Veggie Sausage and Kale soup

This is a great soup for a chilly fall day. It was my first experiment with kale in a soup. Turned out pretty well. I think.

Ingredients:

• 4 tbsp olive oil
• 2 medium onions
• 5 cloves garlic
• 4 cups of McCormick All-vegetable bouillon (chicken flavor)
• 2 cups water
• 1 can chickpeas
• 1/2 tsp rosemary
• 1/2 tsp black pepper
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 package Yves Sweet Italian Veggie Sausages
• 8 carrots
• 1 bunch kale (approx. 1 lbs)

Instructions
Saute the onions in half of the olive oil until almost translucent. Add garlic and saute for an additional 2 minutes. Add stock, water, chickpeas, rosemary, salt and pepper. Simmer while you prepare the other ingredients.

Cut the sausage into 1/4" pieces and fry in remaining olive oil until browned. Chop the kale roughly and the carrots into 1/8" slices. Add these ingredients to the stock and simmer for 15 minutes until kale and carrots are cooked.

Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese and serve.

Chignecto Loop 2010 Redux

The Chignecto Park Loop is a magnificent hike. It's suggested that it be done in 3-4 days. That seems reasonable. Doing it in 1 day...not so much. Of course I will be back next year to try to better our time.






Lessons learned:

1. Take less gear. Even if it is pouring rain. Take less gear.
2. Take half the food that I think necessary. Or end up carrying half out again.
3. Two hiking poles. One just isn't enough!
4. Bring a mule to carry us up the last big hill.

Here are the pics.

Winterizing Hughes 29

I've found some great articles that are related to winterizing the Hughes 29. Although they aren't actually specific to the boat, they are specific to the components.

Here are the steps that I've taken to winterize Salammbo. I'd appreciate any comments on things that I could do better.

1. Pump faucet and toilet dry
2. Drained fresh water tank and put in antifreeze.
3. Pump antifreeze through faucet and into the, now closed, drain.
4. Pump antifreeze through toilet into both onboard tank and external drain
5. Dump some antifreeze into the bilge (in case water gets in there and freezes)
6. Change oil in engine (good reference)
7. Winterize engine (here's a great site)

Supplies used:

• 5L 10W30 oil
• 15L plumbing antifreeze
• Motomaster fogging spray
• Gas stabilizer