The Wonder of the Wonderbag: A Review

I was skeptical of the Wonderbag. First, cooking is not really my 'thing' and second, it looks more like a zafu meditation cushion than a culinary device. But a culinary device it is! The "Wonder" of the Wonderbag is the fact that this pillowy contraption is actually a slow cooker in disguise...and one which uses zero energy to boot. What the what?

My good friend Darcy was the first to tell me about the Wonderbag. I trust everything she recommends as she and I are equally thorough in our product selection so I knew I needed to consider it. Anything that makes cooking easier and/or less painful for me is a "win" in my book, so I decided to look a little further into it.

The Wonderbag is slightly more scientific than it looks, and is strategically designed to retain heat (or cold) for up to eight hours. With an insulated core that keeps heat from escaping, all you need to do is bring your food to a boil using conventional methods and then put it in the bag. Hours later and voila! your meal is not only fully cooked, but still piping hot. If that isn't compelling enough, the company is also socially responsible and for every bag purchased they donate a bag to a family in Africa. This company is making healthier, more sustainable meals all across the globe! After reading the incredible back story, reviews and getting input from fellow users, it was clear the Wonderbag made perfect sense for our boat. I reached out to the company to see if they would send us one and thankfully, they agreed.

WHAT I LOVE:

The first major advantage of the Wonderbag, for me, is the fact that I can cook dinner at noon. My girls nap every day from 12:30pm to about 2:30pm and this is literally the only time during daylight hours where I get anything productive done. I am usually out and about with the girls all morning and all afternoon, which means I am not home cooking. Come 4:45pm I am a harried and rushed mess trying to get our girls out of the pool/off the beach/back from the park and home in time to cook up something fast so I can get them bathed and in bed by 6:30pm. It's a little....hectic. Cooking on a small boat with three toddlers running amok is not exactly easy.

The Wonderbag changes all that.

The first meal I tried in my bag was my favorite go-to simple dish, one pot Mexican quinoa. I put the girls down for their naps and got to work. I followed the recipe, boiling the dish for 15 minutes or so and then plopping it in my Wonderbag. After wrangling the girls home from our afternoon outing, a hot meal was ready and waiting. No frantic thrown-together dinner. No rushing like mad because I needed to cook something, quick. We simply came home, showered up and ate. Sigh. I was sold.

The next meal I tried was a spinach lasagna. This one made me nervous because...well, lasagna made without the use of an oven? Strange. I found a recipe online, tweaked it slightly based on what I had available here, and got to work. Five hours later we had a delicious lasagna piping hot and ready to eat. Once again, I sang my gorgeous pillow-turned-cooking-contraption more praise.

I love that we use less energy to cook.

I love that I can leave food "cooking" on the boat without the worry of fire.

I love that, no matter what, the Wonderbag will not burn my food.

I love that I can cook at a time that is convenient for me.

I love that I can keep our girls out playing in nature, longer.

I just kind of love this thing.


WHAT I DON'T:

While the Wonderbag is amazing, it is a little on the large size which could be a problem for some smaller boats with less storage space. It resembles a giant pillow but, luckily, because it is "squish-able" is slightly easier to store. We have a small locker underneath a settee cushion where ours lives so it is not cumbersome or in the way in the slightest. Also, cooking with it can be a little tricky because water does not evaporate as it would over, say, a flame or in an oven. This means some recipes need a little tweaking. Luckily, the folks at Wonderbag have put together a great page on Tips and Tricks to help beginners like me. Like anything, I think the more I use this great product, the more efficient and easy it will be. They also have a fantastic Recipe Index with tried and true Wonderbag delights.


THE BOTTOM LINE:

I love my Wonderbag. For me, the fact that it keeps food warm for up to eight hours and allows me to cook meals at a time that is convenient for me is the only reason I need to own this thing. I LOVE IT.

Do you use a Wonderbag? Have any great recipes to share? Or is there another slow cooking method/product that you love aboard? Share in the comments if you wish!

What the Hell is Buried in There? Making Sense of a Top Loading Fridge

Boat life certainly has it's advantages, but refrigerator space is not one of them. You landlubbers know the scene: You're hungry. You fling open your refrigerator, standing in front of it quizzically as you take stock of all the bounty inside. Hmmm? You ponder. What to eat today? You scan the various shelves and drawers. You grab for the deli meat, and put it back. You tousle the block of cheese, but at the last minute decide on the leftover pizza from last night. You shut the door and dig in. Easy peasy.

You land folks have no idea what a luxury this little ritual is.

