Annie's Mixed Herbs

I once bought a container of ‘Italian mixed herbs’ and for ages tried to puzzle out what was so special about it. At last, it came to me – there was a lot of fennel in the mixture. I found I much preferred the flavour to normal mixed herbs and when the container was finished, experimented with a number of combinations, until I came up with the following. I think there is a satisfying balance here between the sweet, the pungent and the robust, with the fennel adding that certain je ne sais quoi to the whole deal.You could, if you preferred, use ground fennel, but I always have fennel seed on board for my curries and if you happen to bite one, they add a delicious burst of flavour.

Incidentally, don’t even think of using ‘ground garlic’ in this – it tends to gum everything together.  If you don't have dried, minced garlic, then leave it out.   

The following recipe makes about ¼ of a cup.

1 tsp dried basil 

1.5 tsp fennel seed

1 tsp dried, minced garlic 

1 tsp dried mint 

1 tsp dried oregano 

1.5 tsp dried rosemary 

1.5 tsp dried sage

1 tsp dried thyme 

1/2 tsp ground cinammon 

1 tsp chilli flakes

 Mix everything together in a bowl and then put into an airtight jar.

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.

Ingredients

 

about 6 cups jumbo oats, for Gluten Free

OR a mixture of oats, rye and barley flakes

1/2 cup pumpkin seeds

1/2 cup sunflower seeds

1/2 cup Brazil nuts

1/2 cup mixed hazelnuts, walnuts and almonds

1 cup raisins and/or sultanas

25 dates

20 dried apricots

12 prunes

 

Method:

• Half fill the container with the oats or mixed flakes.
• Add the pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds and raisins. Mix everything together.
• Halve the nuts, add and mix.
• Chop the dates, add and mix.
• Chop the apricots, add and mix.
• Chop the prunes, add and mix.
• Top up the container with oats/flakes and mix one more time.

Variations:

• Muesli is very good with hot milk in cold weather.
• Top with slices of fresh fruit – nectarines, raspberries and strawberries are particularly good.
• In colder weather, I like to heat some fruit to put over the muesli. Squeeze a large orange into a small pan, add sliced banana and scoop out the contents of a kiwi fruit or persimmon or anything else you can lay hands on.
• Serve with thick yoghurt. I like a quarter cup of muesli mixed with a good dollop of yoghurt and no milk.
• Use any other nuts or dried fruits that take your fancy. Add desiccated coconut, too.
• Use fruit juice instead of milk.
• You can also put your muesli into a pan with milk or water and cook it like porridge (see recipe).

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.

Serves 2

⅔ cup oatmeal OR 1 cup rolled oats

2 cups water

pinch of salt

• Put the ingredients into a small saucepan and mix.

• Bring to the boil, stirring constantly.

• Turn down the heat as low as possible and cook, very gently, for about three minutes (more like ten for jumbo oats). Whatever you do, don’t burn it. It will taste dreadful if you do.

• Pour into bowls and eat immediately, with some milk and either salt (for the purists) or brown sugar (for most other people).

Variations:

• Try treacle, golden syrup (my dad’s choice), honey or dulce de leche (see recipe) to sweeten it.

• Use cream rather than milk. Who would have thought that porridge could be luxurious? (Yoghurt and porridge do not go together, in my opinion.)

• Add 1/4 cup of raisins with the oats.

• Use 50/50 milk and water to cook it. This makes a much richer version.

• Of course, substitute 2/3 cup of seawater for the fresh.

• Serve with sliced, fresh fruit.

Toast - and how to make a stove-top toaster

 

 

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. To make a toaster, what you need is some fine stainless steel mesh and some 3 mm (1/8 in) brass wire. Cut the mesh 175 mm (7 in) square. Make a wire framework about 150 mm (6 in) square, with a leg at each corner. The legs need to be about 40 mm (1½ in) high and are fabricated by bending the brass at right angles and then back along itself, thus creating a loop. Cut the corners of the mesh and wrap it over the framework you have just made, leaving a 10 mm (1/2 in) overlap, which you squeeze flat with pliers. Now take some more brass wire and thread it through the legs so that you create another 150 mm (6 in) frame. Cross it with two or three more lengths of wire. You may need to heat the brass to get it to bend and it’s probably easier to seize the cross wires on with some thin wire rather than trying to bend the brass wire. The result may not be particularly elegant, but never mind. A final refinement is to take another length of brass wire and form it into a handle.

To use the toaster, simply put it mesh side down over the flame and put your bread on the wire rack. It can also be used for poppadums, which will cook perfectly and very quickly this way and I also use mine for roasting aubergines, for Mock Caviare, and peppers (see recipes).

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 have made up a recipe you can make yourself.  Pic's business, by the way, is one of the few B Corp outfits in New Zealand: another reason for buying his peanut butter.

Annie's Big Mix

 

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.

  ANNIE'S BIG MIX

2/3 cup peanut butter

2 tbsp pumpkin seeds, roasted

2 tbsp sunflower seeds, roasted

1 tbsp hemp seeds

1 tbsp sesame seed

1 tbsp flax seeds

salt to taste

• Roast the pumpkin and sunflower seeds in a frying pan, with no oil, until crisp.

• Add to a 250 ml jar with the other seeds and salt. Shake to mix

• Top up with peanut butter - or tahini.

• Mix well.

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.

1 or 2 eggs per person

1½ cups water

• Bring the water to the boil. Seawater works just fine and seems to make no difference to the timing. It also has the advantage that if the egg is cracked, it will instantly set the white so that it doesn’t escape all over the place. With the tine of a fork or a sail needle, pierce a hole in the wide end of the egg. This will help prevent it from cracking, particularly in cold conditions.

• Carefully lower in the egg and cook for 4 minutes if you like a soft white, 6 minutes if you like the white firm and the yolk still slightly runny. These times assume a large egg. If you like your egg hard boiled, put it in the pan with the cold water.

• Remove from the pan as soon as the time is up and serve immediately, with bread, crackers or toast.

NOTES

If you are using fresh water and in spite of your making a hole in the end of the egg, it still cracks, immediately add a tsp salt, or a couple of tsp vinegar or lemon juice to the water. This should stop the white from leaking out into the water. In very rough conditions, it’s worth doing this as a precaution, anyway.