Recipes from the Rideau

Plantain, with clover and dandelion… salad! (The grass wouldn’t hurt but doesn’t taste like much and gets stuck in your teeth so nevermind it)

(With recipe-related existential ecorambling, and some mostly unrelated photos at the end.)

Writing again — about food, this time, to keep my mind off the bilge!

Even when I don’t cook, or cook much, I still love making food, especially when I can share it. Eating simple and obliging my nutritional concerns doesn’t throw any wrenches in that.

Now I’ve been adapting my food to boat life, and adapting boat food to my life. It works pretty well, so I thought I’d share some.

Mostly, I eat vegan. I love vegan food and principles. I use chick pea juice or soaked flax instead of egg, and if I have cheese, it’s usually vegan… occasionally I do eat eggs or dairy cheese, or get something from a restaurant, because my life is odd. Pickled eggs are extremely practical on a low tech sailboat.

I use foraged, local, or homegrown (gifted, lately!) ingredients whenever possible. If the fruit and vegetables aren’t organic, I soak them in clean water with baking soda to remove chemical residues. I use simple things as much as possible, the less additives and processing and shipping and industrial agriculture — the better… for body, community, and planet.

Now… either you’ll know what you’ll get when you visit, or you can make some of these yourself, block off a boat-shaped piece of your place, and pretend you’re visiting!

In a somewhat spontaneous order of appearance (because the laptop is packed up and I can’t figure out how to select and move a block of text on my phone), and based on serving two, here’s what’s been on the menu on the sailboat…

SAILBOAT BREAKFAST DRINK

In a cup or shaker, mix a couple spoons of powdered vegan gluten free vanilla drink mix, a spoonful of powdered peanut butter, and little gloob of tahini (or something similar, like pumpkin seed butter), a little splurt of walnut oil, a tiny pinch of nutmeg and/or cinnamon , maybe a nice spoonful of powdered coconut milk, and a smidge of honey if you really want but it’s totally not necessary… shake or mix or fork it till it’s mixed enough and Bob’s your uncle (or your friend’s friend, or your other friend’s husband, or anyways, make one for Bob too).

BOAT CHIA

Soak some chia in water with a lot of foraged berries (maybe smoosh some), a little honey, a pinch of nutmeg, and maybe a bit of powdered coconut milk… let it sit at least ten minutes till it gets pudding-y. Toss some crunched up (or not) nuts and/or seeds and/or granola/protein bar on top if you want, and/or a blob of yogurt, but chia has a lot of protein already.

PORRIDGE

Because it’s even better on a sailboat! Cook up some organic gluten free flakes like oat, quinoa, buckwheat.

Add a pinch of nutmeg and/or cinnamon if you like, and a spoon of coconut oil or something similar.

As it’s cooking, throw in one or two grated or chopped things like apple, banana, pumpkin, squash, sweet potato, beet (yes! it’s sweet and so healthy and means you get to have pinky-purple porridge!), basically anything naturally a little bit sweet… things in the warm colour family tend to work best because they tend to be sweeter, and a more fitting type of flavour. Green things do not generally work well in porridge, with the notable exception of pumpkin seeds (or green sporks).

The pumpkin seeds go in when it’s done cooking, though. Ditto other nuts and seeds, and a little walnut oil (it’s so good for the brain).

Fresh fruits and berries are lovely. Molasses adds sweetness and goes well with a bit of ginger added. Honey can be nice but not necessary. Top with a little yogurt or milk if you like, but I don’t bother.

FOUND SALAD

Forage everything you can — including flowers and berries— and toss it all with olive oil, vinegar or lemon or apple cider vinegar, garlic, and herbs… or… Thai Boat Sauce, above.

CARROT SLAW

Carrots keep great. Grate, or noodlize, or use one of those handy dandy julienne peelers today slawify a couple carrots.

Toss with apple cider vinegar, a gloob of tahini, a little olive oil, and salt and pepper, and garlic if you way.

If there’s grapevine handy, cut a good handful of leaves into really skinny strips and toss them in. Onion or a pepper are good too.

CHEESE(Y) SANDWICH

Put tahini on one piece of bread, and mustard on the other. Sprinkle a big pinch of nutritional yeast and a little salt on the mustard, and maybe add a little horseradish (or Marmite, if you can have it, which I can’t) to the tahini slice.

Tomato slices or chopped sorrel are good, too.

Give it a bit of (vegan gf) cheese, but if you don’t have it, don’t bother, especially if you’ve added tomato or sorrel.