Most sailboats come with top-loading refrigerators (or ice boxes as they are more appropriately known) which are glorified coolers that get jam-packed with food, Tetris-style. This arrangement certainly makes the most sense of the space, but these 'boxes' quickly become trenches of despair and agony (particularly when the incredibly heavy top comes slamming down on your hand as you reach for the guacamole). Many a time I've noticed a stench only to start digging around only to find a two month old forgotten brick of cheese that had gone rogue and septic. It's not unusual to forget that I have not one, but two peppers at the bottom and only make the discovery when that second pepper is a soggy, putrid mess. Many times, the effort of digging through our "fridge" is simply not worth it and I end up noshing on a handful of almonds in lieu of an actual meal. In other words, boat fridges can be a pain in the "A" and there have been many a science experiment in ours. Not only is this gross, but it's wasteful.

Enter: The dry erase board.

This brilliantly simple "galley hack" comes from my good friend, Jody, over at Where the Coconuts Grow. I was getting a tour of her boat (we have sister ships) and she showed me the mirror that hangs above her icebox. "What's that for?" I asked curiously noting the scribbles that peppered it. And she told me. "It's the only way I know what's inside" she finished.  I was gob-smacked. BRILLIANT! The next day when Scott went into town, he picked up a cheap dry erase board from Home Depot.

Now, I not only know what fresh stuff I have inside without having to open it and rifle around (saving precious energy), but I can write down what I open and what needs to be eaten. For example, a jar of salsa was one of the things that would frequently be opened, replaced, and forgotten about - but now, I can write "1/2 jar of salsa" on the board and know that I need to eat that sooner than later. This also inadvertently helps with meal planning. When I see on the board that I have celery and a cucumber that needs to be eaten soon (I denote these items with an asterisk), I quickly decide on tuna salad sandwiches for lunch.

This great galley hack also caught the eye of my friend and bonafide 'Galley Guru' Carolyn of The Boat Galley. Check out what she had to say about it here, and be sure to look for some other tips in the comment section! Jody also wrote about this tip, among all other things "boat fridge" (from insulation to stowing), so be sure to check out her post here.

What great galley hacks have you learned? How would you perfect this system? Share in the comments!

Best Meal for Passage Making: Viva la Pasta!

A "Mediterranean" pasta salad with cucumber, chopped olives, chickpeas, tomatoes, oregano, basil, lemon juice and more.

Pasta:  It's whats for dinner.  And lunch.  And dinner again.

It's common knowledge that I despise the galley and all activities associated with it so anything that expedites my time in there is something that I can get down with.  While I have gotten much, much better at provisioning, meal-planning and keeping our diet more varied than last time (we sort of lived off rice and beans for a solid year there), I am still a creature of habit and when I find a little groove with something I go with it.

My latest groove is pasta salad.  It is the bona fide "little black dress" of the food world and can go from day to night with some minimal "accessorizing".  This is a particularly awesome food choice when making a full day passage of six hours or more when you don't really want to be cooking (in case it's rough which it usually can be in these parts) and you are too tired to make dinner by the time you drop anchor (because you have been sailing all day and are exhausted).

So what do I do? I make a two-fer.  One meal, two different ways.  Let me explain...

I make a pasta salad either the night before or the morning we leave.  I make a big batch and it's never the same thing twice.  I'll dress it up with any canned veggies I have like artichokes, green beans, sliced olives or diced tomatoes (seriously, you can put anything in it so go nuts).  I've also found I love to add a protein like a can of tuna fish or some chick peas.  I douse all that in olive oil, italian dressing or whatever spices tickle my fancy or seem to pair well and then, upon serving it cold, load it up with parmesan cheese.  It's easy, never the same thing twice and requires only minutes in the galley when underway (because it's pre-made).  Score.

But here's the clincher:  with a little dressing up, it also becomes dinner.  Dun, dun, dun!

When we drop the hook at 5 or 6pm after sailing for six, eight or twelve hours, the last thing I want to do is figure out a meal to make and cook it.  So I take the leftovers from lunch and bedazzle them into a completely different meal which I like to call "pasta casserole surprise".  Because, SURPRISE!! This was actually lunch, but now it's magically become dinner too!

I line a baking pan with some olive oil and a hefty dusting of bread crumbs.  I then add the pasta salad on top, smother with some red pasta sauce and top with a load of shredded mozzarella cheese (because, honestly, doesn't cheese make everything better?).  This, of course, is the most basic recipe.  Depending on what I have on hand I'll jazz it up even further with additional veggies and accouterments.

The basic ingredients neede to "dress up" the pasta salad lunch from above and turn it into a hot casserole dinner

For last night's dinner I had some extra tomato and eggplant on hand so I added those.

I first lined the pan with the olive oil and bread crumbs as per "basic" instructions, but then I added a layer of the sliced eggplant which I drizzled in olive oil and dusted in garlic powder.  I then added the pasta salad, topped with the fresh chopped tomatoes and then smothered in pasta sauce.  The piece de resistance, of course, is the cheese on top.  I used a whole packet of shredded mozzarella for the one pictured above.  Yum.

