I once wrote a book entitled "Voyaging on a Small Income" and the parts about provisioning and cooking proved very popular. "The Voyaging Vegetarian" would have followed, but so few people were then vegetarians that I thought no-one would publish it. Now many more people realise that eating dead animals is unkind and bad for the planet. I hope a blog, which I can update with new recipes, will work better than a book for liveaboards and aspiring voyagers, and those living simply in small spaces.
Back in the 80s, I wrote a book called "Voyaging on a Small Income", which was published and sold astonishingly well. It’s become almost a “classic” and is probably why you’ve found this site!
I’ve been living aboard and sailing since the 70s. Nine different boats have been home, sometimes for several months, sometimes for many years. I love the way of life, the small footprint and being close to Nature. I’m a great fan of junk rig and having extensive experience with both gaff and bermudian rig, I wouldn’t have any other sail on my boat. It’s ideal as a voyaging rig, but also perfect for the coastal sailing that I now do. I’d rather stay in New Zealand, not having to keep saying goodbye to friends, than go voyaging, these days.
Between 2015 and 2021, I built the 26ft "FanShi", the boat I now call home. For the last 45 years or so, my diet of choice has been vegetarian and is now almost vegan. I love cooking and particularly enjoy having only myself to please. I am combining all these interests (apart, perhaps, from junk rig!) in this blog. I hope you enjoy it. I also have other blogs: www.anniehill.blogspot.com and http://fanshiwanderingandwondering.wordpress.com
This creamy broccoli sauce is perfect
for pasta, and so easy to make. Whizzed together with walnuts and
seasonings, it is both surprisingly satisfying and creamy. The first
time I cooked it, my reaction was that it was hard to believe that it
was dairy free. Broccoli is by no means a voyaging vegetable, because it keeps so poorly, but it is readily available in many places. This recipe is a particularly good way of using up
broccoli, when has started to turn yellow and it's great if you haven't been able to use up the stalk.
I like to serve it with spaghetti, but I think it would go well with most varieties of pasta.
Serves 2
Ingredients
1/2 broccoli
1/3 cup walnuts
1 clove
garlic
1/2 tsp onion powder
juice of 1/2 lemon
1 tbsp
nutritionalyeast
1/4 tsp chilli flakes
1 tbsp olive oil
salt and pepper
Instructions:
Add about half a cup of water to a saucepan and bring it to the
boil.
Cut the broccoli into florets, and cut off the woody end.
Peel the thick skin from the stalk and slice the stalk. (You can use a peeler, if you wish, but I find that you can loosen the skin from the
base of the stalk and simply tear it off with your knife blade.)
Boil the broccoli and stalk for 4-5 minutes until just soft.
Remove from the pan, reserving the
cooking water, and tip it into a blender or food processor.
Add the walnuts, garlic, onion powder, lemon
and olive oil to the blender with the broccoli and whizz them
together until they form a smooth paste.
Season generously with salt and pepper, then add a
little of the cooking water, whizz again, and continue adding more
water until it reaches a sauce-like consistency. Check the seasoning, once the sauce is the thickness you want..
In the meantime, cook your pasta
of choice according to the instructions on the package. You can use
some of the pasta water in the sauce to thin it to the correct
consistency, if necessary.
Serve the sauce piping hot with the pasta, with
more black pepper ground over it.
Note:
If you don’t have a blender,
you can still make this into a delicious sauce, but of course it
won’t be as creamy.
Variations:
Leaveout the salt and/or lemon juice and add
some salted lemon at the blender stage.
Add freshly-grated nutmeg
just before serving.
instead of blending in the walnuts,
chop them, to add additional texture to the sauce.
Instead of using onion powder,
chop a small onion and cook it with the broccoli.
Rather than using this as a pasta
sauce, pour it over vegetables or any main course dish.
While this is a traditional Indian
chutney, it is very adaptable to western ideas and you can use it as
a base for a sauce, a dip for for stuffing vegetables. Or even as an
extremely inauthentic pizza base! I think it goes very well with
Lentil flatbreads for a light lunch or with sundowners. Unlike
‘chutney’ as most British people would think of it, this is not a
preserve, although it will keep quite well for several days.
