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.

Victualling And Food Care

Next up at the Cruising Association last weekend, was a lecture on ‘Victualling And Food Care’, with Sandy Duker. O my!

Food is my personal favourite and my own specialty. I do love to organise the First Mate to a well provisioned yacht! Preparedness for every exciting milestone in the day (ie. every meal time) is a top priority.   

As Sandy approached the lectern, I leaned forward on the Can Opener’s shoulder to catch her every pearlescent word. I knew I indeed had a secure grip on my perch to get me through her lecture when the First Mate let out a mighty yelp.

Sandy revealed all her secrets of food care aboard yachts and the Can Opener wrote ’em down:

Assumptions 

• You are catering for 2-3 weeks,
• refridgerator exists,
• but no freezer.

Consider 

• likes of the crew
• medical conditions eg diabetes
• allergies 
• is the boat ‘dry’ or ‘wet’? 
• people eat more at sea – out of boredom, because they are cold, on watch… 

Meal Structure / day

• 3 meals
• 3 snacks
• Happy Hour!   

Planning Provisions

• overcater for drinks
• plan meals sequence to match freshness of the fruits/vegetables
• make a daily planner… and convert it to your shopping list
• plan to grow your own sprouts, herbs 
• leave big roasts till end of journey as they take longer to defrost 
• overestimate how much water you need – do NOT rely on watermakers. These break down regularly.
• overestimate hot beverages needed
• plan for every eventuality – assume that you cannot rely on the fridge, the watermaker etc…

Good Things To Include In Your List

• lemons
• limes 
• dried fruit
• squashes – they keep forever
• beans, chick peas
• patés in tins
• freeze dried meals – found in moutaineering shops, can also be ordered online
• fish – do not rely on fish caught at sea. You may catch ’em, you may not… 
• cereal bars (better than chocolate for snacks which melts in the heat)
• fresh herbs growing 
• tinned olives, nuts
• fruit cake

 
Note: packaging

• flour and grains that are pre-packed (ie not loose in bins – more likely to have insect eggs in them that will later hatch…)
• soups in packets (take up less space)
• tomato sauce in tins (not in tubes as these are often badly crimped and leak) 
• choose packaging that squashes flat (eg UHT boxes) as you will be carrying all that garbage to the next port…
• no carboard!

Fishing 

• need a fish hook/gaff to bring the fish aboard
• make sure the fish is really dead before you bring it aboard – or there will be an awful mess in the cockpit
• PUT A SIGN next to the engine to remind yourself to bring in the fishing lines before you start the engines
• consider any fish you catch to be a bonus, an extra to provisions. Don’t rely on them!

How to Shop

• if in a rally eg ARC, where there are many other people provisioning at the same time – you need to buy earlier
• shop in the markets yourself – don’t arrange for delivery
• choose both ripe and under-ripe produce
• supermarkets near yachting centres will often vacuum pack your meat in portion/meal-sized eg Las Palmas, Canarias 
• be careful – some countries leave the ribs in meat which can puncture the vacuum packing
• look for Cruising Association members discounts at stores eg Jolly Harbour in St Lucia

Water Conservation 

use salt water for:

• washing hair with dishsoap and a freshwater rinse
• washing dishes
• washing vegetables with salt water in the middle of the ocean – water is clean

Food Care

• yoghurt – make your own
• eggs – turn them daily
• remove packaging 
• double wrap pasta and grains in your own plastic, seal and date
• wash all fruit and vegetables, and air dry in cockpit before storing
• store potatoes, onions, carrots in string bags in cupboards – for airflow and its easier to check them through a string bag
• use ‘stay-fresh’ bags
• inspect food every day – because it will suddenly go off in one day and must be used immediately
• store cheese in boxes in fridge, and/or wrap in a vinegar cloth

 
Managing Inventory

• date and label all tins and bags with permanent marker – contents and date
• name each of the lockers eg SFP, saloon forward port (to refer to in inventory lists)
• NOTE: if boat hull is dark then storage lockers will get very warm/hot
• inventory list: product, package type, number, location
• do weekly physical inventory check
• update provisions inventory list every time something is used

Cooking

• pressure cookers are:
• faster
• use less gas
• easier for washing up – only 1 pot
• good in rough weather as are sealed

The Cruising Kitty’s Favourite Books 
on Provisioning and Food Care 

1. Care and Feeding of the Sailing Crew, Lin Pardey
2. Sail Away!, by Paul and Sheryl Shard

 

 

Wow! A ton of good advice from Sandy. We’ve heard much of it before from others, but it’s always good to hear it again and to know that this stuff really works!