I place all this into an oven preheated to 350°, let cook for thirty minutes (broiling the cheese on top for a minute or two) and - voila! - a totally delicious, completely different meal that takes almost no time, utilizes very simple and easy to access ingredients and requires almost zero culinary effort!  Win, win, win.

Desperate Measures

Scott and I were big skiers in our land-based life.  Unfortunately, it's a passion that doesn't fit in too well with cruising because - in this part of the world - the seasons are the same.  But that doesn't mean I can't don my ski goggles from time to time.  Turns out, they are excellent at preventing the weepy eyes that result in onion-chopping.  Man do I hate chopping onions...

We just knew these would come in handy.

Provisioning Sucks

Our fridge, after going "grocery shopping" today.  We are in trouble.

I mentioned it a couple posts ago, but I seriously dread provisioning the boat.  I literally have no idea how to do it right and obviously this is 100% due to the simple fact that I am a terrible cook.  Sure, I can follow a recipe, but to just come up with something to cook for dinner? A couple times every single day? That is seriously hard work for me.  Each evening around dinner time I stand here in the galley, totally dumbfounded while staring at the mish-mash of contents in our cupboards.  I totally draw a blank.  I have ZERO creativity and to just, ya know, "throw this and that together" is not how I roll.  Nine times out of ten I end up settling on an apple with peanut butter, cheese and crackers or something similar.  This actually works great for me, but for Scott (who is a fat man in a fit man's body) these pairings are considered "snacks" and not "meals".  Men, ugh.

Scott's actually a great sport about it most of the time and even says he loves my "cooking" on the incredibly rare occasion I get inspired.  More than once during this hiatus, however, he's dropped hints that we need to kick it up a notch in the galley.  "Hey! I have an idea" he'll say all excited-like, "Let's come up with ten easy dishes that we like so that we can have a little variety in our diet this time around" or "Now that we have a fridge and freezer, I wonder if we'll eat peanut butter on toast every single day for breakfast?" Hint, hint.  (And yes, we actually did eat peanut butter on toast every day for almost a solid eighteen months).  On Rasmus our dinners were slightly more varied and usually one of these five things:  rice and beans, grilled cheese, stir fry, pasta or soup...I guess I could come up with five more?

Since we've been on land for a while I have gotten even more lazy, relying far too heavily on local cafes and frozen meals.  Scott (before he left on this last captain rotation) began to notice this as well.  After I served him frozen pizza for the fourth time in almost as many days (it was organic and light!) he declared that he would be the primary cook aboard our boat.  I guess that could be considered a victory for me?  Like the kid who gets out of dish duty by breaking dishes?  Either way, something is going to have to change because we cannot leave with a hundred frozen pizzas on this boat.  But man would that be awesome...

My problem is that I can eat the same thing, day in and day out, with no problem.  I blame my British mother (who I adore) and natural inclination towards routine for my bland palette   If you think I am exaggerating, I will have you know that during college I got a Christmas present from my local subway.  How many of you can boast that you went to your fast food place of choice so much that you got a Christmas present from them?  I can.  I bought a foot long sub (almost) every. single. day. of my senior year and ate half for lunch, half for dinner.  To blow your mind even further, I never even strayed from my "usual" turkey (no cheese) sandwich with extra yellow mustard and all the veggies (minus the hot stuff).  Yeah, I know: BOR-ING.  But it makes my point, right?

Anywho...I was sitting here going through our last provisioning list and doing online research about the mysterious art of stocking up on food and my brain just shut down, much like it does when trying to think of something to make for dinner.  I decided my time would be better spent telling you about this so I don't have to look at excel spreadsheets full of random ingredients that I have no idea how to put together for the next couple hours.  So, yeah.  There's that.  I am obviously procrastinating.

As for dinner tonight, I've got a liter of coconut water and some pre-made pasta salad that served as dinner last night and lunch today.  Sigh.  Bon apetit!

The Boat Galley: A Cookbook Givaway!

****This giveaway has closed***

Have you ever been to The Boat Galley?  If not - you should.  Carolyn Shearlock has been a long time "virtual friend" of mine and her blog is excellent.  Unlike me and many of the other general cruising bloggers out there, she really IS an expert in her field (cooking while cruising) and I have learned a ton about cooking, provisioning, storing and outfitting from her site.  When she emailed me to tell me that a) she had a book coming out and b) would I like a copy to review? it was a no-brainer.  Yes please!

Anyone who has read my blog for any length of time knows that I am absolutely hopeless in the galley.  I don't enjoy cooking, I'm not good at cooking and figuring out what to eat for dinner every night is a daily battle I despise waging.  I will happily eat the same thing for days on end and my creativity ends when a kitchen of any sort begins.  I need help and lots of it.  Historically, I have turned to Carolyn's website for ideas, tips and tricks, but now I can turn to her book!

