While my own emphasis these days is very much on veganism, I would be the first to confess that I struggle hardest with the idea at breakfast. I love eggs: boiled, poached, fried or in omelettes and in spite of the suggestions of many enthusiastic food bloggers and cookery book writers, I have found no substitute for them. Let not the pursuit of perfection stand in the way of the good: eating a few eggs a week isn’t going to trash the planet and I confess to buying half a dozen every month or two. And oh! - the bliss of a fried egg sandwich or a perfectly cooked poached egg on mustard-spread toast. Alas, the pleasure is seriously modified when I contemplate the fate of day-old male chicks, and hens that no longer lay daily.
For many years, I was mixer-in-chief of muesli: it’s a lot cheaper to make your own blend, you can avoid added sugar and add goodies such as dried apricots which commercial brands rarely include (and your luxury version will still cost a lot less to make). However, after some 35 years of making muesli and eating it for breakfast a zillion times, I’m afraid I can’t face it any more. With eggs also generally excluded, my recent breakfasts very often consist of leftovers from the previous night. This works really well because it’s often a lot easier to make two portions than one (half a tin of tomatoes doesn’t keep that well; cooking a tiny amount of beans isn’t easy in some pressure cookers, etc) and I don’t have to think about breakfast. I dare say you reel with horror at the thought of curry first thing (although about 2 billion people happily breakfast on it every day) – I certainly would have thought it unacceptable at one time – but in fact I now wake up positively salivating at the thought of my delicious leftovers, just waiting to be heated through. When there aren’t any, I resort to bread and then usually end up eating some more at lunch time. (Another advantage of leftovers for breakfast, is that they are truly satiating and I rarely bother with lunch, which is good for both my budget and my waistline!)
In this blog ‛page’, however, I assume I am dealing with slightly less eccentric habits and have included a more conventional approach to the first meal of the day. A lot of them are vegetarian rather than vegan, but I shall persevere with vegan ‛eggs’ until I find something worth sharing! When I refer to ‛milk’, this includes plant milk.
I’m afraid you won’t find any recipes for ‛smoothies’ here. I don’t think they are appropriate for the voyaging vegetarian, because they require a lot of ingredients, which are expensive and perishable, such as berries, and they require a blender, which not all small boats have (although I do and their use is recommended in one or two recipes). But, I’ll be honest: the main reason that there are no smoothie recipes is that I personally don’t like a thick (and in the case of many recipes I’ve looked at, overly sweet), gloopy drink for breakfast and I refuse to include any recipes that I haven’t actually tried out myself, at least several times.
While I’m not sure that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, I certainly need to get some food in my stomach before I get on with the rest of the day, especially if I’m going sailing. My ideal is to have some fruit and then a couple of cups of tea, in a relaxed manner, before settling down to eating. Another two cups of tea to wash it all down is perfection. On passage, one can enjoy the luxury of a leisurely breakfast and unless a trip ashore is planned, the same routine can generally apply at anchor. However, if I plan to sail that day, I find I can’t settle down to breakfast, so usually make the tea, get the anchor and have breakfast a little later, under way. We all have our own ways of doing these things!
I’m a great believer in having some sort of fruit in the morning, so breakfast can start with
FRUIT JUICE
The supermarket shelves are full of packs of fruit juice and an abomination described as ‛nectar’, which is a disgustingly sweet travesty, containing minimal amounts of genuine fruit juice and lots of added sugar. When you’re shopping somewhere new, you really have to be very careful to check the ingredients when you buy, because the packaging is so similar to ‛real’ fruit juice. Some of the fruit blends, which include mangos, guavas and all sorts of other delicious fruit, in addition to the more usual orange, grapefruit and pineapple, are truly delicious and they all keep acceptably if you drink a decent-sized glass every morning.
Frozen juice is available in some countries and is both delicious and economical. However, you need to drink it quickly in warm weather – it rarely lasts longer than three days.