Ingredients
1 tsp coconut oil,
mustard oil or other oil of choice
1/2 tsp mustard seeds
1/2 tsp
cumin seeds
1/4 tsp fennel seeds
a generous pinch of asafoetida)
2
tsp finely chopped ginger or ginger paste
3 or 4 cloves finely
chopped garlic or 2 tsp garlic paste
1 green chilli chopped
1 small
onion, chopped (optional)
1/4 tsp turmeric
1 tsp ground coriander
3
medium tomatoes, chopped
1/4 tsp salt or to taste
1/4 tsp black salt
(kala namak)
1/2 tsp Kasmiri chilli powder, to taste
Method:
In a medium pan, add the oil and heat
on a medium flame.
Once hot, add mustard and cumin seeds
and let them crackle.
Add asafoetida and fennel seeds, and
mix for a few seconds.
Add ginger, garlic, green chilli and optional
onion and cook on medium, stirring occasionally, until the onion is
golden and/or the mixture smells fragrant.
Add turmeric and ground coriander and
mix well.
Add tomatoes and salt and cook on
low-medium heat, covered, until tomatoes are completely softened.
Adjust salt and spice. Add black salt
and chilli powder to taste. Mix well.
You can continue to cook this chutney
down to a thicker consistency or add a little water to make it
thinner, depending on what you are serving the chutney with. I like
to cook it over a low heat, covered, to make a very thick sauce.
Notes:
For those who don’t have some of the
more unusual curry spices on board, you can leave out the mustard
seeds and asafoetida. Use ordinary salt in place of the kala namak
and 1/4 tsp chilli flakes as a substitute for the Kashmiri chilli (a
mild and very red, Indian chilli powder). You could use 1/2 tsp
paprika to enhance the colour of the chutney.
If the pieces of onion or tomato skins seem too intrusive, you could try mashing the chutney, or give it a few seconds in a blender. Be careful, however: you don't want it to end up as a purée!
This is a very well-flavoured, spicy blend to add to sausages, using whatever recipe you like. It is based on several recipes for Cumberland sauasage, a popular English variety and native to the next county I grew up in. It makes for an astonishingly authentic taste in sausages that are entirely innocent of meat.
Makes enough for about 60
sausages, or 20 servings
Ingredients
1
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1
tsp ground mace
2
1/2 tbsp salt
2
tbsp black pepper
2
tbsp rubbed sage
2
tsp onion powder
1/4 tsp ground ginger
2
1/4 tsp thyme
3/4
tsp cayenne
1
1/2 tsp ground coriander
If
you don’t have ground nutmeg or mace (which don’t
keep well ready-ground) grind up about 1/2 a nutmeg in a
mortar or blender. Remove 1 1/2 tsp and add to a bowl.
Take
several blades of mace, grind to a powder, remove 1 tsp and
add to the nutmeg.
Now
add all the rest of the ingredients and mix thoroughly. Put into a
glass jar and keep as cool and dark as feasible.
I invented this
dish in Trinidad, where one of the shops had a very limited supply of
fresh vegetables, but they nearly always included wonderful
aubergines and beautiful, local spinach. You had to buy large
quantities of both, so I would cook half the spinach in a recipe one
day, followed by spinach andaubergine the next day, finishing up
with aubergine alone on the third. This is the recipe I invented for
day two!
I can’t really
give a measurement for spinach. So often you have to buy it as is:
by the bunch, already tied up, or by the bag, which frequently
doesn’t mention the weight. If it includes the roots, there will
be more wastage than, say, baby spinach. Put it this way: a huge
amount of spinach disappears into very little. For two people you
would probably want as much as would fit in a 3 litre (3 quart) bowl,
before it’s washed and chopped. If the spinach still has its roots
on, it will want very thorough washing. Sea water is fine for this,
as long as it’s clean. Give the spinach a really good shake and
wait until the meal is just about cooked before adding any more salt.
Serves
2
Ingredients
1
onion
2
garlic cloves
2
tbsp olive oil
1
aubergine
1
tsp oregano
6
juniper berries
400
g/14 oz can tomatoes
spinach,
well washed
grated
cheese
Chop the onion,
dice the garlic
and fry them in the olive oil
for five minutes.
Meanwhile, chop
the aubergine
into chunky pieces.
When the onion
is softened, add the aubergine and stir it round until most of it is
coated in oil. (Aubergine is like blotting paper, so don’t worry
too much about getting it evenly distributed.) Turn down the heat,
cover and cook for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the aubergine is soft.