Carolyn along with her writing partner Jan Irons have created a cooking volume that I truly believe will set the bar for cruising cookbooks.  The Boat Galley Cookbook boasts "800 everyday recipes and essential tips for cooking aboard" and it is just that.  They cover everything from galley safety tips to gear selection, from space optimization to energy efficiency - all the while offering excellent, relevant advice and practical pointers that will make you shake you're head and proclaim "why didn't I think of that?!".  The recipes offer options for every palette and are (most important!) super easy to navigate.  Looking for a one pot meal?  There's a chapter on those.  What about a meal for a cold night?  Yep, they've got that too.  Need a quick appetizer for a sundowner party?  The've got you covered.  I could go on and on, but you get the gist.  What's best is that all the recipes have been created with the cruiser in mind using as few ingredients possible and/or items which are easily found in most grocery stores around the world.  It's fantastic.  I still don't love cooking, but if I could ever love a cookbook, it'd be this one.

And now I get to give a copy to one of you fine readers!

If you'd like to enter to win The Boat Galley Cookbook - please do the following:

1. Hit the "Like" button at the bottom of this post THEN
2. Write a comment below so I know you shared and include your email address (so I know how to find you if/when you win!) 

I will chose one winner at random next Monday and announce him/her on our Facebook Page and on Twitter so keep you're eyes peeled!

Happy Cooking!

*Editor update 2/15/2013: I have now been using this cookbook aboard for two weeks and LOVE it.  The recipes are simple and delicious.  This is, hands down, the best cookbook for cruisers out there today.  I love it and I love the food that I'm making because of it!

Lessons Learned Baking Christmas Cookies (on a boat)

Peanut butter blossoms!  They don't look right, but they taste right!

As many of you who follow us on Facebook know, I entered the world of Christmas cookie baking a few days ago...

To be honest, I actually don't think I've ever baked Christmas cookies before (my best friend will tell you I have the worst memory though, which is why I started writing in the first place so maybe I just blocked it out?) and now I know why.

I learned many, many things during this foray into Christmas-cookieness, but the three biggest lessons I learned were the following:

1)  I now understand why people throw parties to make these things.
2)  I also know why I have not been invited to said parties.
3)  As much as I love Christmas, I do not really enjoy Christmas cookie making.

HOWEVER...

Christmas spirit beat out my lack of enthusiasm for baking, and I decided that I was going to surprise Scott and the passengers and crew of Diamant when they returned to port with a bounty of holiday delectables. Yay, me!  Eight hours later (that's right, eight) I had the following: 24 Mexican wedding cookies, 36 peanut butter blossoms, 36 chocolate-oatmeal-coconut cookies, a burned tongue, three small burns on my hands, one discarded pile of burned/melted chocolatey-marshmallow poo, a very sore back, a chocolate stain on the carpet, chocolate in my hair, flour in places there should not be flour and three beautiful gift tins of cookies to give away! It should also be noted that I used an entire roll of paper towel in the process.  Don't ask me how that's possible, but I did it.

Mexican wedding cookies are YUMMY.  These also don't look right, but they taste right.

This is what the boat looked like during the mayhem.

Other lessons I learned:

1. Shopping for christmas cookie supplies before you know what you are going to make does not make a whole lot of sense.
2. You can actually make your own powdered sugar by putting sugar in a food processor (this was the highlight of my day, btw)!
3. "One batch" in a normal oven is equal to two or three batches in a boat oven, which is only slightly larger than the Easy Bake oven you used when you were six.
4. The time to make "one batch" is actually doubled or tripled due to the above.
5. A boat gets really hot really, really fast when an oven is on for hours at a time.
6. It helps a lot to know for sure if your oven temperature is measured in Celsius or Fahrenheit (I still do not know, experimentation will continue).
7. You can't melt chocolate over an open flame.  Apparently it needs to be in something called a "water bath", whatever the hell that is.
8. Adding vegetable oil to melting chocolate while trying to heat it over an open flam does not make it more "melty".
9. Adding marshmallows to the clumpy, grainy, non-melty chocolate won't turn it into something edible after all.
10. Chocolate that has been heated over an open flame is as hot as molten lava and you should not "taste" it.  It will burn your tongue and make you scream expletives.
11. Chocolate that has been improperly melted and then dries is like cement and a major pain in the ass to clean from your cooking utensils.
12. A mellon-baller (why or how we have one I have no idea) makes a great cookie scooping/shaping mechanism.
13. Peanut Butter blossoms are really messy to make and cleaning peanut butter and shortening from your cooking utensils is about as easy as rinsing vaseline out of your hair with a trickle of water.
14. Hershey's kisses do not hold up to the tropical heat and the minute you try to "press" them into the cookie, they melt like Frosty on a black tarmac road in the middle of summer.  Chocolate will get everywhere.
15. Cooking three different types of cookies (plus one failed attempt at chocolate-dipped marshmallows) will take about eight hours if you are as incompetent as I am in a kitchen.
16. You people with things like "counters", "pantries", "electric mixers" and "human-sized sinks" really have it made in the shade.  I mean, honestly.
17. It's best to use two oven mits when handling scalding hot trays of cookies (we only have one, the other we accidentally donated to Poseidon).  
18. When you touch scalding hot trays of cookies, you will burn and it will hurt.
19. Despite all the follies, foibles and frustration - cookies made on a boat (with love, of course) actually taste really, really good!!

