Thermal Scones – Cheese And Onion

Thermal Scones – great for warming up cold crew 

Ever looked for recipes that fit the ingredients left in the fridge? I haven’t. All my recipes come straight from a place of divine inspiration and are planned I tell you, planned.

So when I sniffed the cheddar cubes at the back of the coolbox and glimpsed the limp green onions folded next to them, it was not ‘practicality’ raising its ugly head, but rather Bastet shooting a bolt of her brilliance earthward, lancing me delicately between the parietal lobes. I dictated to the Can Opener immediately.

Here forthwith is my received genius:

Overview

• Total time to prepare: 5-10 min to mix, 10 min per tray in the oven
• # Servings: 20 two-inch scones
• Level of difficulty: Even my First Mate, the Can Opener, can do it

Into the Dry Ingredients Bowl

• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 2 teaspoons sugar (optional)
• 1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar (optional)
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• all the cheese you got – the more the better. 1 cup is good. Cut into cubes is cheesiest.
• ½ cup chopped green onions (shallots) or leeks or even white onions

Into the Wet Ingredients Bowl

• 1/2 cup margarine or oil or butter
• 1 cup milk

Directions: 

• Pre-heat the oven. 
• Mix everything in the dry bowl. 
• Mix everything in the wet bowl. 
• Grease a baking tray. 
• Dump the wet bowl in the dry bowl and mix everything together. 
• Drop the batter by spoons onto the tray. 
• Bake at 230°C (450°F) for 10-12 minutes. 
• Serve warm.

Tasty Options: Add a few chopped herbs if your crew has been trained to enjoy this (a teaspoon is enough for a whole batch). Fresh is best, I have a real nose for finding rosemary bushes when ashore and instruct the Can Opener to load up whenever possible. Thyme and sage work well too.

Thermal Cheese Onion Scones are great for warming up cold crew as they (the scones) keep coming out of the oven piping hot.

Got any favourite cheeses and/or herbs and/or options that you’ve added to savoury scones?


–Captain Cat

(transcribed by the Can Opener)

Note: Most cats are lactose intolerant. They love cheese, treats are good – but they shouldn’t be carving out a new daily food group for it. Captain Cat, on the other hand, is unique. He can eat anything, anywhere, anytime. Bring it on.

Captain Cat Mounts His (Sugar-Free) Soap Box

 
On Dieting
An unnecessary and unnatural scourge. There is no reason in the universe for a diet!

What’s dieting got to do with sailing?
Everything. 

True, you can sail when you are overweight and out of shape. Same as you can play baseball or cricket or golf when you’re out of shape. 

But you sail better when you are the right weight and in good shape. You move faster and with greater agility. 

Fast and agile means fewer medical issues when you might not be close to a good doctor or hospital. And it means you’ll move faster when there’s a challenging situation on board (storm, gale, tight manoeuvre, extreme sea state, rescue situation, etc). It’s a fact.


I put the Can Opener on his no sugar diet about a year and a half ago. He’s lost fifteen pounds and looks great. He sleeps better. He never had to calorie count or think about what to eat while he was optimising his weight – he just followed the Golden Rule below. 

And yes, indeed, he looks fine! 

The Solution

The Golden Rule
If you need to lose weight, then …  

DON’T. EAT. SUGAR. EVER. 
(Or fat. Obviously.)

What other names can sugar masquerade as?
Sugar is sugar no matter what cute name it is disguised as. Just don’t eat it. 

That means…

NO agave, corn syrup, any syrup, cane juice, dextrin, dextrose, fructose, glucose, invert sugar, lactose, maltodextrin, malt syrup, maltose, rice syrup, saccharose, sorghum, sucrose, xylose…

Read the label and if it lists it, don’t eat it. Simple. 
But not easy.

How to avoid sugar…
Check every ingredients label, and if ANY of these sugar/fake sugar/sugar wannabes shows up on it (or anything else ending in -ose)… DON’T eat it. 

By the way – don’t eat those other artificial sugars (eg saccharine) either. If it doesn’t exist in nature, you shouldn’t be eating it either. Captain Cat has spoken.

There is NO FREE LUNCH. Literally. 

What’s that you say? No fructose?
Yes, fruit has fructose in it. But in an unrefined form. It takes longer (ie a normal length of time) for the body to break it down. 

On the other hand if you read ‘fructose’ as an ingredient on a box, this is a refined form of sugar which is super-easily absorbed by the body. Not good. You want your body to at least burn a regular amount of calories whilst it works to break down your food.

Is it easy to stop eating sugar?
Nope. 

The Can Opener complained bitterly. He was doubled over in pain the first month sometimes. When he looked really bad, I’d bung him a prune. Fortunately, that would perk him right up.

Sugar is supposed to be as addictive as cocaine . That means it’s a hard habit to kick. 

And in the west, it is nearly impossible to avoid sugar in any processed or restaurant food. Start checking the ingredient labels and you’ll see what I mean.

Our local supermarket has twenty-six aisles. Twenty-four of them have products in them that contain sugar. Only two do not – these are:

1. the vegetable aisle
2. the shampoo and cleaners aisle.

How to survive sugar withdrawal symptoms?  
Go eat a few dried fruit pieces instead. Or a piece of whole fruit. Or a salad with lemon on it. Loads of fun, right? No, not at first. But after a while, yes actually. Even the Can Opener thinks so now.

The sugar withdrawal symptoms may drive you insane, but if you can survive the first month, you will be okay. The next three months are hard, but not impossible.

After six months, sugared products actually become unpleasant. It is too much and too granular. You can taste the emptiness.

After a year, it is easy and you are fit, optimised and ready to sail in top form!

 
That’s it. 

Follow my plan and you’ll have a six pack in no time. 

And live longer with nice teeth.

 

–Captain Cat 

(transcribed by the Can Opener)

 Previously: Fitness on Boats

Shark for Lunch!

Photo by: Anita363

‘Lunch!’ said I, my whiskers twanging with anticipation, gazing out over the chunky sea. 

We were in the North Channel last weekend, just west of Lymington heading into the Solent when – most amazingly and unusually – we sighted one, probably a basking shark.

‘It’s not that kind of a safari,’ said the Can Opener. ‘They’re twenty million times bigger than you – you’re lucky they’re filter feeders that only eat small things. Plankton, algae, felis domesticus…. Just keep taking the photos.’ 

You can’t win every battle. Got some great shots though. I’m putting them in an album entitled, ‘Meals I Might Have Had’.

–Captain Cat 

(transcribed by the Can Opener)

Cooking At Sea

By the fourth day, the seasickness had vanished and a cooked meal seemed delightfully appealing. Even the Can Opener was starved. 

So I set him to work in the galley, chopping and dicing under my expert tutelage. In no time flat, a brightly coloured meal hit the stern outdoor dining table.

Fresh salad with cucumbers, tomatoes, celery, red and yellow peppers, onion and fennel – beautiful for the weirdo herbivores on board.

And a chorizo pasta for the right-minded:

• onions, garlic and then a LOT of chorizo in olive oil to fry
• a little red wine for more good flavour
• red peppers and mushrooms added in next
• salt and pepper to taste
• all served on some fluffy butterfly pasta

Naturally the accolades were many and I tipped my feather hat to my appreciative crew. 

The Can Opener of course deserved an honourable mention for his efforts and I’m sure I did mention this at some point in my speech. 

–Captain Cat 

(transcribed by the Can Opener)