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
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.