I realize most of these things are nothing new, but they are all lessons I learned.

A tray of holiday delectables!

In the end, I got three wonderful trays of cookies to give away as gifts.  One went to Scott and the crew over on the boat, one will go to the wonderful staff at the marina and the other...well, I might just keep it.  

Christophene Salad

There are lots of mysterious fruits and vegetables here in the Caribbean...

The oranges are green, the limes are yellow and there is something called a sugar apple that looks and tastes nothing like an apple at all (but is delicious).  They have unusual names like jack fruit, shadow benny, star fruit, paw paw, callaloo, soursop, carambola, breadfruit and - my latest fave - christophene.

I have been ever so slowly dipping my toe into these Caribbean staples.  Believe me, it's not easy for someone like me.  Some of this produce looks even funnier than it sounds.  I had seen christophene a hundred times since we got here, I'd even picked it up and examined it at the market a few times...but each time I would put it back wondering "what the heck would I do with that?"  Sure, I could have asked a market lady how to prepare it (as I have many times before) but something about the look and the name was just too intimidating, so I always walked away.

The other week my friend Sharon mentioned a delicious, easy, lettuce-free, salad she had eaten.  Knowing that I love salad and live on a boat with no refrigeration, she told me about it.  "It would be perfect for you!" she began, "It's full of cucumbers, tomatoes and you know what else?  Christophene!  It was delicious".  That was all I needed to break my fear.  I was going to make a christophene and cucumber salad!

The Christopene has the delectable consistency of a crispy green apple without the tart flavor and is actually pretty bland, but makes for an excellent salad addition because it picks up the flavor of whatever  you dress it with.  It also keeps very well and is about as sturdy as a squash, which makes it perfect for boaters like us who live in the dark ages without refrigeration.  Here's what I did - it was wonderful, crispy and fresh!

Caribbean Christophene Salad
Ingredients:

• 1 Christophene, sliced very thin and halved
• 1 large cucumber, sliced very thin and halved
• 10 ripe cherry tomatoes, halved
• 1 small red onion, sliced very thin and halved

Dressing:

• 3/4 cup of white vinegar
• 1 tablespoon of sugar
• 1/2 tablespoon of garlic salt
• 1/2 tablespoon fresh ground pepper

Combine all the ingredients in a bowl and mix.  Chill before serving (if you have that luxury, which we do not).  I think adding feta cheese, hearts of palm or artichoke hearts (I had none of these things) would be heavenly as well.

Love,
Brittany & Scott

Caribbean Plantain Bread

This past Sunday we were out of bread, bagels and scones for breakfast and the grocery stores were closed (everything pretty much closes on Sunday's down here).  "What do eat?", I wondered.  I didn't have much in the way of breakfast food, but I did have four over-ripe plantains.  While plantains and bananas are different, they are still similar so I thought, why not make banana bread and swap out the banana's for plantains?  It worked beautifully.  Here's the recipe I followed (obviously using plantains instead of bananas) if you feel like doing some baking this morning.  I have heard that plantains are "drier" than bananas so some people add pineapple to this recipe, but my bread was not dry at all so I'll leave it up to you.  I also had a friend suggest adding rum and next time I make this - I will definitely add a splash of our very best dark rum to kick it up a notch!

Love,
Brittany & Scott

Pumpkin Soup...From Scratch

One thing I love to eat is soup...

I know it seems counter intuitive living in a tropical climate and all, but there are just so many lovely, organic vegetables here from squash to callaloo to pumpkin - all perfect for soups - but we were missing one key ingredient: a way to blend them.

No more!  When I returned from my short visit home I brought with me a little Magic Bullet blender/food processor that will open up a world of recipes for us.  We had heard about this little guy before from many of our friends, and at just under $50, the price was right.  Now we can make smoothies, salsas, shakes and soups to our heart's content.  It's a great little gadget and, so far, I am so happy we got it.

