Cooking Trips with Annie

Chicken, Sweet Pepper and Three-Cheese Filling

Chef Annie is not only the chef on the J&E Riggin, but she is also a food columnist and cooking instructor. She writes a weekly food column for the largest newspaper in Maine and has been seen on the Today show cooking alongside Al Roker. Come and learn from Annie's 25 years in the kitchen. You will make creative, old world meals with fresh seasonal ingredients. Help to prepare tasty breads in the early morning sea air or prepare the days delicious hearty meals all while enjoying the rugged scenery of the Maine coast.

Come join us for a cooking adventure in 2007.

June 7-9, 3 days, $610

June 10-13, 4 days, $717

Remember if you reserve your space before February 1st you will receive 5% off the sailing cost.

I’m in the middle of a book by a well know food scientist and it’s caused me to think about the different approaches one can take to cooking. My mom calls me the queen of substitution. In my cookbook At Home, At Sea: Recipes from the galley of the Maine Windjammer J. & E. Riggin, I include many recipes that allow for variation and substitution. I’ve had to develop this skill AND it’s come naturally to me. While we are out sailing each week during the summer, it’s not as if I can stop by the local grocery store on my way to the galley to pick up the last few items I need to complete a recipe. “If we don’t have it, we don’t need it,” is our motto. So I’ve had to be creative and not worry when even a key ingredient is missing. Okay, if we are having turkey dinner and the turkey is missing, I worry. Never happened before of course; I’m just speaking hypothetically. I also am constitutionally incapable of following a recipe for long. While I agree with food scientists that it’s good to follow a recipe when you make it for the first time, giving the author a chance, the creative person in me rises to the top quickly and wants to change it and make it somehow different.

While it is true that substitutions DO change the final outcome of a recipe, I’m happy to experiment and discover the results. For me recipes are meant to be springboards or guides, not something you follow to the letter – at least that’s how I look at them. How many times have you thought about something you’d like to make, realized that you don’t have all of the ingredients and decided not to make it? Instead, think of a recipe as an idea and a way to shape what your making. The one exception to this – as there must be – is when you are baking. When you bake, it matters exactly how much flour, baking soda and salt you put into the bowl and you’ll notice the difference if you’re not on the mark. So, the way I get around this is to follow a baking recipe exactly the first time and then start making gradual changes each time after until I’ve got it the way I like it. When you make a substitution, you want to make it something that’s close – so if you need cinnamon, I would NOT substitute basil or oregano. But subbing basil for oregano – sure. If you need red peppers and you’ve got green, great. If you need lemon and you’ve got lime or orange, go for it. So the next time you want to make something and you are missing an ingredient – take the plunge – substitute and see if it doesn’t come out just as good – or even better.