PICKLED EGG SANDWICH

The egg is pickled, not the sandwich! It’s basically a normal egg salad sandwich arrived at by more boat-ly means. Eggs actually keep a whole lot longer than most of us think, especially if they’re hard boiled (as in cooked, not gangster). They also care less about refrigeration than a lot of us think. However, they still don’t keep forever, and that’s why pickled eggs were invented.

So…get the forky end of a spork, and moosh up two or three pickled eggs, depending on how much wlse you’ve got to mix in with it.

Add a good spoonful of tahini (or similar, but not peanut butter), a few nice pinches of nutritional yeast, and a little gloob of olive oil.

Add garlic and a big handful of chopped foraged sorrel, dill if you have it, or Cajun seasoning, or perhaps parsley, or thyme maybe, and salt and pepper. A blip of mustard is nice, too.

Put it on your sandwich, or eat it with tortilla chips.

RIVER TUNA

Use a good pastry cutter, or forky end if a spork, to half-smoosh a can of chick peas.

Add a good handful of foraged sorrel, some tahini, garlic, dill if you have it, lemon, tamari, and a sheet of seaweed crunched into smithereens. And salt and pepper. Yes it sounds funny — and yes it’s yummy and tuna-y!

Put it in a sandwich or have it with tortilla chips.

VEGGIE BURGERS

Honestly,nevermind … either go have one at Swan On The Rideau, or just throw a great big yummy mushroom on the grill — mmm!!!

Decorate your mushroom with condiments if you want, or season it with whatever you like, or even marinate it, or melt something on it, or simply appreciate the goodness of a lovely mushroom. They’re ridiculously healthy, downright tasty, and plus, they’re such fascinating things.

RIDEAU RAMEN

Cook two or three squares of those really healthy Korean ramen noodles, over a stove or fire, or in a kettle.

While it’s cooking, chop up a few handfuls of foraged reens… sorrel, grape leaves, clover, dandelion, whatever’s growing nearby.

A nice pepper, or some such thing,, wouldn’t go amiss if you happen to have anything like that, but you don’t need it.

Toss it all with the cook noodles, and add either:

Garlic and olive oil, and salt and pepper, or…

Tamari, sesame oil, peanut butter, lime, ginger, garlic… ta daa — Boat Thai sauce!

Try noodlizing a couple carrots or summer squash or zucchini or something instead of noodles… that’s really good too.

FANCY CAJUN BOAT BEANS

Drain part of the water from a can of cooked black beans.

Add foraged greens and/or handy veggies, chopped small.

Throw in lots of Cajun seasoning, some garlic, apple cider vinegar or lime juice, and salt and pepper. Stir in a little olive oil, and a spoonful of tahini if you’ve got that. A couple good spoonfuls of nutritional yeast is a very good idea too.

Mix it all up, squashing a few of the beans to hold the sauce together.

Eat it with tortillas, or if your tortillas have become tiny, sprinkle them on top.

FANCY THAI BOAT CHICK PEAS

Use the Thai Boat Sauce, above, to dress up a mostly- drained can of chick peas, adding chopped foraged greens, and a chopped pepper and/or mushroom if you have such.

SARAH’S RECIPE

Forage a few big handfuls of mint, and maybe a little but if grapevine leaves and/or sorrel.

Chop small, and add to cooked quinoa, with olive oil, lemon,pumpkin seeds, and garlic… the foraged gluten free sailboat version of Middle Eastern couscous or tabbouli!

PLIMSOLL UNSTUFFING

Plimsoll markings are required on cargo ships to manage load and balance, and have nothing whatsoever to do with this recipe or any other, but the recipe was invented while also talking about plimsoll markings, and then the conversations got tangled up, and here you go… Plimsoll Unstuffing.I

It’s unstuffing because there is no bird involved, just a good cast iron frying pan.

Take a few slices of bread and stick ‘em to the hull to dry… or cube them and hang them in a fine mesh produce bag in the sun to dry out the day before you want to eat the recipe. Personally, I went with the hanging method.

Heat a frying pan with avocado oil, and lots of rosemary, sage, thyme, garlic, and salt and pepper . Toss in the dry bread (preferably without seaweed, if you used the hull drying method). Sauté a little while, then add a little boiling water or broth or bean juice, and pop a lid on for a bit.

Have it with anything… drizzle some tahini dressing on it… toss it on top of soup or salad or Boat Beans… it doesn’t stick to anything but your ribs though, so don’t bother trying to apply any markings with it. That’d be such a waste, and it’s too yummy to waste.

TAHINI DRESSING

Not a boat-specific recipe, but awfully handy on a boat and made with stuff I usually have most of.