My first soup (sans recipe!) was an absolute success; it was also super easy (requires a few simple ingredients all of which require zero refrigeration - bonus!), healthy and delicious, here it is:

Ingredients:

• 2 table spoons of olive oil
• 1/4 pumpkin, cubed
• 2 medium white potatoes, cubed
• 1 onion, chopped
• 4 garlic cloves, chopped
• 2 cups of vegetable broth
• 1 1/2 cups of full cream milk (I have this in cans)
• 2 tablespoons garlic salt
• Salt/Pepper to taste
• 2 tablespoons of fresh chopped ginger (optional)*

Directions:

1. Heat oil in pan, saute onions for about 5 minutes or until clear.
2. Add garlic, pumpkin and potatoes.  Sautee for another 5 minutes or so.
3. Add vegetable broth and milk.  Allow to reach a boil then simmer, stirring regularly.
4. Add garlic salt (and pepper if you wish).  Cook until pumpkin and potatoes are soft and pierced easily with a fork.
5. Transfer (in portions) to the Magic Bullett blender (or if you have a hand blender or something else, even better) and blend thoroughly.  Have a separate pot ready to put the blended soup in.
6. Salt/pepper to taste and ENJOY!

* I had bought what I thought was ginger to add to my soup, but turned out to be saffron.  Whoops!  So our soup was sans ginger, but I think it would add a nice flavor to it.

Caribbean Coconut Bread

For someone who doesn't like to cook, I sure am whipping up a lot of goodies these days, aren't I?

Truth is, I had some to-die-for coconut bread from a Rasta street vendor a few days ago and despite making forays into town every day since to find him again, I have not.  So I decided to take matters into my own hands.  It doesn't hurt that it's pretty easy* to make and coconut anything is Scott's favorite thing in the world and I wanted to make him a little treat for when he came home.  Plus, coconut bread is quintessentially Caribbean and I'm on a roll with this Caribbean cooking thing...

Here's the recipe if you want a taste of the Caribbean in your home!  This particular recipe yields a dense, DELICIOUS bread.

INGREDIENTS:

• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 1 Tbsp. baking powder
• 1/8 tsp. salt
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 large egg, slightly beaten
• 1/4 cup coconut milk
• 6 Tbsps. soft margarine, melted
• 1/2 tsp. vanilla
• 1/2 small coconut, peeled and grated
• 1 tsp. cinnamon (optional)
• 1/2 tsp. nutmeg (optional)

DIRECTIONS:

1. Preheat oven at 350°F/180°C
2. Sift dry ingredients in a bowl.
3. Combine sugar, beaten egg, coconut milk, melted margarine, vanilla, and grated coconut.
4. Scrape mixture into a greased loaf pan and shape as best you can with a spatula.
5. Bake for 30 minutes or until done (when you can prick it with a toothpick and it comes out clean).

Thanks to the Caribbean Choice website for this recipe which I altered a bit to suit our tastes!

Love,

Brittany & Scott

* Except grating the coconut!!  That is NOT easy and takes a lot of time.  You will break a sweat and may or may not lose a finger in the process.  Fresh is best, but I'm sure you can buy pre-shaved coconut if time is an issue or you just don't feel up to the chore.

Caribbean Burritos

So cooking isn't really my thing...

...there are just SO many other things I'd rather do with my time, but we gotta eat, right?  Every now and then I make a little something that surprises me and I feel compelled to share for all you other poor souls who feel lost in the galley.  If you're paying close attention you will realize I pretty much use the same few ingredients in every dish I make.  What can I say? Progress is slow around here.

Fancy making Caribbean burritos? Read on!

Ingredients:

• 1 can of black beans
• 1 white onion
• 1 large tomato 
• 1 large ripe (yellow) plantain (Substitute: 1 ripe banana)
• 1 small bunch of shadow benny (Substitute: cilantro)
• 1 tablespoon of cumin
• 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1 tablespoon of butter (to fry plantains)
• 1 tablespoon of oil (to fry onions, tomatos)
• Salt and pepper to taste
• Dash of hot sauce of your choice
• 2 roti skins (we can buy them pre-made here which is wonderful)

Directions:

1. Dice onions, tomatos, and cut plantains in slices that are 1/2 inch thick.
2. Heat oil in skillet, fry onions and tomatos (together) on high for about 8 minutes.
3. Add black beans, stirring frequently.  Add spices.  Stir.
4. Chop up a generous amount of shadow benny and add half to the bean mixture, stir.
5. Heat butter in another skillet, add the sliced plantains.  Fry on either side on med/high heat until browned on both sides (about 4-5 minutes per side, but watch closely).
6. Heat up the roti skins, and fill with beans, topping with fried plantains and sprinkle with diced shadow benny and a dash of hot sauce.

