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
Simply
combine the yoghurt, herbs, salt and pepper together in a bowl. Let them stand for
at least a quarter of an hour for the flavours to combine. Check the
seasoning and serve with crudités.
Variations:
Use
fresh herbs if any are available.
Use half-and-half or all
mayonnaise, especially if it’s home-made.
Use 1 tbsp Dijon
mustard instead of the herbs.
Leave out the herbs and combine
with finely grated cheese.
Try all of the above ideas
together!
Leave out Annie’s Mixed Herbs, and add 1 tsp sun-dried
tomato purée and 1/2 tsp basil.
Substitute mint
for Annie's Mixed Herbs and chop in a small cucumber.
If you
have any on board, dice a few pepperdews and mix those in. Leave out or reduce the amount of herbs.
These
make a delicious lunch, with some bread and a salad. However, when
arranged attractively on a plate, they also make an excellent snack with
drinks, or a starter.
Serves
2
2
hard-boiled eggs
1
tsp curry paste
1
tsp mayonnaise
Method:
When
the eggs are cold, peel them and slice them in half,
lengthwise.
Using a teaspoon, carefully remove the yolk and put it
into a bowl.
Add the curry paste and mayonnaise to the yolks and combine them to make the stuffing.
Pile the stuffing back into the egg whites.
Variations:
Use
yoghurt instead of mayonnaise.
Leave out the curry paste and
use tomato purée instead. Season with salt and
pepper.
Leave out the curry paste and chop fresh herbs and
mix these in with the mayonnaise, egg yolks and salt and pepper.
Instead of curry
paste, use hot sauce and a little extra mayonnaise or yoghurt.
In
Spain, they sell slices of tortilla to take away and eat as a
snack or for a quick lunch. It also makes a lovely and unusual
starter, especially before a lighter main course. I should like to
offer a vegan version of this, but so far am still struggling to find a
decent recipe, and I don't want to use a processed product such as "Just
Eggs", even assuming I could find it. I am
very unconvinced that a gram flour 'white sauce' is a substitute for
beaten
eggs.
Serves 4 as a starter, 2 for a light lunch
2
potatoes
2
onions
2
garlic cloves
2
tbsp olive oil
salt
and pepper
4
eggs
Method:
Slice
the potatoes and onions and chop the garlic.
Heat the oil in a frying
pan and add the vegetables. Cover and cook over a medium heat for
about ten minutes, stirring every few minutes to ensure that
everything gets cooked. When the potatoes are completely cooked,
arrange all the vegetables in an even layer in the pan.
Season
generously with salt and pepper.
Break the eggs into a bowl and beat
them gently – just enough to amalgamate the yolks and the whites.
Then pour the eggs over the potatoes and onions and tilt the pan to
ensure that they’re evenly distributed.
Cover, lower the heat and
cook for a further 10 minutes or until the eggs are set.
Tortilla
is generally eaten lukewarm, but is delicious hot, for lunch.
These
little, crisp savoury fritters make a delicious starter to an
Indian-style meal. They can also be served as a snack or with
drinks.
Serves 4 for a starter
1/4
cup gram flour
1/4
tsp salt
1/4
tsp baking powder
1/4
tsp cumin
1/4
tsp coriander
1/8
tsp turmeric
1/4
tsp garam masala
1/8
tsp chilli flakes
1/4
tsp methi (dried fenugreek leaves)
1/4
cup water
a
few drops hot sauce
2
onions
oil for frying
Method:
Mix
the flour, salt and baking powder together. If the flour is a little
bit lumpy, use a mini whisk. Stir in the cumin, coriander, turmeric, garam masala, chilli flakes and methi.
Now add the water
and mix to make a smooth paste. Add the hot sauce.
Dice the onion
and separate it into pieces. Add these to the batter and mix very
thoroughly so that all the onion pieces are coated in batter.
Heat a
few tbsp oil in a small saucepan, wok or frying pan.
When
the oil is hot, test it by dropping in 1/2 tsp batter. This should
instantly puff up and float on the surface.
When this happens, drop
in tablespoonfuls of onion-and-batter. They should be cooking so
quickly that you will be lucky to handle more than 3 at any one time.
Put one in, turn the second over, take the third one out using tongs
or a perforated spoon.
Put on kitchen paper on a plate and keep warm.
Eat them as soon as the final one is cooked.
Serve with a little
yoghurt, seasoned with mint or spices, or with Indian pickle or
chutney.
Variation:
Try
other vegetables, such as greenpepper, courgette,spinach, or lightly-cooked potato. Or use plantain.
In
much of southern Spain, you can buy long, thin peppers, which look like
an overgrown chilli. In fact they are ‘sweet’ and the locals
tend to cook them on a plancha, which is essentially a sheet
of well-seasoned steel, that's placed at one end of the barbecue.
Hot coals are swept under it and the metal gets extremely hot. When
the peppers are cooked like this, the skins char and the core and
seeds cook to a delectable softness and do in fact, taste positively
sweet. They’re unbelievably good with lots of coarse salt ground
over them. Occasionally, one of the peppers is spicy hot, which causes
much amusement, when the greedy diner has bitten a huge chunk off the
end. Lacking a large barbecue and plancha, I suggest cooking
them in a more mundane frying pan. They
are sublime as a starter, because you just have the peppers alone and
can really appreicate the flavours. The long, thing ones (sometimes
sold as Romano) are full of scalding hot juice - be careful! - which is totally delicious and can
be mopped up with bread.
Although
they’re common in both Spain and South America, these slender
peppers are not easy to find elsewhere. However, ordinary peppers
make a good second best, although the seeds don’t cook the same way
and aren't usually worth eating. You can also find miniature peppers which
taste equally appetising when cooked this way - seeds and all.
Roast
peppers have become very popular recently, and many people cook them
over the barbecue. Nothing, however, quite matches the searing heat
of a hot plancha or frying pan.
Serves 4 as a starter
12
Spanish peppers or 4 peppers
olive
oil
coarse
sea salt
Method:
Wipe the peppers. If using ordinary perppers, quarter them and remove the seeds.
Heat the oil to smoking hot in a
heavy frying pan. Put in the (pieces of) pepper(s) and toss them in
the oil. If you think you're going to overload the pan, cook them
in batches.
Using tongs, keep them moving so that most of the skin
gets burnt and almost blackened. The inside should soften at the same
time.
Remove the cooked peppers and keep hot. Add more to the pan
(with extra oil, if necessary) and repeat the process until such time
as all the peppers are cooked.
If you’ve nowhere to keep them hot,
chuck them all back into the pan, after the last ones are cooked, so
that they’re reheated.
Serve with plenty of salt and some fresh bread to mop up the oil and juices.