–Captain Cat 

 (transcribed by the Can Opener)

Food Wonderful Food – in Trapani

Provisions Renewed

There are few things more critical to keeping up crew morale than food. Quite important for Captain morale too. This is a point that I have gently and not infrequently intoned upon strategically within the Can Opener’s hearing. 

Just thinking about the next meal the Can Opener will rustle up lifts my spirits.

All-important garlic

In Trapani – when the stores were open – abundance overflowed. Gleaming tomatoes, snappy lettuce, onions, cheeses, dates, olives, turgid fruits and captivating legumes I could not name.    And garlic, my beloved, in copious quantities, everywhere…

Cheeses, sausages, olives in oil and spices, pickled onions, pistachios, more cheese…

I ordered the First Mate to load up in town on every single thing I had carefully annotated and cross-indexed on the provisioning list until his backpack seams audibly complained.
 
When the storm breaks, allowing us to continue our voyage, we will be ready…

–Captain Cat 

(transcribed by the Can Opener)

Provisioning The First Leg

Saturday early mornings in Caleta del Vélez, there’s a market that sets up and lines the waterfront street by the marina. 

Vendors and canopies pop up over rickety tables, mountains of goods are carefully laid out. Clothes, toys, sunglasses, bedsheets… and piles of food. 

From my perch on the Can Opener’s shoulder and by tweaking his ears starboard and port side as needed, I deftly steered him towards the prepared meat section. 

…Somehow, we still managed to arrive in front of the area targeting that evolutionary wonder, the herbivore. 

Nothing against herbivores. Most are quite tasty. Living with one, however, is another thing altogether*. Quite messes up my laboriously planned 5-course meat menus. 

Despite my clearly reasoned arguments in favour of daily steak tartar rations, the Can Opener was not to be deterred. He and the crew loaded up on (brightly coloured and admittedly beautiful in a still-life-in-oils kind of way) fruits and vegetables. We were planning a 5 day crossing of the Alboran and Balearic Seas and the Algerian Basin, so spoilage was not an issue.

The Can Opener mumbled something about scurvy as he passed the oranges to the vendor for weighing. Then he added ginger, packs of pasta and rice, and jars of tomato, pesto and British-mild veggie curry sauce to our satchel at the next stall (accompanied all the while by a mini lecture to me about bland food and seasickness).

I don’t need a lecture on seasickness, I know all about it. I’ll be bed-ridden for the first 3 days at sea as usual, and expect to be waited on hand and foot till it passes. Happens to the best of us.

By dint of much abuse of the First Mate’s ears, I was finally able to get him to relent and load up on copious amounts of sardine tins. Enough to get me through to Sardinia anyway. 

We do not eat kibble.

–Captain Cat

 (transcribed by the Can Opener)

* Note: The Can Opener is not an actual vegetarian, just a near one. He tries a lot and then fails… every time a juicy steak walks by. On passage, however, he sticks to his idealised agenda. There are no burger franchises at sea.

Sail Away! – Reviewed

Book the Captain just finished snoozing on:  
Sail Away! *, by Paul and Sheryl Shard

How do you provision and collect inventory to prepare a yacht to cruise – and what’s the cruising life really like? 

Topics Covered

• secrets of successful cruises
• the cost of cruising
• outfitting
• provisioning
• maintaining inventory
• cooking at sea
• personal comfort

Best Part
This book is not set up as an inflexible ‘to do’ list, but rather as an ‘adapt it to you’ list. The Shard’s realise (for ex.) that everyone eats differently and simply using someone else’s shopping list is unlikely to leave you happy. 

So they describe in very useful detail how they tracked their own preferences ashore, and how they created systems to adapt those preferences to life on a boat. 

Then they teach methods to create your own systems that are geared to suit you best. 

Makes sense. We like it!

Wishes
While reading this, we wished we could have copies of the Shard’s lists anyways as a good point to start from. Then we would adapt those lists for ourselves.

And lo! They made that possible. There’s info in the Appendix on how to order disks with their lists on it/them… 

…but booo! They meant floppy disks. 

It seems this book has not been updated since 1998. A quick check at the publisher’s website does not list this book. So it doesn’t look like you can still buy these disks, floppy or otherwise.

The book itself, however, is still available on Amazon, and it’s info is timeless.

Conclusion
This was the first cruising ‘text’ the Can Opener ever bought. It’s still one of his favourites.

