Christmas on Mars: Sol 1

This is one of a series of posts looking at what we might eat on Mars, where most food would have to be shelf-stable, tinned or freeze-dried. You can find other posts on this topic under the Martian Meals tag.

Ryan had his usual slices of malt loaf. I had porridge and opened up the jar of homemade dried bananas to put in it. We still have some fresh milk we brought with us to Mars, but when that runs out there’s UHT. We had a very Lent-like period before blasting off to Mars, using up all of the fresh food, but there was just too much milk!

Mission Control sent Ryan out in the rover for an urgent EVA, so he took a packed lunch with a sandwich of oat bread (see below for recipe) I made in the machine the night before, cheese, and pickle. He also had a packet of crisps and a chocolate biscuit.

I picked salad from the Hydroponicum – mostly Bronze Arrow lettuce, with some Osterley lettuce, rocket and mizuna. So my lunch was homemade bread, homegrown salad and some long-life smoked meat. I normally have an apple (and I have tinned as a substitute), but I was full so I skipped it.

Martian Saag Paneer, with steamed rice. We opened a tin of mandarin oranges for pudding and rounded out the meal by opening some of the Christmas chocolates.

This works fine on the default setting in our bread machine, which is for a 750g loaf with a medium crust. It makes lovely crispy toast!

Alternatively, I use the dough setting, divide the finished dough into 12 and bake it into rolls in a muffin tray. They take 20 mins at 180 C in our oven. To test that they’re ready, turn one out and tap its bottom – if it sounds hollow, the bread is done!

Unless otherwise stated, © Copyright Emma Doughty 2023. Published on theunconventionalgardener.com.