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ONBOARD COOKING: TRANSITIONS

Although we are still experiencing the summer’s bounty the weather and the way we eat will change soon. We are starting to see pumpkins, squash and the cool weather greens such as kale and cabbage. Soon fresh vine ripened tomatoes will be a fond memory. Fall and cooler weather means we will be doing more inside cooking. I am sure that we will also appreciate the extra heat that even our little one burner cook top will generate.

Take today for example: we made plans with friends late night over dutch oven pizza to venture down to the celebrations surrounding the bicentennial of the war of 1812. We were going to leave around noon; it's about an hour by boat, watch the Blue Angels and stay for the fireworks. 

It’s been raining since 11 a.m. 

So lunch today; instead of sandwiches on board turned into one of the ultimate comfort foods: mac and cheese. Of course it wasn’t just your mother's ordinary mac and cheese, but my own gourmet shipboard version. It’s called "what's in the frig"! Hmmm— about 1/4# of salt and pepper sausage (made fresh at Geresbecks) 1/2 an onion from the veggie bin, garlic, 1/2 a jalapeño, also from the veggie bin, mushrooms (4), and the leftover tomato garlic infused oil that i dressed the pizza tomatoes with last night. Add in the 1/2 tomato, also leftover pizza ingredients, the end of the cheese ends; another great Geresbecks offering, along with their luncheon meat ends, some suitable seasonings, thyme, oregano and basil. Voila! You have, even using only one burner, a soul and tummy satisfying meal which only took a half hour to make. An energy saving tip i learned years ago works really well if you only have one burner to use but two pots to cook. Start your starch first: ( potatoes, rice or pasta). Each of these will cook when off the flame. Bring your water to a boil and depending on what you’re cooking between a minute and five after you achieve a roiling boil you can take the covered pan off the flame and it will continue to cook on its own while you cook the sauce, stir fry, whatever. Pasta cooks the fastest, rice the slowest but it always seems to work out.

Please note that it wasn’t an oversight; i did not add any salt or pepper to the seasoning. With the ingredients i used there was plenty of salt; salt sources included the sausage, the cheese, and the seasoned oil from the tomatoes. We live in a society that as a general rule ingests way too much salt than is good for us. It pays as a cook to be vigilant regarding hidden sources of sodium.

Good eating to you.

More late,

Morgainne