This blog used to be about finding a way to be comfortable in the sometimes uncomfortable cruising life with the sea. After cruising five years, we found out that the focus needed to be on finding a way to live a healthy life while cruising, something we found very difficult to do. Although the original comfort food recipes are still in the sidebar (because we all need a treat once in awhile,) the new posts will all center on healthy recipes that can be prepared in a boat galley or at home.
After a warm Winter, long Spring, Summer from hell, Fall dropped on us rather abruptly. It got cold. Fast. As a result, it was the perfect weather for our Chili / Soup Cookoff, an annual affair here at Boulder Marina, and I opted for the soup entry of chicken noodle with homemade noodles. Everyone always goes crazy over homemade noodles saying how much it makes them think of their grandma. They look on them with awe and a bit of trepidation when, in reality, they're pretty easy to make. Give it a try sometime when you have an hour or two that you want to spend thinking of your grandma and her wonderful smelling kitchen.
Ingredients:
1 cup flour
2 eggs
dash of salt (or more if you're my husband)
Directions:
Each cup of flour and 2 eggs makes enough noodles for a very healthy serving for two people. The pasta is the same whether you're making thick dumpling style noodles or thin spaghetti style ones. You just roll it to the appropriate thickness for whatever you're making.
Put the flour in a big bowl. Mix in the salt if you're using it and make a well in the middle of the mixture. Break your eggs into the well.
Stir with a wooden spoon until the flour is incorporated and it forms a ball. At this point, use your hands to finish working in any stray flour. It should be a firm dough but not dry or too sticky either. You may have to add a little flour if it's extremely humid, but be careful not to add too much.
Cover the dough ball with plastic wrap and a towel and let it rest for at least 15 minutes. Do not skip this step!
If you skip this step, the dough will spring back when you try to roll it out and it will be a very frustrating experience. Maybe this is why so many people are afraid of making them?
If you made more than one recipe (I made a triple batch), divide the dough into smaller balls that you can roll out. Here I had a triple recipe divided into 4 balls and it made about an 11 x 13 rectangle. I rolled it pretty thick for dumpling style noodles, but for most pasta it will be paper thin.
Once you get it rolled out you can cut the edges square if you want.
If you have one on board, a pizza cutter is the way to cut noodles. If not, use a very sharp knife and cut them. Remember that noodles double in size when you cook them so make them pretty thin for regular noodles. Mine are super thick for my dumpling style noodles.
You can lay them over a cooling rack suspended on some glasses, or we have this handy bulkhead by the nav station. You can even lay them on regular towels but it takes a little longer to dry than if you hang them in the air. You can dry them in the sun on a towel or cardboard as well. Be creative - even a clothesline will work great. If you're cooking them right away then you can put them straight into any boiling water or broth. Otherwise they need to dry completely to store. If you're cooking them right away, they only take a couple minutes to cook. For thin spaghetti pasta it's seriously only about 2 minutes. For these thick noodles I'll cook them in my chicken noodle soup for 10-15 minutes because they were dried. If you dry them well, they will keep for a few weeks at room temperature but they do pick up moisture so they need to be sealed in a ziploc and checked periodically. I find it's best only to make what you need at a time.
Sorry I don't have a picture of the finished soup - it was a busy day and I totally forgot!