Ever read Sail Away! by Paul and Sheryl Shard? How did you find it? Any good recommendations for other books for the sea library?

–Captain Cat

(transcribed by the Can Opener)

* (not to be confused with Sail Away – no exclamation point – by Nicole Rodriguez…)

Book Reviews

Next: Celestial Navigation For Yachtsmen
Previously: Sell Up & Sail – Reviewed 

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Ocean Passage Making

Ocean Passage Making presentation at the Red Tabby

Can’t go under it. Can’t go over it. Can’t go around… 

The First Mate and I tripped lightly last week down to the Red Tabby, eyes aglow, to listen to a presentation chock full of ocean crossing tips. Here are the…

…Highlights


Charts 
You need to have:

• tons of paper charts for the region you are cruising (for an around-the-world race you need an amazing 380 (approx) paper charts on board – which is legally required)
• electronic copies of same
• Broadcast Schedules of the Weather Forecast
• Nautical Almanac – 1 per region
• Pilots 

It costs 1000s £/$ to get all this, so look for as much as possible online – where you can often download it free (and make both paper copies and electronic copies). More and more stuff offered free online every day.

Self-Sufficiency

• On a good boat:
• everything has a back up
• everything is redundant
• eg. backup halyards – alternate tension between 2 halyards every 12 hours to reduce strain.

• Don’t rely on water-makers or refrigerators.
• Plan not to rely on them – treat them as an added bonus if you have them and they happen to still work.
• Use baby wipes to keep clean and save water! 

• VHF range is only 25-50 nautical miles max – how will you get info/data, communication outside this range? Make sure you already have what you need before you go.

Preventing breakdowns – Attention to detail

• Constantly do checks – prevention is better than cure.
• Go through scenarios and plan for emergencies 
• what if the rudder breaks? 
• what if a shroud snaps?…
• Build tools and spares inventory with this in mind.
• Prevent chafe on metal, sails and lines before it happens.
• There’s lots of chafe on trade wind routes!
  
• Get rid of metal to metal connections – eg.. use spectra lines to tie on shackles to boom.
• eg. Use cable ties or seizing wire to secure shackle pins.

Choosing Crew

• Are they medically fit? Do they get seasick?
• Know and confirm the experience and skill level of your crew in detail.
• Can you rely on them to keep a proper lookout?
• Are they reliable?
• Do they have a long attention span?
• Reliability is more important than navigational ability.
• It’s helpful to choose crew with useful, different backgrounds eg medical, mechanical, communications experts…

How will a medical emergency be handled? 

Effective helicopter range is 200 miles offshore – this leaves a big gap in the middle of the ocean where you have to handle medical emergencies on your own.

• Get pre-passage medical training – first aid, wilderness first aid, wilderness dental, pet aid, survival training…
• Choose crew with medical backgrounds, as above.

Clearly these lecture tips do not cover everything you need to know for an ocean passage. But they’re good points to think about. It was an evening well spent.

Have you completed an ocean passage? What are some highlights and tips that you recommend?

Are you preparing for an ocean passage? What other topics are you researching?

–Captain Cat

(transcribed by the Can Opener) 

Cruising Lectures
Previously: Cruising in Oceania

Managing Food Inventory

First steps in provisioning and managing food inventory

How did this many bottles of beans and spices happen to us??
Short answer: An unspecified number of failed attempts by the Can Opener to become a vegetarian…

You don’t just buy the beans and rice, mate. To be a vegetarian, you have to eat them too.

Simultaneously, more than a few of our London friends evacuated to follow their next big dream job – leaving behind surprising amounts of dry goods in their wake. We became the beneficiaries of piles of duplicate bottles of spices and grains…

Yes, indeed. We are good for cinnamon, galangal, couscous and nampla for the foreseeable future.

Modus Operandi

A pretty simple process…

• consolidate like items
• toss/recycle a million glass bottles
• rank by expiry dates
• keep in handy cupboards the oldest of each to use up first (first in first out principle…)
• store back inventory in most difficult to reach cupboards
• and list what we have there

Sound easy? Sure. Sort of. But it took time. More time than we budgeted for. 

The Can Opener missed the first two scenes of the Bruce Lee movie we’d been looking forward to all week.

Fortunately, I was able to carry on supervising him from the TV couch while he finished up.

How are we doing?

Done. 

Next Steps
Now that we know what we have, we can eat down the insane amounts of stores we’re sitting on.

We could have made it through the winter under 2 metres of snow and no hope of exiting the windows! Not that that’ll ever happen. What with the daffodils pushing up in January and all this year…

The Can Opener should be able to munch through even this gargantuan stockpile by the end of the year. And so he will. Neither of us believe in waste.