Tetrabriks and similar 1 litre, cardboard-type cartons are probably the best way for voyagers to buy and carry their fruit juice. Sadly, it’s very bulky stuff and you may need to carry it just for weekends or whenever it is you decide to have a special meal. The juice in these containers, having been sterilised, lasts longer than frozen once opened. Mixed with water, it makes a very refreshing drink in hot weather and goes well with rum!
Best
of all is to squeeze your own and if you like this, it is well worth
buying a juice squeezer; plastic ones are absurdly cheap. If you can
find one that comes with its own little jug and have room to store
it, you can squeeze several oranges at one time, which is even
quicker and less messy. These squeezers are also great for lemons
when you want lemon juice for cooking. However, fruit juice is full
of fructose so you are taking on board a lot of carbohydrates along
with the other nutrition. Just think how many oranges you need to
squeeze for a glassful of juice and ask yourself if you could eat
that may at one sitting: all the rest of the fruit (including the
skin, which can be preserved) is also good food and it’s a bit of a
waste throwing it overboard.
GRAPEFRUIT ORANGES, MANDARINS, ETC
These keep well and are good to take on passage. Grapefruit can be served elegantly, cut in half and segmented. However, if you have lots to do, this takes longer than you might wish. Oranges can be divided into quarters or sixths and are convenient to eat in that way. Grapefruit are best peeled and then carefully divided into segments. Mandarins are easiest of all.
BANANAS
We've all heard of voyagers trying to work their way through a stalk of bananas that are all ripening at once. However, green bananas can keep for well over a week before they start ripening and are worth getting if you are going to be away from shops for a while. I really like them at breakfast and they are quite filling.
APPLES AND PEARS
These also keep well, and are good sliced over muesli or porridge.
BERRIES, STONE FRUIT, ETC
These don’t keep as well as the ones mentioned above, but are a great indulgence when affordable. Make them into a fruit salad, sprinkle with seeds and serve them with yoghurt if you eat it.
Depending where you are, you might also be able to buy mango, papaya, persimmon, kiwifruit, custard apples and various other more unusual fruit. Kiwifruit are the only ones that keep reasonably well, unless you buy underripe persimmons.
MUESLI
Most people eat a cold breakfast. I’m not fond of commercial breakfast cereals: they’re either sweet or tasteless, are bulky and expensive and usually not particularly nutritious. Muesli – preferably home-made – is a much better bet.
Oats are one of the darlings of the Healthy Eaters at the moment: Folic acid, complex carbohydrates, good for blood pressure – the whole nine yards. In addition to oats in your muesli, are all the other goodies, which are delicious and Good For You and ideally include apricots, pumpkin seeds, prunes, Brazil nuts (for selenium) raisins and dates, all of which give you quantities of essential vitamins and minerals as well as tasting wonderful. A quarter cup serving of my muesli, together with milk and/or yoghurt will give you a superbly nutritious breakfast, which is filling and will keep you going until lunch time, without wanting a snack.
The recipe below makes enough muesli to fill a 3 l (3 qt) container – 48 single servings, 24 if you like a hearty breakfast. As it’s a bit of a schlep to make, it’s worth doing in quantity. Before buying dried fruit, ensure that they’re pitted; health food versions often are not. They’re a nuisance to do yourself and a hazard to teeth if left in. I prefer seedless raisins, too.
Incidentally, I find scissors the best for chopping the fruit and nuts. This makes a rich and filling muesli: some people might prefer a higher ratio of grains to fruit and nuts. Vary the latter according to cost and availability.
PORRIDGE
I rather like porridge, with a dribble of honey and a spoonful of mixed seeds sprinkled over it. I truly enjoy real porridge: made with oatmeal, as the Scots know it – but am not so fond of that made with rolled oats. Oatmeal seems to be unavailable in a number of places: it looks like cream-coloured, coarsely ground corn and is sometimes described as ‛steel-cut’: if you can get it, try it instead of the rolled oats in the following recipe. Why it’s not used more frequently and is not more generally available, I don’t know, because it is more compact, cooks more quickly, produces a smoother result and tastes better than rolled oats.