A friend of ours here at the marina is in the Marines and evidently they have to pass a fitness test twice a year which includes a weigh-in. Much to his dismay, he's been enjoying the marina evening life a bit too much and had put on a few pounds that he now has to shed before the test. The discussion at the Friday night get together was centered largely around healthy food, something that is an ongoing discussion at our house in the city due to the food allergies of my grandkids. As I look at the recipes on this blog, though, not very many of them are healthy food choices, something which you'll have to pardon me for if you're a Marine, but the blog title is Cruising Comforts, and in this case, comforts is the word of choice. Comfort food is a large part of my life. My grandmother was an excellent cook as were both my mother and father. Food was always an integral part of our family gatherings, and was often provided when we were sick or sad. To this day, I can smell certain foods and be transported right back to my dad's side at our 4th of July picnic where he would be fussing over his pecan pie. I know it's not the politically correct thing to do today, but cruising can be a stressful endeavor at times and as long as it's in moderation, comfort food is very welcome at that middle of the night watch in bad weather. So with that in mind, here is the recipe for my aunt's peanut butter fingers, a cookie that was a staple on the Christmas cookie tray at the family holiday celebrations. (Pardon a few blurry pictures - the wind has been gusting to 32 here in the slip and we're rocking a rolling. Little hard to get clear pictures that way)
Ingredients:
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg
1/3 cup peanut butter
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 teaspoon soda
1 cup flour
1 cup quick oats
1 cup semisweet or milk chocolate chips
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1/4 cup peanut butter
2 to 4 tablespoons milk
Directions:
Cream together butter, sugar and brown sugar, egg, peanut butter, and vanilla. As I mentioned in another post, if you don't have an electric mixer, use a potato ricer/masher. It will mix in even the coldest butter. Here's a picture of it partially mixed. You can see how it cuts the butter up. I find that the flat kind with square holes in the face works better than the kind with the S-turn wire face.
Here's the way it should look after it's mixed well.
Measure out a cup of chocolate chips from a 10 or 12 ounce bag. Set aside. Stir in flour, salt, soda and oats and remaining chocolate chips.
Spread in a greased and floured 9x13-inch pan. Bake at 350° for 20 to 25 minutes, or until lightly browned. Take care not to overcook.
Sprinkle reserved chocolate chips on top of hot dough and return to oven for 1 minute. Remove from oven and spread over top of hot dough evenly.
Combine powdered sugar and peanut butter until no lumps remain. Add milk a teaspoon at a time until you have a consistency that you can drizzle from a spoon, but not any thinner.
Drizzle over cookie mixture. Let cool and cut into 2- X 1-inch bars.
It's Fall and with the change in the calendar comes the wonderful change in the weather. It's especially meaningful to us here in the Midwest since we suffered such a brutal summer this year. My good fisherman friend Ralph, who walks the docks at the marina, also happens to own a few apple trees and was kind enough to bring me a bucket of apples last week. My daughter has been hounding me for apple dumplings so I used the apples tonight to make them. I wasn't on the boat, but rather in my kitchen at home and, to be quite honest, I didn't even think about doing a recipe post until they were all done and out of the oven. So this time all you get is the recipe and the final picture and if you have any difficulty just let me know in the comments and I'll do my best to help.
Ingredients:
15 small apples or 12 larger ones
Juice of 2 lemons
3 recipes of pie crust (see below for the best one ever)
1 cup cinnamon sugar
1 stick of cold butter
Sauce (see below)
Peel apples and leave whole. Place in large bowl and coat with lemon juice to keep from turning brown. Set aside. Make pie crust recipes. Here is the recipe for a single crust which you need to multiply times three if you're doing all of the apples:
1-1/3 cup sifted flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup butter flavor shortening
1/4 cup ice water
Sift flour, measure, then sift into bowl with the salt. Add shortening and "cut" in with wire whisk until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Add ice water and toss lightly with fork until it comes together in a ball. Divide into balls for how many apples you are using or use the whole crust in a pie.
Roll a pastry ball into a circle. Using one of those apple slicer/corer/wedger things, press down on apple and remove core. Place a pat of butter in the middle and cup your hands around the apple, squeezing the butter in the middle to hold it together. Place apple on crust circle and spoon in a teaspoon or two of cinnamon sugar. Wrap crust up around apple and press together. Place in a 9 x 13 pan. Repeat for all of the apples. Bake at 425° for 20 minutes.
Make sauce: 2 cups packed brown sugar
1 cup water
2 tsp cinnamon.
Mix sugar and water and cinnamon and boil for 1 minute. Spoon over dumplings and return to oven for another 20 minutes or until apples are tender when tested with a sharp knife.
