
5 comments

That’s it. Our final full day in town is done. Last items have been put into our 5’x5′ storage unit, trip to Trader Joes complete (I had no idea you could even haul $400 worth of food in one of those tiny carts! Must be all the chocolate I stocked up on). We also picked up a netbook to use for navigation so our main laptop won’t have to carry all the computing duties. Leah and I got haircuts, we visited some treasured friends in our old neighborhood, made one last trip to West Marine, hauled home a 15 lb. bag of cat food (that should last our 8 lb. cat a while at least), ran through the car wash, unloaded the car one last time, delivered our dear old Subaru to her new owner, visited with some dock neighbors, tucked our exhausted girls into bed, and I headed out for one final Mom’s Night Out at our favorite pub.

I came home to this:

I’ll get on it in the morning.

Countdown to cruising: 2 days to go

Jun 28th, 2011
by Sara.
3 comments

Today was provisioning day (well, provisioning day #1 since it continues tomorrow too). Completed today were my trips to Fred Meyer and Costco. Tomorrow I hit Trader Joes for all our true favorites. We are expecting food up on Vancouver Island to carry a hefty price tag since it’s 1. an island and 2. the exchange rate is pretty poor right now for us Americans. While I know that we’ll be gathering fresh bits here and there I am trying to fit as much as I can on the boat now since it’s so much cheaper to buy it down here.

I’m not a meal planning type of person, and my strategy is simply to stock up on the things we use normally that are easily stored onboard: diced tomatoes, onions, beans, ground turkey, tofu, oatmeal, soy milk, cornmeal, Cholula hot sauce, white and wheat flour, white and brown sugar, rice, dried fruit, nuts, pasta sauces, ramen noodles, coffee, Good Earth tea, and of course, Annie’s Mac & Cheese. And on and on.

Earlier today, I was on hour three, or maybe four, and pushing a 500 lb. cart past the pasta sauces in Costco when fatigue really started to set in. I thought: I don’t think I’m going to make it to the checkout counter. But then I remembered what I was doing: I wasn’t just grocery shopping. I was provisioning. As in, we are leaving with this food (unlikely put away yet) in two days on the trip we’ve been dreaming about for years and years. The cart felt a lot lighter after that illumination.

We have sprouted!

May 25th, 2011
by Sara.
1 comment

We have finally done it! The crew of Wondertime has grown something edible! I am excited to announce that our sprouting experiment was a complete success. Not only did we produce crunchy, fresh sprouts on our first try, they were also delicious. We will definitely be keeping our sprout garden growing as we sail; we are all looking forward to having fresh crisp greens whenever we want, especially when land-based greens are in short (or non-existent) supply.

For simplicity’s sake, I went ahead and bought a sprouting kit online which included a quart-sized Ball jar, sprouting lid and organic alfalfa seeds and instructions. When the kit arrived we set about sprouting by:

  1. soaking a few tablespoons of the alfalfa seeds in the jar in a dark place overnight (or about 8 hours)
  2. draining the seeds and placing jar back in their dark cupboard with the green lid down and the jar at a 45 degree angle
  3. rinsing and draining the sproutlings twice a day
  4. four days later our little sprouts were ready for….

 

A little bit of earth

Mar 30th, 2011
by Sara.
1 comment

I’m going to admit something to the whole wide world (well, at least the teensy corner that reads this blog): I. Hate. Gardening.

Seriously, I can’t think of anything I’d rather not be doing than getting dirt under my fingernails pulling weeds, planting bulbs, and basically doing whatever it is gardeners love to do that requires knee pads and rubber shoes. The weeds in the last two places we lived ashore completely took over the yard each and every summer. Embarrassing, really, but not enough so to overcome each excuse I was able to come up with to avoid pulling them. I really do think this is the biggest reason I love living on a boat: no need to touch dirt with my hands, ever.

However, let me be clear: I LOVE the idea of gardening. I love visiting gardens, lounging in gardens, enjoying fruits and vegetables grown in a small garden, and admiring my friends’ green thumb handiwork. I drool over the lovely landscapes in Sunset magazine. I even had a number of houseplants when we lived ashore and I enjoyed them as long as they didn’t outgrow their pots and just asked for a cup of water every month or two.

Our oldest daughter, Leah, on the other hand, loves dirt just about as much as I dislike it. She adores digging in it, planting things in it, finding worms in it, burying — shudder — her hands and feet in it. She relishes the feeling of cool gritty earth on her skin and under her nails. I suspect she has a bit of a green thumb.

From the time she was two she has begged me to plant things and since she has been the one to do the actual digging I have happily obliged. Last summer, Leah began drawing up plans to plant all sorts of crops on board our boat: tomatoes, basil, strawberries. This time, I had to patiently explain that we just are not able to cover our decks with pots of growing food as it is difficult to, well, sail with dirt flying around and stuff.

So with the arrival of spring recently her requests to grow things began to crop up again: one day she asked me if we could plant some chives. That I agreed to: I felt I could handle a small pot of greens, especially since they go so nicely with hot baked potatoes and butter. After procuring some seeds, we re-purposed a small plastic container (me having gleefully given away all our lovely empty ceramic pots last summer before moving aboard) and I, armed with a large spoon, headed up to the marina parking lot gardens to dig up some dirt. Back on the boat, I described to Leah how to sprinkle the seeds over the dirt and cover them up with a light blanket of soil.

Sadly, nearly a month had gone by and nothing seemed to be happening in this little pot of earth. I chalked it up to yet another of my failed attempts to grow something edible. But then, just the other day I glanced over at the little pot that has been living under our dodger and noticed something green growing in there. Either weeds are sprouting up from our borrowed marina dirt or we may actually have some chives soon.

I am now feeling quite buoyed by our gardening attempt and am ready to embark on yet another food-growing goal: sprouts! I found a delightful old book on sprouting while cleaning out my late mother’s cookbook collection last year and saved it, having heard about sprouts being the perfect thing to grow on a boat. With no dirt required(!) I think fresh crisp greens grown in a jar may be just the crop for us. I’ll keep you posted.