Add the oregano;
crush or chop the juniper
berries and add these. Pour in the tomatoes,
roughly chopping them with your spoon. Roughly chop the spinach and
add this. Cover and cook for a further 5 minutes.
Take the lid off
and stir everything around so that it’s all mixed together. Smooth
the top and sprinkle with the grated cheese.
Turn the heat right down, insert a flame tamer and cook gently until
the cheese has melted.
Serve with pasta
or potatoes.
Notes:
If
you can lay hands on it, vegan cheese is fine for this. It’s also
good with my 'Parmegan
cheese',
even though that doesn’t melt. Either put it on before serving,
or add it at the table. Or both!
A green such as chard would substitute for the spinach, but kale and cabbage would take too much cooking. If you don’t have soft greens, serve a vegetable on the side.
Blender
Alert (but there is a possible suggestion in the Notes if
you don’t have one).
I
really love scrambled eggs for breakfast, and since I became vegan,
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 wanted 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. 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 packs that are too big for
me to use. I’m prepared to eat a lot of failed experiments
in search of the Ideal Recipe, but I’m not prepared to waste food! Besides, how many voyagers are going easily to be able to buy silky
tofu or are likely to have it on board? This recipe comes from
ingredients that you are likely to have in your lockers.
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 can see an argument for mixing all the dry ingredients together in quantity and keeping a supply in a jar, so that you can make this more quickly: just add water!
Serves 2
1/2
cup blanched peanuts
1
cup water, divided
4
tsp tapioca flour
2
tsp nutritional yeast
1/4
tsp black salt
1/4
tsp turmeric
1/4
tsp garlic granules OR 1 large clove, roughly chopped
2
tbsp olive oil
salt
and pepper
Put
the peanuts into the blender and whizz them into a coarse meal.
Now
add 1/2 cup water, the flour,
nutritional yeast,
black salt,
turmeric,
garlic
and olive oil.
Blend
quickly - you don’t want to pulverise the peanuts: this gives the
scramblers some texture.
Scrape
the contents into a small saucepan and rinse out the blender with
another 1/2 cup of water (put it back together and give it a good
shake) and pour this into the pan. This is the easiest way to make
sure everything goes in the pan!
Heat
the mixture over a moderate flame and stir regularly until the mix
is hot and starting to thicken. Turn the heat right down, continue
stirring occasionally, taste and season with a generous amount of
black pepper and more salt if you think it needs it. Add some
more water if it is getting too thick.
Serve
hot on fried bread or toast, or with fried tomatoes, mushrooms, etc
as part of a cooked breakfast.
Notes:
Blanched
peanuts are cheap; they are also better for both workers and
the planet than cashews, which would be most people’s choice. Peanuts require much less water than most nuts, they are
nitrogen-fixing and their preparation doesn’t generally exploit
low wage-people working in poor conditions. I don’t
understand why they aren’t used more often. However, use cashews
if you prefer them or can’t get peanuts.
Tapioca
flour doesn’t seem to need cooking the same way as cornflour, once
it starts to thicken, which is why I suggest it. Uncooked
cornflour has a definite taste and sensation to it. Using a
little flour creates a more convincing texture as does the slight
‘stretchiness’ of the tapioca flour.
The
small amount of nutritionalyeast does, I think,
improve the flavour, but you could leave it out if you don’t have
any.
The blacksalt is to give the sulphur scent
that eggs have. Don’t use it with a heavy hand and if you
like your scramblers more salty than the recipe, add some more normal salt.
Again, you could leave it out, but the result will be a less
convincing substitute for eggs.
The
turmeric is necessary for colour: again, use a light touch –
it’s a powerful dye! This amount makes the scramblers a light
yellow.
I
love a little bit of garlic in my scramblers. Leave it out
or substitute 1/2 tsp onion
powder if you can’t face garlic at breakfast. Neither is crucial.
If
you don’t have a blender, this might work with 1/2 cup
ground almonds, but they have a much stronger flavour than
peanuts.
This
recipe is very freely adapted
from one of Jamie Oliver’s. Firstly I tweaked it so that it just
made one serving, then I tweaked it again for this blog to serve two,
and then I adapted it for a voyaging locker, which probably doesn’t
include fresh basil, but might and, I now believe should, include a
jar of pesto.