Spoon syrup over apples from bottom of pan and let cool slightly before serving. These are good with ice cream or in a bowl with milk.
Cruisers never seem to know what to do with those ubiquitous cans of food that they all stock up with when provisioning, as if civilization will come to an end and they will have to live off the cans for the foreseeable future. I would be guilty of that - my boat pantry is full of them, even though we come loaded with fresh food every week. So last week I decided to make some salmon patties with 2 of the cans and they turned out so good that I had to remake them this week and try to write down the recipe. I am completely guilty as charged with cooking without a recipe. So here we go - I was able to repeat the performance.
Ingredients:
2 short cans of pink salmon, or 1 tall can, bones removed.
1 egg
1/3 cup yogurt, or 1/4 cup if your salmon is very wet.
1 short stack of Ritz crackers or cracker crumbs, divided
1-1/2 tsp Jane's Crazy Mixed Up Salt
1/2 cup flour
Remaining 2 Tbl cracker crumbs
1-1/2 tsp Jerk seasoning (I used Penzeys)
1 tsp Janes Crazy Mixed Up Salt
1/4 cup oil
Directions:
Place crackers in ziplock sandwich bag. Use rolling pin (or thermos as you see here) and crush to fine crumbs, or use pre-packaged cracker crumbs. Set aside.
Place salmon in medium bowl. Remove all bones. Stir to break up into small crumbles.
Mix flour, jerk seasoning and salt on a plate. Set aside.
Heat oil in skillet on medium heat.
Reserve 2 Tbl cracker crumbs. Add remaining crumbs, egg, yogurt, and salt to salmon. Mix well. Divide into 4 portions and shape each portion into a patty.
With other hand, pat flour mixture onto outside of patty, turning and covering other side and all edges.
Place patties in hot oil and cook till golden on one side, approximately 5 minutes depending on your burner. Turn, and cook other side till golden.
Serve with whatever pasta bits you might have lurking in your pantry - you can see here we mixed macaroni and noodles because I had about 2 spoonfuls of each. Enjoy!
I grew up with this coffee cake. My mom used to make it on Saturday mornings and I have the fondest memories every time I smell the vanilla and cinnamon wafting from the oven. I have a lot of recipes that have these very same ingredients in them but I can tell you every time when it's the coffee cake in the oven. Right now it's Sunday morning on the boat. A cloudy Sunday morning after a difficult late night and it just seemed the right comfort food to have for brunch. Enjoy.
Cake Batter: 1/2 cup butter 1 cup sugar 2 large eggs 1 tsp vanilla 2 cups all purpose flour 1 teaspoon baking powder 1 teaspoon baking soda 1/2 teaspoon salt 1 cup sour cream or plain yogurt Topping: 1/2 cup packed brown sugar 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon 2 teaspoons vanilla 1/2 cup chopped walnuts
Cream the butter, sugar, eggs, and vanilla in a large bowl. I don't have an electric mixer on board so I use a potato masher for this and it works great. Once it's mixed together I use a whisk to whip it till it's light and fluffy.
Whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a medium bowl. Set aside.
Mix the brown sugar, cinnamon, vanilla and walnuts together. Set aside. Once you have the three bowls ready and your yogurt, you can begin to combine them. Mix half of the flour mixture into the egg/sugar mixture and stir well to combine. It should look like very thick batter like the picture at the left.
Add half of the sour cream and stir till combined. Don't worry if the batter looks like it's going to start separating. This is normal.
Add the remaining flour and stir well and then add the remaining sour cream and stir again. It should look like normal cake batter, only thicker.
Spread half of the batter into the greased 9 x 13 pan. It will just barely cover the pan about 1/2" thick. Take half of the topping mixture and sprinkle evenly on top of the batter. Take the remaining batter and drop by spoonfuls onto the topping mixture in the pan. Carefully spread the batter to cover the topping mixture without mixing in the topping mixture. Take remaining half of the topping mixture and sprinkle it evenly over the second batter layer. Bake at 350° for 25-35 minutes depending on your boat's oven. The top should be golden brown.