We’ll be maintaining the inventory lists and noting what and how much we eat this year. It’ll be good reference for provisioning a yacht later.

We’re on our way…

Have you ever maintained food stock inventories? On land or at sea?
Got any great finetuning tips for managing food that we should add into our system?

–Captain Cat

(transcribed by the Can Opener)

Downsizing
Next: Cruising Clothing Condensed
Previously: Downsizing Books – Can It Be Done?

Passage Treats

Celebrating Passage Milestones

We are looking forward to the upcoming Spain-Greece yacht delivery. Time to plan for success!

Three weeks is great, it’ll be a chance to really get a feel for long passages. It’s also a looooong time for a small group of people to be in constant contact with each other in a constricted space.

So the Cruising Kitty is planning ahead with crew building treats and activities.

I’ve been researching online, on sailing forums and putting my thinking cap on (the one with the feathers). 

Here are the highlights of my favourite ideas so far…

Treats 

• ‘weekly snack bag’* – filled with junk food, candy, savory treats, catnip, etc for the week… for indulging as needed
• drinks or a meal from the cuisine of an upcoming destination 
• balloons, (reusable) streamers and silly hats for celebration meals (see below)
• chocolate always
• cookie mixes*
• cake mixes
• jerk beef, chorizo and sausage sticks
• cheese and crackers

Activities

• cocktail hour – team drinks (which may or may not be alcoholic). One hour each day when the whole crew is together. Even a two-person crew may not see much of each other when running watches. A cruising tradition
• tea hour – a non-alcoholic version of the above
  

• water guns*
• magnetic travel games*
• peg board games*
• temporary tattoos*
• nautical crosswords – still looking for adult level examples of this
• movie night with popcorn
• theme music day* – 50’s, Beachboys/Beach Music, Mariachi, Polka, James Bond theme songs — with coordinating accessories: eg Beachboys with Hawaiian leis, Mariachi with maracas, Polka with polka dots (the Captain’s personal favourite)…
• silly hat day
• holiday celebration meals – any events happening during your passage? Birthdays? Half-Birthdays? Boat anniversary? Valentine’s Day? April Fools Day?
• milestone meals

Timing

• daily for ‘cocktail hour’ 
• weekly for special treats and activities – probably best brought out on the same day each week at cocktail hour
• milestones – holidays, mid-trip and end-of-trip for special meals

‘Course not every crew is going to go wild for the same treats and activities, every group being different and all. But I hope to build up a time tested bank of ‘passage treat’ ideas to draw on. I’ll be testing and having the Can Opener taking my notes as we go.

What passage treats have you tried? Or what great ones have you heard of? How’d it go?

We’re looking for suggestions – the wackier and more creative, the better!

–Captain Cat

(transcribed by the Can Opener)

* Special thanks for these great suggestions to ‘The Cruising Couple’, ‘Ex-Calif’ and ‘drew23’ on Cruisers Forum

Team Building

Next: Delivery Crew Team Building

Care and Feeding of the Sailing Crew – Reviewed

Links below at bottom of post

Book the Captain just finished for the third time: The Care and Feeding of the Sailing Crew, by Lin Pardey

On a 49 day voyage (49 days!), from Yokohama, Japan to Victoria, Canada, Lin Pardey wrote down just about everything you could want to know about food and crew care on a boat.

The stuff we loved

• specific info on how long each kind of fruit, vegetable, dairy, meat, whatever, lasts in a boat without refridgeration
• how to store food so it lasts as long as possible
• how to get the right kind of food in the first place
• how to track what you’ve got
• managing the galley organisation and layout
• planning meals for voyages
• how to cook with salt water – adapting recipes to make use of ocean water (and save your fresh water supplies)!
• managing meal prep and crew care across a variety of weather conditions…
• Actually, we loved it all.
  

Wishes

We wish this could be provided in digital form with spreadsheets for tracking inventory and how long each type of foodstuff probably lasts riiiight in that spreadsheet.

Conclusion

We loved every bit of this book without reservation. Heck, we’d buy two copies if it meant we could get even more info out of it! But Lin seems to have already covered it all.

Any other crew care/provisioning/cookbooks you would recommend for cruising? 

I am always researching the next round of additions for our sea library…

–Captain Cat

(transcribed by the Can Opener)

Book Reviews
Next: Bryan Willis, The Rules in Practice – Reviewed 
Previously: Psychology of Sailing

  
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