Before
going any further, not all jars of pesto are created equal. Some
contain a ghastly green puree, while others look like something you’d
be quite proud to make yourself and have a delightful texture, just
like the Real Thing. When I first
came across jars of pesto, I was inclined to believe what it said on
the label about having to be kept refrigerated. However, my local
supermarket sells small jars at a very reasonable price and as I
wanted to try out different recipes for calzone,
I thought I’d probably get through the jar quite quickly, anyway.
I used most of it and then out of curiosity, left the near-empty jar
in my locker. it kept for months.
I
was also surprised how good it tasted: the one that looked the best
value, “Pam’s” is not an expensive brand, so therefore there
wasn’t much chance of it being made with Extra Virgin Olive Oil,
pine nuts or Pecorino cheese - all of which would be found in a
traditional pesto. In fact the ingredients were canola oil, 35%
basil, sunflower seeds, cheese (unspecified), garlic, sugar :-(, salt
and natural flavours, so it’s rather surprising that it does
taste so good, which implies that the best part of the pesto is the
basil. My “Pam’s” Pesto also included three e-numbers in the
ingredient list: E202 - potassium sorbate, E270 - lactic acid and
E300 - ascorbic acid, and I thought that before suggesting that
others put it in their lockers, I should see what these were. I had
a look online and even the most hysterical of ‘health-food’ sites
seemed pretty chilled about lactic and ascorbic acid. There was a
bit more tooth sucking about potassium sorbate, although it is
derived from sorbic acid, which occurs naturally in rowan berries.
It is very commonly used in all sorts of food production and the
worst that anyone had to say about it was that if it is consumed in
high doses during pregnancy, it might effect the DNA. Personally, I
feel quite happy about my jar of pesto: my only genuine reservation
is that it contains cheese, and I prefer to eat a vegan diet. The
reason I’m rabbiting on about this is because fresh basil doesn’t
keep well at all - even if you have a fridge and for something like
this recipe, you wouldn’t want more than a quarter of a cup, which
wouldn’t use up a whole bunch. However, by all means make your own
pesto if you prefer!
Cut
the aubergine in half. Rub it – particularly the flesh, with oil
and put it on a well-oiled baking sheet. Roast it at 180° for 35
mins. Or cook it in the pressure cooker until it’s tender,
cut it in half and briefly fry it in a little oil so that the flesh
is lightly browned.
While
it’s cooking, cut the tomatoes in half. The original recipe says
to remove the seeds, but I don’t bother. Then cut them into fine
dice.
When
the aubergine is thoroughly soft, let it cool and scoop out the
flesh. Chop it all up, put it into a bowl and keep warm.
Pour
the pesto over the aubergine and mix it all up. Add olive oil for
taste and texture.
Now
add a little bit of cheese.
As
soon as the pasta is ready, add some of the water to the aubergines
so that you have a saucy consistency.
Mix
in the tomatoes. Grind plenty of black pepper over it.
Tip
in the drained pasta and serve.
Pass
round extra cheese, and maybe pine
nuts, chopped almonds - or sunflower seeds at the table.
Notes:
If
you have fresh basil, some leaves would be a lovely addition
when the pasta is served.
I
like aubergine skin, so I generally just dice the aubergine and mix
it with the pesto.
This
isn’t particularly filling, so you might want to increase the
pasta from what you normally would cook, or serve it with bread, or
maybe even add some cooked white beans or chickpeas to
the aubergine sauce.
Put the chanadal in
the pressure cooker, together with the water and
turmeric, bring up to pressure and cook for 10 minutes. Reduce
pressure naturally.
Once you can take the lid off, add
the courgette and salt. If the dal is very dry, add a
couple of tablespoons of water.
Put the
cooker over a low flame and gently simmer the dal and courgette
until the latter starts to soften. Keep an eye on it so that it
doesn’t overcook – you still want a bit of texture in it. Add
more water, if you think it needs it, but usually the courgette lets
out a lot of moisture.
Now
make the tempering. Put a small frying pan over a medium heat and
add a glug of oil,
or a scoop of coconut oil.
When the oil is hot, add the cumin
seeds and let them sizzle for a few seconds. (If you’re not sure
the oil is sufficiently hot, just put a few in the pan first.)
