As The Crow Flies

I’m still sick–8 days now.    I have been eating chicken soup.

Chicken soup for a sick person:

1. A lot of chopped fresh garlic
2. Some grated fresh ginger
3. small can of chicken
4. Some “Better than Bouillon” chicken soup base
5. Water
6. Cook until good
7. Add some fresh lemon juice

Enjoy and heal!

Super oats are out.  Apples and peanut butter are in.

I used to make this soup all the time at my BC cabin.   Maybe it tasted good because there wasn’t a lot of other stuff to eat but I loved it.   Once some kayakers floated by and I invited them in for a lunch of this soup.    What’s great about it, is all you need is some onions, a little sugar, oil, salt and pepper.

Put  4 tbs. oil in pot.  Add 4 thinly sliced large onions and wilt over medium-low heat, covered for 20 minutes.

Sprinkle 1/4 cup of sugar over onions(I used brown sugar because it’s what I had), toss, and cook, uncovered, until caramelized, 10 minutes.  Sprinkle with salt and pepper.

Add 3 cups of water and simmer, uncovered over medium heat for 15 minutes.    Then add 3 more cups of water and cook for another 40 minutes till it is rich in taste.

Sure it probably would be better if you had beef stock instead of water,  and butter instead of oil, and some port to add flavor.    And yeah some french bread and melted Gruyere, baked on top would probably be nice.   But I never have any of that stuff so this is the way I make it.

A big bag of potato chips easily fits into a quart zip-lock  if you smash them up first.   Then you just eat them with a spoon or put them in your tortilla along with whatever else you are putting in there that day.    If you are cooking, they also would be a good addition to hot meals.

I met a guy on the trail  who’s favorite trail lunch was  peanut butter, cheese, fresh onion, and crumbled up potato chips all rolled up into a tortilla.

Potato chips offer about 150 calories per ounce;  One of the best calorie to weight ratios you can get.

I’ve been off daily coffee for almost a year.   This is what I drink in the mornings now:

1. In saucepan put grated fresh ginger—the more the better, cinnamon, black pepper, and water.
2. Bring to a boil
3. Put 2 Good Earth Original  tea bags and 2 black tea bags into quart container.  Pour water over tea.   Don’t take out tea bags; that way it gets stronger as you drink it.

Don’t strain it,  chew on the ginger pieces while you drink.  I’m using about 2 pounds of fresh ginger a month these days.

Cheapest way, I have found, to get Good Earth Tea is from Amazon “subscribe and save” plan.  It works out to 3.00 for a box of 25, delivered.

WARNING:  May cause euphoria.

This is the best yogurt– Brown Cow maple. The cream is on top so you need to stir it. I discovered it 3 years ago at the food coop. It says it’s made in California so it’s probably sold all over.

WARNING: If you stick a spoon it it, you will eat it all.

Five years ago, I sold my house and all my stuff and bought a water access only cabin in coastal BC. I didn’t have a boat so I would pay a water taxi to drop me off and would tell him to come back and get me in a month or sometimes two.

It would be easy to live off the land up there as there are lots of berries, mushrooms, edible plants and seafood to eat. The cabin came with a row boat and a crab trap. I bought a cheap fishing pole and some hooks and lures. There were muscles lying on the beach in front of my cabin. A ways up the inlet there were oysters and seaweed beds. It was a veritable Garden of Eden. However, I almost always ate the food I had brought with me instead of living off the land as I had dreamed of.

I decided to only bring up a very monotonous yet nutritional diet, thinking that I would tire of the monotony and go out and forage for food. However the two meals that I would make for myself proved to be so delicious and satisfying that I was always happy to eat them. They were:

Super oats.
Oatmeal, raisins, almonds, cinnamon, soy protein powder. (Even better with brown sugar) Cook the oatmeal and raisins with extra water so that when you add the soy protein powder it isn’t too dry.

Garlic fried rice.
Sauté a half to a whole head of garlic along with a lot of dried red peppers in oil, add cooked brown rice( let the rice sit for a bit uncovered so it dries out some) , add an egg to it all and stir it around until the egg is cooked. (Even better when sprinkled with seasoned gourmet rice vinegar.)

2 parts freeze dried coffee
3 parts Nestle Quick Chocolate Milk mix
4 parts sugar
4 parts Coffee Mate (no Creamola)

Add 2 heaping tablespoons of Jazz mix to a mug of hot water. Drink.

A lot of new snow fell today. I scooped some up in a bowl and poured some canned milk, vanilla syrup and some caramel syrup on it and mixed it all up. It tasted a little like ice cream. My favorite snow topping is lemon juice and sugar, but I don’t have any more lemon juice. For awhile I was putting instant ice tea mix on the snow. I liked that but I’m out of that too. When on the trail I have flavored my snow with lemonade mix or Jello mix (both of which make excellent hot beverages as well).

• Put water and pasta in pot, cover with lid or foil
• heat to boiling or near boiling.
• When water reaches boiling or near boiling turn off stove let pasta cook on it’s own.
• When pasta is done, pour excess water into your nalgene bottle.
• Add peanut butter, garlic powder, dried crushed red peppers and some of the hot water from your Nalgene bottle to pasta. ( You can get the crushed red peppers in little packets at the pizza parlor.)
• keep stirring and add more hot water if necessary.
• Add a packet of chicken or tuna, if you like.
• Use remaining hot water, if there is any, to make your after dinner hot beverage. Always drink your pasta water.