Oatmeal Bread two ways...

I’d forgotten that the entire name for this blog is

Once Upon A Time When I Used to Cook!

My Kitchen In Half Cups

I was reminded of it by Baking Soda at Bake My Day when she asked about the above picture in my Kitchen Photos.

So, while my kitchen is mostly closed and repairs progress, I will write some half cups of cooking in the past.

Once Upon A Time, actually for this story Twice Upon A Time, Gorn and I sailed the Atlantic blue. A friend of our older son, had a 57 foot Nautor Swan Ketch, the Valkyrie, and needed crew for an Atlantic crossing in the summer of 2000 and then a return crossing in January of 2004. Gorn was gun-ho to sign on immediately, it took me a bit longer but we sailed both trips.

The first crossing in June/July 2000 took us from St. Maarten to Faial in the Azores to Gibraltar and concluded with a week in Marbella Spain on the Costa del Sol. The second crossing in January/February 2004 took us from Almería Spain to Gibraltar to Santa Cruz de Tenerife in the Canary Islands to St. John, St. Maarten and finally St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands.

For an idea of the Valkyrie below decks click here, for above deck click here.

Do you want a “smooth as glass” story? We have one of those.

Do you want a white knuckle story? We have several of those.

Do you want a sea sick story?

We have several of those.

Some of the most difficult sailing was going along the coast of Spain in the Mediterranean to Gibraltar. That was the night the impeller blew and Ryan, our captain, was heard to mutter: Everything is conspiring against me. I can’t fix this engine.

Here’s a picture of our captain that night working on the engine. Diesel fumes were strong to say the least. Two of the crew were on the other side of the wall on the right at the galley sink. Guess what we were doing.

On the second crossing, we did 3 hour solo watches. Some of my best times were on solo watch in the early morning hours and all the other crew below deck asleep. My favorite way to spend watch was listening to music on my iPod, workout with a yoga DVD and start a batch of Oatmeal Bread.

In the middle of the Atlantic on a clear night, there is a full canopy of stars and the Milky Way is spectacular like you remember it from your childhood out in the country! Now, stand at the mast with the iPod filling that sky and your head with Bach, Beethoven, Vivaldi or rocking with YMCA and you have heaven on earth or water as the case maybe. When you’ve filled yourself with that, put the yoga DVD in the laptop and watch the sun come up over the horizon.

One morning about 30 minutes into my yoga workout, I had to stop the DVD while a container ship came toward us. I watched it for a long time before I was comfortable that it was not overtaking us on a collision course. I was really proud of myself that I hadn’t panicked and called for the captain!

In the middle of the Atlantic, we were unable to locate any bakeries so if we were to have bread for toast or a sandwich, I baked.

Cooking on a little sailboat in the middle of the ocean requires all kinds of preplanning. You count crew numbers, you count days at sea, you count meals at sea, you make a menu plan for those meals, you create a shopping list from that meal plan, you add in extra days at sea by some number the captain is comfortable with incase it takes longer than planned and do it all again. Finally, you have 22 pages of things to buy at the grocery store. You divide those pages between the crew and end up at checkout with about 32 carts and still have two stores shop. You have to get it to the boat and get it in the boat.

After you get it put away, you have to be able to find it again. You make a map of the boat labeled like; forward starboard cabin upper bunk bin2: 16 cartons skim milk, 1 can Spam, 1 can spotted dick pudding, 15 bags dry cereal. (One of the crew didn’t know what Spam was and none of us had ever heard of spotted dick pudding.) Do you get the picture?

Generally, we all ate dinner together, some lunches together and breakfast when you were up. After the evening meal when I planned to bake bread in the morning, I would put together all my ingredients and materials and secure them in the galley so that they didn’t make noise while we slept and so that I could take them on deck without making noise and waking anybody up in the morning. Quiet in the middle of the Atlantic can become an issue when you are trying to sleep at odd times.

I usually baked about every other day. I used a recipe I’ve used for years and was very comfortable baking. Even so, everything is different on a boat right down to all that humidity and salt in the air.

The recipe makes two good sized loaves so I always divided the dough in half when it was time to shape it. I always made one loaf plain the other half of the dough either became cinnamon rolls or cinnamon bread. Rolls or bread, it simply required changing the shaping process. When I shaped the cinnamon rolls or bread, I smeared the dough with butter, sprinkled cinnamon brown sugar over the butter and dried blueberries and rolled it up, let rise and baked. Not bad for a boat bakery.

Oatmeal Whole Wheat Bread

1 c oatmeal 2 c boiling water

1/2 t salt 2 T butter

2 T yeast 1/2 c water

1/2 c honey, molasses or brown sugar

3 c whole wheat flour 3 c white flour

1 T gluten

Pour boiling water over oatmeal and salt; cover. Allow to cool about 30 minutes.

Add butter and sweetening of choice; cover again and allow to cool about another 30 minutes.

Proof yeast in 1/2 c water. Add to oatmeal.

Add 1 c flour at a time, mixing well; knead about 15 minutes or until smooth and elastic. Form into a ball, oil the ball lightly, place in bowl and cover.

Let rise about 2 hours until doubled in size.

Punch down, shape, allow to rise until doubled in size, about an hour in pans.

Bake at 350° for 30 to 35 minutes.

Many times I add in 1 to 2 tablespoons of rice polish, cracked wheat, sunflower seeds, sprouted wheat or wheat germ. With the addition, I will reduce the flour or more often an equal amount of extra water.

If you use all the 1/2 c of the sweetener, this is almost cake like. I usually use only 1/4 to a 1/3 c. This is just good and easy.