Bon appetite! Both sweet and savory (and healthy to boot!), Caribbean burritos are DELISH!

Love,

Brittany & Scott

Indian Fare: A meal fit for Popeye

 I'm strong to the finish, 'cause I eats me spinach. -Popeye

Today I made a good meal.  A really good meal.  With canned spinach as the main course.  I know, I know - most of you wouldn't touch canned spinach to save your lives - but for those of us who live on a boat without refrigeration, eating canned food is just a fact of life.  

I searched the internet for how to cook canned spinach, as I had no idea, and I found an Indian recipe that I bastardized* and made my own.  I think it's some sort of palak or paneer or something like that.  Either way, it worked. It was actually really, really good and really, really easy.  For you brave souls who want to try it, or for those of you who are living off canned food in a bomb shelter somewhere - here you go!

Ingredients:

• 3 tablespoons of butter (two for sautéing, one for later)
• 1 can spinach (drain only half the water)
• 1 can chickpeas (drained and rinsed)
• 1 medium white onion
• 5 garlic cloves
• 2 tablespoons of tomato paste
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1 tablespoon of ginger powder or fresh minced ginger root
• 2 heaping teaspoons garlic salt
• 1 teaspoon turmeric
• 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
• Salt/Pepper to taste

Directions:

1. Melt 2 tablespoons butter in pan over med/high heat.
2. Sauté onions until transparent.
3. Add garlic, sauté a minute or two.
4. Add spinach and sauté for a few minutes before lowering heat slightly.
5. Add spices, tomato paste and sugar - allow to cook for a few minutes, stirring frequently.
6. Add 1 tablespoon of butter and chickpeas, simmer for 10-15 minutes.
7. Add salt, fresh pepper to taste.
8. Serve over white rice and enjoy! 

Love,

Brittany & Scott

* To my wonderful Indian friends, I apologize.  This is probably VERY sub-par to your tastes!

Trini Doubles

“Food is a central activity of mankind and one of the single most significant trademarks of a culture."

- Mark Kurlansky

When people weren't warning us about the 'dangers' of traveling here, they were emphatically telling us that we simply had to eat "doubles", the unofficial culinary delight of Trinidad. When it comes to food (especially food that I don't have to cook) - we listen.

The other night Karly and Jason took us for an authentic Trini dining experience on the Savannah, which is reportedly the worlds largest roundabout. Covering 260 acres, the Savannah is Trinidad's largest public park and is popular with runners, cricketers, picnickers and (lucky us!) food vendors.

At night, the parking lot of the Savannah comes alive with ramshackle food stalls and trucks selling everything from roti to Buffalo wings, home-made soups to fresh-squeezed juices and, of course, doubles:  the definitive Trinidadian tour-de-flavor.

A "double" is a something like a soft-shell taco made of two pieces of fried flat bread ('bara'), filled with curried chickpeas ('chanaa') and topped with chutney. To say they are delicious would be an understatement. They are a perfect blend of sweet and savory and oh-so-yummy. Doubles are  typically eaten for breakfast (which is curious to me, being that the main ingredients are chickpeas and chutney), but are just as easily enjoyed as a late-night snack.

Eating them is a bit of an art but not unlike eating a runny soft-shell taco. You must gingerly grab the top piece of bread by two sides (making a sling of sorts) and try your best to keep the chanaa from spilling out.  Shove it in your mouth, take a bite and enjoy! It's a messy ordeal, but as far as I'm concerned: the messier the food, the better it is.  So dig in, get dirty and don't forget an extra napkin.

Doubles in the making

Mixing my delicious juice!

Karly getting some corn soup. 

Scott also got a "Peanut Punch" - another local trini favorite!

Love,

Brittany & Scott

Top 10 Tuesdays: 10 Easy Ways to Conserve Water

Water conservation is not something cruisers take lightly...  

Many of us have a very limited supply of water (our tank holds 60 gallons) and wasting water (yes, even if you have a watermaker) is frowned upon out here.  Gone are the days of the thirty minute shower (though, truth be told, I never understood what people were doing in there that long anyway...) and baths (oh, how I did love a bath!) are a thing of the past.  We don't begrudge it though - in fact, being more aware of the resources we use is bringing us closer to nature.  Did you know that there is a world-wide water crisis?  That over 1 billion people do not have access to safe drinking water and even more have no access to proper sanitation?  It's mind boggling what those of us in the "first world" take for granted.

"There is a water crisis today. But the crisis is not about having too little water to satisfy our needs. It is a crisis of managing water so badly that billions of people - and the environment - suffer badly." World Water Vision Report

In other words, we "haves" are very wasteful.

This is no bueno.