Now add the asafoetida and
the onion - don’t let the
asafoetida burn.
Cook for about a minute and then
add the ginger, garlic and greenchilli.
Cook until the onion becomes translucent.
Now add the chopped tomato
and cook for a further couple of minutes.
By
now the courgette should have softened. Check the texture, taste to
see there is sufficient salt and then pour in the tempering.
Mix it in and cook of a further 5
minutes.
Traditionally, this curry is served
with roti or naan, but you can serve it with rice if you’d
rather.
Notes:
If you can’t
get chana dal, then yellowsplitpeas will work
fine. They may cook a little more quickly, so it’s probably worth
letting the pressure off after 5 minutes and checking them.
Use 1
clove garlic, finelychopped instead of the paste
Use 1/2
tsp ginger, grated instead of paste.
Use a few
cherry tomatoes, halved, instead of the chopped tomato.
This
is a really good, hearty soup and completely different from its
cousin Vichyssoise,
which is served chilled. See in Variations. I think it needs plenty
of potato
to give it body. Some people like it puréed to a velouté,
some people prefer it hearty and chunky. I prefer it half way
between the two, but unless you go for totally puréed, you really to
have to be sure that the potatoes are of a floury variety. Chunks of
potato really don’t complement the smoothness of the leeks. I
don’t peel the potatoes, but again that’s a personal choice. You
can add milk of any type. Some people like to swirl in cream, at the
end, but I would only want to do tat when having the soup as a
starter. Sour cream is better – otherwise the result can be a bit
cloying.
Use
1/3 seawater to 2/3 fresh, if the sea is clean, and leave out the
salt.
Serves
4 for a starter, 2 for a main course
Ingredients
1
large or 3 small leeks
2 large tbsp
butter or olive oil
salt
2
large, floury potatoes
4 cups mushroom
stock, or water
1 cup milk
coarsely ground
black pepper
Method:
Trim
the discoloured top off the leek(s).
If the leeks are very dirty, slit them in half or quarters from the
top down towards to root end, and swirl around in plenty of water
until clean. Otherwise, you will probably find the dirt is only in
the lower part of the green leaves and the upper part of the white,
in which case you can just slice that part out and wash it
separately.
If
you want to garnish the soup with crispy, fried leek tops (see
Variations) cut off about 30 mm/1 inch of the green top, slice very
thinly and set aside.
Now,
take your clean leek and chop it.
Heat
the butter/oilin
your pressure cooker and add the leek. Sprinkle with about 1/4 tsp
salt
to help it soften and fry until the pieces are soft and silky in
texture. If you wish, you can remove a couple of
spoonfuls and set aside, to add at the end for additional texture.
Cut the potato
into cubes, skin and all. Add to the pan and sauté for another
couple of minutes, then add the stock or water. Bring up to pressure
and cook for 3 to 5 minutes. Let the pressure reduce at room
temperature.
Allow to cool slightly
and then add the milk. Mash, or purée to the required consistency. Season to
taste: the saltiness will depend on whether you have used seawater and/or stock, and then grind over lots of black pepper and stir in the reserved
leeks, if you’re using them. Reheat until piping hot and serve.
For a full meal, serve with fresh bread.
Variations:
garnish
with 4 tbsp sour cream
garnish
with 4 tbsp chopped chives
garnish
with crisp green leek tops, heat a frying pan, with a good glug of
oil over a medium-high heat. Drop in a piece of leek, and when it
bubbles and floats to the surface, add the rest and fry for a couple
of minutes, until they go crisp but still maintain some of their
colour. Remove with a slotted spoon
For Vichyssoise,
which really needs to be served chilled, use half the
potatoes and equal amounts of milk and water. When the soup is
cooked, mash it or blend it smoothly – it’s supposed to be a
velvety purée – and then chill it on ice or in a fridge, if you
have such a thing. Serve with cream. This looks particularly
attractive if it’s swirled on top of the soup.
PavBhaji is a popular Indian street food and is
usually made in huge pans. Pav means “a small bun,” while
bhaji means “vegetable.” The spice blend used to make the
vegetable stew is different from the usual garam masala (or curry
powder!) and has sour and sweet notes. The black peppercorns add a
background heat, and the other spices add glorious scent and flavours
to the blend. It can be used on any vegetable side dish or you could
experiment with adding it to vegetable curry.