Shake, fork, or otherwise whup together a gloob of tahini, a good bunch of olive oil, some apple cider vinegar, a bit of lemon, a little soy sauce, some nutritional yeast, maybe a blip of mustard, a smidge of paprika, and salt and pepper. Add other seasoning if you want — it’s a very changeable recipe.

Use as salad dressing, drizzle on roast veggies or potatoes, there’s not much it’s not good on… I put this stuff on almost anything!

PBTs

On a warm day, when the peanut butter is soft and easy, use a spork to dab it on tortilla chips! If you’re really motivated, add a little nutmeg and/or cinnamon, and maybe a little coconut oil or walnut oil (though if walnut, you can’t share with your puppy). I like blending in a pinch of salt, too, and sometimes a smidge of molasses or occasionally honey.

VEGGIE SOUPTEA

It’s kind of in between, because there aren’t actual chopped fresh veggies in it and it’s made more like tea

Pour not quite boiling water in your travel mug with a couple spoons of good veggie broth mix, a spoon or top of that super greens type powder, turmeric, garlic, salt, pepper , and a good big pinch of nutritional yeast… shut, shake a little, and let it sit a bit before sipping. Sometimes I put in a little gloob of tahini, too.

And, of course…

TEA!!!

Hot herbal teas are always good, or sun tea made by steeping in a jar for a good while.

Forage your teas, — plantain, mint, all sorts of things — or carry some with you, or both. Either way, a little honey or lemon is nice sometimes, or toss in a few (squished) foraged berries Combine flavours, add herbs and spices, think about what smells nice together, and what feels good, and try it.

Tea makes everything better.

Have a cup while you peruse a book of herbal lore, or plant identification information websites, or facebook foraging groups… but ALWAYS be sure about what you’re foraging, and never ever forage mushrooms unless you either are, or are with, a well-versed mushroom guru!!!

Many plants have medicinal qualities — check about possible interactions if you have medications or intolerances.There’s no such thing as “just a plant”… most pharmaceutical compounds imitate natural medicinals are synthetic imitations of natural things we’ve known about and used for thousands of years. I have at least one of my own oogie boogie tea* concoctions every single day, and love them dearly. Respect the plants. Use them, eat them, steep them, enjoy them, grow them, by all means! But sensibly.

Eating simple and healthy, and local, are part of effecting a shift from industrial food to real food, as well as significantly decreasing carbon emissions due to shipping. It’s a lot better for you physically and other ways, and certainly a WHOLE lot better for the planet.

Foraging, growing, and sharing food — and tea! — creates basic bonds between people, probably based on things that go much father back than our knowledge does. It also creates bonding between us and the ecosystem we are part of… and it just feels so good. It’s late in the season now, but there’s still some out there, and by spring we’ll all know so much more.

I’d really like to write up a workshop on this — how to eat simple and local, foraging, and related words of wisdom I’ve learned from so many people. I’ll do the workshop at whatever places I can while sailing. I’d adjust it to fit local flora and whatnot as needed, which would be an overlapping process due to climate zone structure, even though dramatically shifting climate zones will of course affect that work.

I’d also like to develop a sailors’ version, geared to coastal areas… maybe that’d be a book.

I think we all want to live better. I’m pretty sure we’d all rather avoid extinction. It’d be beautiful to be able to change enough to believe the possible world we want will exist. Everything is part of that… even what’s on your spork.

With hope and determination, and a handful of sorrel,

Ann

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*A branch of my not-very-findable art and writing website is a business called The Oogie Boogie Tea Company… it doesn’t quite exist yet but please don’t steal my lovely name, anybody out there!

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I do have to buy groceries, still, and other stuff… I’m able and happy to live on very little, but if you can help manage the boatly budget to keep this project afloat, I’ll make you a lovely meal should we meet!

Sporadic and one-time support through Chuffed, at

https://chuffed.org/project/climate-emergency-sailboat

Ongoing support via Patreon (I’m still having trouble posting there, my apologies), at

https://patreon.com/climateemergencysailboat

Thank you, so much

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There ought to be photos of the concocted recipes here, but I never thought to take pictures! So, here’s some fall grapevine and plantain and shaggy mane mushrooms from Sirens, the spice bag (which I will return to you, Amani!), Skoro’s galley shelf with garlic and walnut oil and etc, our beautiful new kettle for shore power and camping (thank you!!!) and a couple other bits of recent life on the Climate Emergency Sailboat…

#eatsimple #what039sonyourspork #SwanontheRideau #tea #noodlize #naturalfoods #boatfood #coastalforaging #RideauRamen #farging #foodfreedom #foodintolerances #vegan #boatbeans #TahiniDressing #ecorambling #glutenfree #oogieboogietea #PlimsollStuffing