Tool Tip:
The lowly potato masher is a liveaboard / cruiser's best friend. Use it to mix heavy cookie doughs, cold butter, any vegetable including, of course, the potato. Best $2.79 you'll ever spend.
I'm a sucker for a good thin crust pizza. The problem is the "good" part of that sentence. It's pretty hard to find anything exceptional in the land of pre-fab carboard box pizzas. That was until my daughter moved in with us more than a year ago. Along with her came her subscription to Cooks Illustrated, and the first and probably my favorite recipe, the one for the pizza crust. She practiced on us over a few months, perfecting the recipe into something you can only dream about. Crispy, delicate crust with a flavor to die for. So give it a try - it's worth it I promise, but don't expect to master it in one try. It may take you a month or two of consistent attempts, but I promise your family will be grateful.
This recipe makes 3 large pizzas that will feed 4 adults and 3 very hungry kids. I generally cut it in half for the two of us and we have one largish medium one for dinner and one for lunch the next day. If you absolutely must you can substitute all-purpose flour for the bread flour, but you will not get the crispy crust. You need the high protein content of bread flour to get that crispy wonderfulness.
Ingredients:
1/2 cup warm water (105 to 115 degrees)
1 envelope (2 1/4 teaspoons) rapid-rise yeast
1-1/4cups water at room temperature
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
4 cups (20 ounces) bread flour , plus more for dusting work surfaces and hands
1-1/2teaspoons salt
Olive oil or nonstick cooking spray for oiling the bowl
Instructions:
Measure the warm water into a 2-cup measuring cup. Sprinkle in the yeast and let stand until the yeast dissolves and swells, about 5 minutes.
Add the room-temperature water and oil and stir to combine.
Combine the salt and half the flour in a deep bowl.
Add the liquid ingredients and use a wooden spoon to combine. Add the remaining flour, stirring until a cohesive mass forms.
Turn the dough only a lightly floured work surface and knead until smooth and elastic, 7 to 8 minutes, using as little dusting flour as possible while kneading.
Form the dough into a ball, put it in a deep oiled bowl and cover with plastic wrap.Find a warm place to rise your dough. When we're at our house, I use one
of those microwave heating pads and set it next to the dough inside the
microwave. When we're on the boat I usually set it in the sun. The one
most common error new yeast bakers do is to set their dough where there
is a draft. A draft will cause the yeast not to raise.Let it rise until doubled in size, 1 1/2 to 2 hours. (Sorry about the blurry image. It is a boat, and it's on water with power boat wake.)
While the dough is rising, get your topping ingredients ready. We like bacon and pepperoni and parmesan so that's what you see here.
When you dough has nearly doubled in size, preheat your oven to 500°.
Use either a pizza stone or a few unglazed terra cotta tiles. Be sure that the tiles you get are lead-free.
Cut the dough into however many pizzas you want to make and begin to shape it.
Place the shaped dough on a square or round of parchment paper. Do not use anything else but parchment paper or you will not ever get a delicate crispy crust. Trust me on this! Place the parchment paper on a pizza paddle or an inverted cookie sheet.
Add the sauce being careful not to use too much. Add your toppings, again not using too much as this will soften the crust. Slide the parchment paper off the paddle or cookie sheet directly onto the pizza stone or tiles.
Bake at500° for 6-8 minutes, watching carefully as it will go from
perfect to burned in less than 30 seconds. Use the paddle or cookie
sheet to remove it from the oven. Enjoy!
I rarely pass on product information on a product that I haven't tried yet, but I'm entering a giveaway on Windtraveler.net for an Aeropress coffe maker and I wanted to tell you all about it because it looks fascinating! One of my biggest gripes about French press coffee makers is the mess. It's hard to get the grounds out of the press when you're done and it requires a ton of water to clean. Brittany at Windtraveler.net assures me that this press is easy to use and cleans up in a flash with very little water. I trust her, but don't you think I should win it so I can be sure???