Makes about 1/4 cup
Ingredients
4 tsp
coriander seeds
1 tsp cumin
seeds
1 tsp
fennel seeds
4 whole
black cardamoms or use whole green cardamoms
4 cloves
1/2 to 3/4
tsp chilli flakes
1/2 tsp
black peppercorns
1 tsp
ground cinnamon (not cassia)
3 tsp dry
mango powder/amchar
Method:
Heat a large skillet over medium heat.
Add coriander, cumin, fennel, cardamoms, cloves, chill flakes and peppercorns and dry roast for a couple of minutes,
until the coriander and fennel seeds start to change colour. Cool
slightly and transfer to a spice grinder.
Add the cinnamon and mango
powder and grind the ingredients to a powder. Transfer to an
airtight container and store in the proverbial cool, dark space. A glass jar is better for blended spices.
This is one of the first recipes I ever
cooked and it was pretty exotic for an English girl in the mid 70s! The photo above, shows it served with kumara/sweet potatoes: I'd never heard of either back then! Nowadays, in
one form or another, it’s a standard for both omnivores and
vegetarians. People make all sort of punning and witty names for the vegetarian version, but surely chilli sin carne is the obvious version - chilli without meat! I have tweaked the recipe over the years and now have
something that everyone seems to really enjoy. Full of flavour, with
a nice lift of chilli, warming and filling, it is wonderfully welcome
on a cold, damp evening. Moreover this recipe is one that can be
cooked in just about any conditions at sea – and I have done so.
You can eat it with bread, rice, pasta, polenta, potatoes sweet or
otherwise and no doubt many other things.
With fried yams
If you aren’t used to ‛spicy’
foods, ie, chilli, you might want to go easy on the chilli flakes.
If you like more spice, swop out the flakes for cayenne pepper.
Everyone, I’m sure, has their own
version of this dish and mine is less authentic than most. The bulgur
wheat makes a fine substitute for mince, while keeping the dish
looking similar. I add some cocoa, which darkens the sauce and adds
what I fondly believe to be ‘that South American touch’. In
defence of my creation, I will say that everyone seems to enjoy it.
Serves 2
Ingredients
1/2 cup red
kidney beans, soaked in 1½ cups water
1/4 cup bulgur wheat
1 tbsp
soya sauce
1 tsp cocoa
1 onion, chopped
2 garlic
cloves, diced
2 tbsp olive oil
1/2 green pepper
1/2 tsp chilli
flakes
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp smoked paprika
1/2 tsp oregano
400 g/14 oz can chopped tomatoes, OR 3 fresh tomatoes OR 4 tbsp tomato purée
salt
and pepper
Method:
Put the soaked kidneybeans and their water
in a pressure cooker, together with the bulgur wheat, soyasauce and cocoa.
Bring to pressure and
cook as usual.
Meanwhile, heat the oliveoil in
another saucepan, add the onion and garlic and fry for
about 5 minutes until they’re softened.
Chop and add the greenpepper, lower the heat and cook for a few more minutes. Add
the chilli flakes, cumin,
smoked paprika andoregano and stir until they are well mixed in.
Stir in the tomatoes and lower the heat. If you're using tomato
purée add and extra ¼ cup of water. Bring to the boil and then simmer over a low heat.
When the beans are cooked, add
them to the saucepan. Stir gently to combine and season carefully
with salt and a generous
grind of pepper.
Simmer until the sauce has thickened
to the consistency you want and the flavours have have combined –
at least ten minutes.
Serve hot. I like chilli best, served over ‛baked’
(ie, cooked whole in the pressure cooker) and split kumara (sweet
potatoes). But it also goes well with bread, rice, pasta, polenta
and quinoa. I have never tried it with potatoes, but am sure it
would go well with them in just about any form.
Note:
Chilli is one of those meals that
improves with keeping, so you can make it earlier in the day if you
feel like it, or if you’re making it for company. Re-heat it very
gently to prevent it burning and add a little more water if
necessary.
With polenta
Variations:
In roughconditions,
fry the vegetables in the pressure cooker, add the kidney beans, the
water, bulgur wheat, soya sauce, cocoa, oregano and spices, cover
and bring up to pressure. Let the pressure reduce gradually while
cooking pasta in another pan. Add the tomatoes and seasoning
after the pressure has reduced.