Top 10 Ways To Conserve Water On A Boat:

1. Use foot or hand pump when possible - every sink in our boat is equipped with a manual hand pump.  Hand/foot pumps use significantly less water than pressurized pumps (foot pumps are ideal and preferred, as you are "hands free").  BONUS TIP:  Outfitting your boat with at least one manual pump that brings in seawater is ideal - especially in the galley - as you can use it to wash the dishes (this is a 'future' Rasmus project), brining me to #2...
2. Use salt water to do dishes - we do all our dishes in salt water (no, none of our pots have rusted).  We plug up the sink, fill a bucket from the sea and fill the sink with saltwater.  Non-ultra Joy dish soap works great in salt water and we save ourselves gallons of fresh water over time. BONUS TIP:  On the rare occasions you wash with fresh water and use regular dish soap, like Dawn, mix the soap in a small dispenser with 1/2 soap, 1/2 water - that way it takes much less water to wash and rinse!
3. Use a spray bottle to rinse dishes - a tiny bit of water actually goes a very long way and after washing in salt water, have a spray bottle of fresh water available to rinse.  A few squirts and voila - dishes are salt-free and clean!
4. Bathe in salt water, rinse in fresh - don't knock it till you try it!  There is nothing like a bath in the ocean!  Jump in the water - scrub and suds up with soap and shampoo - jump back in the water - get out of the water - rinse with fresh.  I promise you, after you are all dry it feels no different or less clean than a "real" shower and again, you have saved a ton of fresh water.  We have an aft deck shower to rinse, but if you don't - consider getting  a Sun Shower, they work great and again, use very little water.
5. Collect rain water and/or wash the boat in a squall - while we haven't developed a great rain catchment solution on Rasmus, we do leave our buckets on deck to collect rain water.  This water is great for plants, for rinsing dishes, and for filling your tanks when you are far enough offshore to be free from pollutants.  Washing your boat during a squall is great as well.  Put on your bikini, get the deck brush and some soap and get to work! I do it all the time!
6. Outfit all faucets with a hands free instant off device - While we don't have this product, we have seen it before and almost bought it but didn't because we weren't sure it would work.  After seeing how pleased our friends on s/v Sarabande are with theirs, we plan to get some ASAP.  Can save you a tremendous amount of water over time!
7. Save cooking water to do dishes after - when you boil a pot of pasta, don't throw out that water!! Save it for later to wash dishes with!
8. Use a whistling tea kettle - this way, you'll know right away when the water is boiling and you won't waste water by way of evaporation.  BONUS TIP: In addition - cook with less water.  More often than not the directions tell us we need more water than we do!
9. Use a half-gallon garden sprayer for on-deck rinsing - you can get these from any hardware store and they are great at making a little water go a long way.  Great for an anchor wash down (or, if you have a salt water rinse up on deck - even better!), or a quick deck rinse and more.  Doing a light rinse with freshwater will do a salty boat good!
10. Flush toilets with salt water - flushing toilets with fresh water, especially on a boat, is incredibly wasteful.  Salt water works just as well and there are many very easy ways to avoid the calcification that occurs when urine and salt water meet, such as doing weekly flushes with vinegar.  What comes from the sea shall return to the sea anyway, right?

So there you have it!  While most of these apply to living on a boat, I challenge you landlubbers to be a little more thoughtful about your water consumption as well!  In fact, here are 100 Tips, just for you!

Anyone else have any great water conservation tips that I missed?

Love,
Brittany & Scott

Market Day

What better way to cool off than to buy a chilled-down coconut, stick a straw in it and drink?

I love, love, LOVE local fresh markets.  I've written about this fact before - so when my friend, Alicia, suggested we hit up the market together, I jumped at the chance.  The timing was perfect - we were in dire need of a market run - our fresh food stores were dismal and meals were suffering...

The market here in Grenada is nothing short of wonderful.  They have everything from local jewelry to spices in the raw, from exotic fruits to standard vegetables and everything in between (except arugula, which I am dying to make a salad with).  We went to the market on a "slow" day (the big day is Saturday) - which is a blessing in disguise - because we were able to peruse and meander through the winding alleys at our own pace, without the frenetic elbow-to-elbow crowds of the Saturday mayhem. What was best though was that we were free stop and chat with some of the friendly shopkeepers (have I mentioned how wonderful the Grenadian people are?!).  Alicia even got a natural remedy from one mama on how to help bring down the fever sweet baby James's suffered the night before.  These mamas are a wealth of knowledge, I tell you.

About an hour and a half later our bags were overflowing with the kind of fresh produce that makes a mouth water: ripe starfruit, juicy mangos, fragrant passion fruit (my personal fave), giant cucumbers, organic tomatoes, leafy lettuce, buttery avocados, cooking plantains and more.  We'll be eating well...at least for the next few days, that is.

Love, 

Brittany & Scott