Quick-cooking oats do not have the flavour and texture of jumbo oats. If you’re eating porridge simply as belly timber, use the quick oats; if you enjoy it, use traditional, slow-cooking oats.
Toast is always popular at breakfast, but not everyone has a grill. You can make acceptable toast by simply heating a good-quality frying pan and toasting the bread on both sides, but it's not as good as that made with an open flame. You can, however, make excellent toast on top of the cooker using a specially-made toaster. There are many so-called toasters fobbed up on the unwitting public by sadistic manufacturers. They’re apparently designed so that you can cook four slices at a time. In fact, they’re usually too small to take more than one piece of bread at a time and all they do to that, is to make it vaguely warm and slowly dry it out. In a word, they’re useless. The best way to toast a slice of bread quickly is to support it horizontally over the flame.
Camping toasters that work, do exist and are easy to buy in Oz and NZ. Unfortunately, the wire mesh is far too thin and soon burns out. Your best bet is to copy the style, but make it yourself.
WHAT TO PUT ON TOAST FOR BREAKFAST
Well, there are heaps of things to choose from and they also vary from culture to culture. Sticking to the more usual spreads:
Just butter
Marmalade
Jam/jelly/conserve/preserve
Peanut/sunflower/nut butter or tahini
Honey
Marmite/Vegemite/yeast extract
Hummus
Lemon curd
Dulce de leche (for those with a really sweet tooth) (see recipe)
Mashed bananas
Or any of these in combination: for example I love peanut butter and Marmite; a friend enjoys tahini and honey; and USAnians apparently combine peanut butter and jelly.
Things like cream cheese are also appealing, but generally require either eating every day or refrigeration.
A really wonderful spread is Pic's Big Mix. I’m not sure if it’s available outside New Zealand (yet. His peanut butter, some of the best I have ever eaten, is now being exported to many countries), so I’ve shamelessly copied the recipe (although I’ve substituted flax seeds for Chia seeds). This is substantial and delicious; I find it hard to resist simply scooping spoonfuls straight out of the jar! It is stretching the concept to call it a spread, I admit, because of the huge percentage of seeds it contains.
EGGS
Unless you are vegan, you will probably enjoy having eggs for breakfast. I love a boiled egg, and a fried egg sandwich is bliss on a cold, windy morning. In a later ‛page’ there will be a detailed discussion of eggs, as related to the voyager.)
Breakfast eggs can be boiled, scrambled, poached, fried or, more rarely, made into omelettes. There are dozens of other ways to serve them, too, but we’ll stick with the above.
BOILED EGGS
I don’t wish to seem condescending, but actually, not everyone does know how to boil an egg and one or two points may be pertinent for sailors.
SCRAMBLED EGGS
Experienced cooks will not need to learn how to cook these, but may find the prefatory remarks of interest. Scrambled eggs, as we all know, stick better than epoxy and most galleys simply do not have the room for a small, non-stick saucepan dedicated solely to the scrambling of eggs. A good alternative is to use your wok, if you have such a thing. I have a small enamelled pan that I regularly use for popcorn and that works like a charm, too. The new-style, hard-anodised, cast aluminium pans are perfect, so consider one of these if (a) you need another pan and/or (b) you love scrambled eggs. Cleaning a scrambled egg pan is probably one of the best arguments for trying a vegan alternative!
For the voyager new to cooking, I include this recipe because scramblers are so lovely when well made and so liable to turn out disappointingly. To ensure success, don’t let yourself be distracted while cooking them; have the hot plates, toast, etc ready in advance and everyone sitting down in anticipation; use a little milk or water to help them stay moist; don’t use too high a heat.
The best tool for scrambling eggs is a flat, wooden spatula, if you have such a thing.
VEGAN ‟SCRAMBLED EGGS”
No tofu; no chickpea flour
Blender Alert (but you could use ground nuts if you don’t have one).
