Baking Bread On An Albin Vega

One of the best things about cruising is EATING BETTER!   While cruising we become penny pinching, Ebeneezer Scrooge tight on our funds.  No eating out!  This rules out the heart stopping daily fast food joints and the quick heat and eat Chef Boy-Ar-Dee (yes it used to be spelled that way) cans.  It means the Fisher King will once again be supplying about half of our food from the sea.  Between the fish, lobster and stone crab claws we do have the proverbial "Cheeseburger in Paradise".  But...  don't all good stories have a but?  But, we found a serious need for fresh bread on our last cruise.  With last years recipe selection it just didn't cut it.  Besides our whole family knows I burn the bread!  Seriously!  I have burned about 50% of the bread I have cooked over the last 20 years. Funny thing is most of that was "brown and serve rolls".

We started off this trend tonight with sticky rice, cucumber and tuna.

This year we will be expanding our bread recipes to include these two books.  Artisan Bread In Five Minutes A Day and Healthy Bread In Five Minutes A Day both by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francis .  If these turn out well we will add Artisan Pizza And Flat Bread In Five Minutes A Day.  We have a plan for making the grill into a bitchin' pizza oven.

Artisan Bread In Five Minutes A Day,  Healthy Bread In Five Minutes A Day

For those of you that don't know we have no oven!  Vegas came with only a two burner alcohol stove.  We will also be experimenting more, well actually for the first time with the pressure cooker we purchase last year and still have not used, even once.  If we can get this makeshift oven working just right we will have awesome bread to go with the Fisher King's daily requirement of PASTA.  Once we get our method down and the bread is acceptable we will post in the future our favorite variations with the details.

This is why it looks so good to us...(taken from the book Healthy Bread In Five Minutes A Day)

WHAT WE STILL DON'T HAVE TO DO: STEPS FROM TRADITIONAL ARTISAN BREAD MAKING THAT WE OMITTED.

1. Mix a new batch of dough every time we want to make bread.
2. Proof yeast
3. Knead dough
4. Rest/rise the loaves in a draft-free location.---  It doesn't matter!
5. Fuss over doubling or tripling dough volume.
6. Punch down and re-rise: Never punch down stored dough!
7. Poke rising loaves, thereby leaving indentations to be sure they have proofed.

Now you know why it only takes five minutes a day....

With that much of the work removed why would we all not make bread?

Anticipation of a fresh blackened grouper sammie on a loaf of our bread with creamy horseradish, chicory and arugula.  Lobster Reuben?  Tuna sandwich?   Camarón penne con limón y queso feta?

Albin Vega Oven, lol   Unless you happen to be s/v Velocir!

We also have a few silicone cup cake molds to play with this year.

Can you say blueberry muffins? 

Oh, the title of this post, we hope to be heading south by this time next week.  So be prepared for more posts!



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