In reallyroughconditions, Just dump everything into the pressure cooker,
along with a further cup of water and 1/2 cup rice.
Bring up to pressure and cook for 10 to 15 minutes. Reduce pressure
naturally.
As an alternative to using rice, dump all the chilli
ingredients into the pressure cooker, stir well to mix them all
together and then put some kumara (sweet potatoes) on top. If they
are small ones, you will need to handle them with care because they
will be very soft after all
that cooking, but still delicious.
You can substitute TVP
for the bulgur wheat. If you do, fry it with the onions and garlic
and add some extra water when you tip in the beans./Substitute 1/4
cup whole lentils for the bulgur wheat.
If you're making 4
servings, the one can of tomatoes will suffice. You may need to
add more water to stop the sauce getting too thick.
I love Brussels sprouts and it always
seems a bit of a shame to use them as an addition on the side rather
than star of the show. They go very well with mushrooms and mixed
with this thick hemp sauce, shine in a really good combination to go
with pasta.
Hemp seeds, aka hemp hearts
Hemp seeds, also known as hemp hearts, are one of the
latest wonder foods, but I particularly like them for making vegan
milk and a cream for cooking, because there’s no need to soak them
first. Hemp is also a very low-impact crop to grow, requiring little
water and no fertiliser; it doesn’t have to be grown in the tropics
and processing the seeds doesn’t mean (generally) women are using
caustic chemicals, often with inadequate protection, so we should
certainly use it in preference to cashew nuts. To serve, linguine,
or fettuccine are my choice.
Unfortunately, you really do need a
blender or this sauce, although, of course, you could take the
concept and use some other form of cream.
Serves 2
Ingredients
olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 medium onion, diced
200 ml water
1/2 cup hemp seeds
1/2
tsp mushroom stock powder
2 tbsp nutritional
yeast
1/4 tsp salt
generous grind black
pepper
2 cups Brussels
sprouts, trimmed and halved
6 or 8 button
mushrooms, thickly sliced
fettucine or linguine –
about 25mm/1” dia. stacked on end
Parmesan cheese to serve
Method
Heat some olive oil
in a saucepan over a medium heat. Add the garlic and onion
and cook for a couple of minutes, until the onions become
translucent. Remove from heat.
Now add the cooked onion and
garlic to a blender, together with the water,hemphearts, stockpowder (if using), nutritionalyeast, salt and pepper. Blend for a minute or
so to make a smooth and creamy sauce. Taste and adjust seasonings.
Put some more oil in the saucepan,
and add the Brusselssprouts and cook for a few
minutes, until they start to brown on the edges.
Meanwhile, add water to another
saucepan and bring to the boil for the pasta. When it’s boiling,
cook the pastaas
usual.
Now add the mushrooms to
the sprouts and fry for a few more minutes, stirring frequently,
until they are browned. A pinch of salt might help here.
Lower the heat and add the prepared sauce to the vegetables and stir
to combine. Gently cook the sauce until it’s thick. When the
pasta is cooked, add it to the pan, saving the pasta water,
into a jug. Use some of this water to rinse out the blender and add
to the pan.
Cook the sauce a little longer: if
it seems too thick, add more of the pasta water.
Serve immediately with extra hemp seeds and/or Parmesan or vegan
"Parmesan" cheese.
Notes:
The pasta sauce will thicken
quickly once heated. Keep a close eye on it. If it is too thick, add
extra pasta water to loosen it up.
Variations:
You
could use other vegetables, such as asparagus,
green beans,mange-toutpeas,
etc instead of the
Brussels sprouts. But the latter are particularly good!
One
alternative I would
recommend is broccoli,
but cut it into very small florets, the same size as half a sprout,
otherwise the sauce won’t coat everything evenly.
Substitute dried mushrooms
for fresh, if these are unavailable.
I have just suggested 'Pasta' for his recipe, because it will really go with just about any short pasta. Indeed, if you make more sauce, it would also successfully coat a longer type of pasta. While
I've suggested specific
vegetables, this is essentially a meal that can be made using
ingredients you’d have in your lockers, with whatever vegetables
you have to hand. There is, however, one proviso to this: I suggest
sprinkling black sesame seeds over the meal when it’s served: white
sesame seeds can be used as a substitute, but the black ones look and
taste great!