I really love scrambled eggs and they are something I miss. However, there are many reasons for the ethical vegetarian not to eat eggs, so I rarely buy them. I have been working on this recipe for scramblers for some time. What I want to achieve is something with a similar appearance, colour and texture as the Real Thing, which to my mind is soft and barely set. All the vegan recipes I’ve tried produce a very dry, rather rubbery result. This is how I’ve always been served scrambled eggs in North America and as most vegan food blogs are North American, I guess this is acceptable to them. I’ve never tried making it with silky tofu – I can’t buy it locally, and when I get to a larger town where it’s available, it comes in large packs that I can’t use. I am prepared to eat a lot of failed experiments in search of the Ideal Recipe, but I’m not prepared to waste food!
Veganism is still a fringe way of living, especially away from the Western world (although of course many people are vegan without even thinking about it!), so in all these recipes, I am trying to avoid branded or really weird ingredients, which might well be expensive and/or unavailable to the average voyager. If you’re interested, see the notes below for a discussion as to how and why I’ve chosen these particular ingredients and some substitutes. I am sure this recipe can be improved, so please leave a comment if you have a suggestion. I have used peanuts instead of the more popular cashew nuts. I don't know why they aren't used more often.
POACHED EGGS
I love poached eggs, but surprisingly few people make them. I hate those little poached egg devices that are sold: they produce a result completely different from a real poached egg, with its lovely, lacy white, surrounding a perfectly set yolk. So if you feel that you have no room for your egg poacher, take heart: there is a better alternative.
There are two requirements for flawless poached eggs: (1) plenty of salt in the water (or a tbsp of lemon or vinegar, if you prefer, although they flavour the egg quite strongly), which guarantees the white setting; (2) the water must be at a full, rolling boil before the egg is lowered into the pan. For this reason, eggs should be at ‘room temperature’, ie about 18°C (70°F). In very cold places, you may have to cook the eggs no more than two at a time.
FRIED EGG SANDWICHES
I suspect that this sounds pretty revolting to my more fastidious readers, but as they happen to be a personal favourite of mine, I am including them. For perfect fried egg sandwiches, you need decent bread – preferably home made, good-quality tomato ketchup and eggs whose yolks are set, but whose whites are not frazzled.
PLAIN OMELETTE
These make a pleasant change at breakfast. Ideally, they should be made individually, in 150 mm (6 in) omelette pans, but most boats would not have room for such a luxury. They come out a bit on the thin side, if you make them one at a time in a larger pan, so better to make a four-egg omelette and share nicely. If you fancy something more substantial, make a Spanish omelette (see recipe) or a frittata (see recipe).
FULL ‛ENGLISH’ BREAKFAST
Although strict vegetarians are denied the traditional ‘cooked breakfast’, veggie sausages can be delicious and if all the other ingredients are there: mushrooms, cut in half and cooked at the side of the pan, tomatoes, halved or sliced, fried eggs, fried bread, refried potatoes – you will hardly miss the bacon. Indeed, you won’t need to because you can have:
BANANA SKIN BACON
This sounds like veganism gone to extremes, but is actually extraordinarily good!
For perfect fried eggs, see this recipe
FRIED BREAD
As well as being delicious with the 'cooked breakfast' and with eggs, this is an acceptable substitute for toast, if you have no toaster and aren't counting calories. Indeed, you can make passable toast in a good quality frying pan, without the oil.
These are so delicious, that I often cook extra potatoes the night before so that I can have them for breakfast next day.
PANCAKES
Although
exceedingly unorthodox, I have given an egg-free alternative. I have
been assured on countless occasions that you can't make pancakes
without eggs. While I admit that crèpes are not quite the
same thing sans oeufs, they still work and these thick,
breakfast pancakes are just fine. The vegan way is to add a tbsp
ground flax seeds and ¼ cup water as an egg substitute. When the
flax has soaked, it becomes a good binding agent. As flax seeds are
also extremely nutritious and you’ve eliminated the egg, this is
another reason to use them. Equally revolutionary is my idea that
water will substitute for milk. But it does, if you don’t have any
milk.
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