Serves
2
Ingredients
1/2 cup of chickpeas, soaked and cooked
olive oil
1
onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
about 4 button mushrooms,
sliced
1/2 red pepper, chopped
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp chilli flakes, or
to taste
about 6 florets from a head of broccoli
4 handfuls of pasta,
such as fusilli
2 tbsp tahini
reserved water from the pasta
salt and
pepper
1 tbsp black sesame seeds
Method:
Cook
the chickpeas in the usual way and set aside.
Add
olive oil to a large saucepan over a moderately high heat.
Add
the onions and garlic and cook for a few minutes until
the onions are softening, stirring frequently to ensure nothing
burns.
Add
the mushroom and red pepper and sprinkle with salt,
stir into the onions and garlic and cook for a few minutes until
there is some colour on both the onions and red peppers, then lower
the heat. Add in the chilli flakes, stir well and cover.
Leave over a low heat while you cook the pasta.
Bring
salted water to boil in a saucepan and throw in the pasta.
Stir well to ensure that it doesn’t stick together. Bring back to
the boil, cover and lower the heat so that it doesn’t boil over.
Set the timer for 5 minutes
When
the timer rings, add the broccoli florets and cook until both
pasta and broccoli are just notsoft.
If you like crunchy broccoli, wait a bit longer before adding it.
While
this is cooking, put the tahiniinto a small, together with
generous amounts of saltand pepper.
When the pasta and broccoli are done, remove them from the water,
using a slotted spoon, or drain the water into a jug, and add them
to the vegetables.
Add
a tablespoonful or so of pasta
waterto the tahini and
mix to a smooth consistency. Tahini varies tremendously in how thick
it is, but you want to end up with a sauce that pours easily and
will coat the pasta and vegetables. Mix with a butter knife or mini
whisk until it becomes a creamy colour, then add to the pan.
Stir
gently until everything is mixed and serve.
Garnish
with a generous amount of black
sesame seeds.
Note:
If
you have no black sesame seeds, substitute with white.
I'm not sure the pasta water has the same effect when used with gluten-free pasta, but it can't do any harm!
Variations:
Use
whitebeansinstead of chickpeas.
Replace the
broccoli with cauliflowerflorets.
For a voyaging variation, use chopped cabbage.
Add
green beansor
asparaguswith
or instead of some of the other vegetables.
Replace the red
pepperwith carrot.
Add
a couple of tbsp of freeze-driedpeas with or instead of some of the
vegetables.
Use
bulgur wheatinstead
of pasta. In this case you will have to cook the broccoli
separately.
This is
an old favourite of mine. Incredibly simple to make, but
astonishingly good to eat. Moreover, this is perfect voyaging food,
because it is made from ingredients that you will have in your
lockers. I prefer it with fusilli – spirals – but of course it
will go with whatever pasta you have on board.
Pour
the oliveoil into a large saucepan over a medium
heat. Add the onion and cook until softened and translucent.
Add a little salt to speed things up, if you want.
When
the onion is almost cooked, add the garlic and cook until
it’s soft.
Now
add the tomatoes and rinse out the can with wine, if you’re
using it. If you’re using whole tomatoes, break them up with your
spoon.
If
you’re using them, stone and halve the olives. Add the
drained capers.
Season
with herbs andchilli flakes - which give a nice lift - and a generous amount of black pepper.
Taste and add salt if it can take it.
Bring
to the boil and add the chickpeas.
Lower
the heat and cook until the sauce has become quite thick.
When
the sauce is almost ready, cook the fusilli until it reaches
the consistency you like.
Remove
it from the cooking water with a slotted spoon, or drain it into a
jug (you may need some of the water to thin down the sauce) and add
it to the other pan. Cook for a few minutes longer. Check the
seasoning and serve.
Add
Parmesan (vegan, if you prefer) at the table, if you like it.
Notes:
Ideally,
use chopped tomatoes in purée, but if you don’t have those, any
others will do. It’s worth using better quality tomatoes in this
recipe (most recipes for that matter!) for the extra flavour. They
seem to be less watery, too.
Substitute
dried, cooked chickpeas with a can
Variation
Use
cannellini or butter beans.
Add
finely diced celery if you have some.
Try
this with pasta shells, or similar. You want a pasta that will hold
the sauce.