Christmas Baking the in the Caribbean

Yet another food post, but 'tis the season, right? :-)

This one I have to admit I'm pretty darn proud of... Geoff and his coworkers organised a multicultural cook-off - one guy from India, another from Dominica, another from Trinidad and one guy from "The South" :-)

Then there was us - Chinese and German heritage. Geoff knew right away what he was going to cook, and with some asian herbs and spices available on island, it wasnt too difficult to get his ingredients together. German on the other hand..?! I wanted to bake a Mohnkuchen (Poppyseed Cake) but after realising that the only poppyseed available on island was that in 50gr containers (i needed 2-3kg), I decided that a $70 was out of the question.

So.... I attempted Laugen Bretzel! You know the ones with the nice brown, crunchy outside and the coarse salt on top? They turned out really good and everyone loved them! Which means... yes, I guess I'll be baking them on more occasions now!

Reminisce

One of my yoga buddies, Tamarah just opened her restaurant this week in one of the most beautiful areas of St. Croix, Queens Quarters.

Reminisce Restaurant - I've been following the lead up with the growing of their own veggies and herbs, raising their own chickens, hoops they had to jump with getting their business licence and the hiring of wait staff.. and today was their long-anticipated open house!

We enjoyed a variety of drinks, including a Cruzan coffee (espresso, Cruzan rum cream, chocolate and whip cream) and a Guava Mojito (Mojito with guava puree and guava rum) as well as this delicious seared sesame ahi and a caprese salad.

We wish Tamarah and her hubby all the best in their new business endeavor and will make sure to spread the word! Thank you guys for a great afternoon!

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Reminisce-Restaurant/119598464792418

Peppers, peppers everywhere!

Our peppers are taking off like crazy after this weeks worth of rain! We've been sprouting bell peppers lately, but we were very suprised to see the habanero plant had grown two little peppers during the week!

So what to do with these hot little things now? Chorizo and cream cheese stuffed chicken breasts, wrapped in bacon and served with pasta in a tomato-pepper-habenero sauce....delicious!

If anyone would like the recipe, please email or Facebook me - I can assure you that you wont be let down!

A very beachy weekend...

What to do with a 3-day long weekend in St. Croix? :-)

Hit the beach up!!!

On Sunday I had a long-time-coming girls day out at Hibiscus, a brand new bar/restaurant on a beautiful beach on the north shore. Cant remember the last time I had a 2-hour-long lunch with cocktails and my girlfriends!

Today Geoff, Alpie and I loaded up the truck with the kayak and explored someplace new - Sand/Shell Island (depending on who you ask)! This little island is located off the south shore of St. Croix, and since its right by the refinery, isnt such a popular spot. However, we were in for a suprise when we got there - it was beautiful! Unspoilt by people, this little island was brimming with all sorts of wildlife - exotic fish, colorful birds and conch galore! After exploring for about 2 hours, Geoff decided that we must just try to cook up some conch ourselves.. so we grabbed a couple, put them in our cooler we had brought with us and are just in the process of cutting it up now! (Well Geoff is, I wont touch the slimy things).

We plan on going back here soon and camping the night!

(The first couple are from Sunday, with my friend Dana and the others are of Shell/Sand Island.. note the pic of the conch shell in the water.. you can see his eye peering out at us!)

Barcelona Pt. 4

This series of photos sums up our last day in Barcelona well... sightseeing the beautiful gothic Sagrada de Familia... followed by the most delicious paella!

Schlossburg

A trip to a German castle is like stepping back in time when Kings, Princes and Emperors ruled the land. No trip to Germany is complete without visiting at least one of the many majestic castles!

We spent a day at Schlossburg (literally meaning "Castle Castle"), located in Solingen. It was built in the early 12th century but by 1849 had become little more than a ruin.

About 40 years later an architect reconstructed it and is a major tourist attraction today. We were lucky enough to be able to have most of it to ourselves, being a cold weekday there werent too many people around!

It was pretty big, with lots of rooms to explore inside - including an old-style pharmacy which was interesting to see how they manufactured medicine back in the days. Of course Geoff found the Waffle House sign almost immediately so we warmed up in there with some coffee and waffles :-)

Brunch at Topside

Yesterday (Easter sunday) we were invited by friends to brunch at Topside restaurant, less than 5 mins down the road from us but we've never been there before.

GREAT food, including an omelette station, lobster lasagne, mahi, ham, caribbean-style vegetables and eggs benny... we stuffed ourselves only to come home to a delicious kingfish bbq cookout that our landlords put on for us.

We certainly didnt go hungry this Easter!

Fajardo

Yesterday we decided to explore east of San Juan, since we got a little break in the weather. We drove down to to Fajardo, which is where the ferry terminal is. From here boats and ferries leave to go to Isla Culebra, Vieques and Virgin Islands.

The town of Fajardo itself was a bit of a ghost town, with most shops and restaurants being closed completely and hardly a person in sight. However, the government is investing $2 M into the terminal of Fajardo to spruce it up - I guess they havent started it quite yet. All the houses here were very old and delapitated, but it was fun to walk around and see this different style of housing and how these local people live.

We were exploring when it started raining again, so we thought we'd get a bite to eat at a tiny seafood shack on the water - fresh, fried fish, empanadillas, pickled vegetables and tostones (fried plantain). I think the combination of being starving hungry and just amazing fresh food tasted like the best meal I've had in a while! We tried to wait out the rain, but it just coming down, so we ended our day short - but not without stopping at Popeye's for a fresh fruit smoothie - highly recommendable to anyone visiting the area. It was mixed fruit blended with fresh fruit chopped up and mixed in with whipped cream on top - needless to say no dinner for us tonight :-)

My first hand at a green thumb

After we bought a bottle of mojito from Don Q, we thought we'd pop into the supermarket to get some mint and club soda... never thought that it was be this hard to find mint!!! The only stuff they has was in a massive box at $8!

So I thought, well how hard can it really be to grow mint? Its technically a weed (so I've been told), so it should grow like one too - we picked up a little seedling for just $2, I got some pots on sale after Christmas for $1, and we nursed it - and now its out of control already!

We have mint to open a mojito bar...

The other two plants are jalapeno and bananas peppers.. the jalapenos are growing quite well too, but we've yet to see any peppers..

Isla Verde and beyond

Yesterday Geoff and I wanted to start getting cracking with our chores, but with all the travelling we totally lost track of which day of the week it was and of course everything was closed being a Sunday. So instead, we decided to explore our local area.. instead of heading west like we did on Saturday, we went east this time.. which ended up being a 6 hour walk!

It was great though, we passed a little garage sale where I picked up these really cute mugs, handmade from the Dominican Republic. The handles are whales tails! The start to our new household collection...

We passed through Isla Verde (the touristy area of San Juan) and kept walking, walking, walking until we reached Boca De Cangrejos - this is the sort of area that Geoff and I have been looking for since we arrived! It was all locals, enjoying their lazy Sunday on the beach with their families, listening to the spanish salsa pounding from the little beachside restaurants. We just had lunch, but we HAD to eat again! We treated ourselves to a pina colada and tacos de camarones (shrimp taco) and got chatting to the owner there - who also happened to be a spanish teacher! He gave me the menu which had both the english and spanish names for everything and also showed me all of his salads that they had, explaining to me the spanish names of each of them. We've discovered that in general, Puerto Ricans will not give you the time of day unless you show an interest first - I often smile or say "Hola" to someone, and all of a sudden their entire face changes and they will blabber something in Spanish to me, or offer me a smile in return - and are ALWAYS more willing when you make an effort to speak in their own language! They really are beautiful, helpful people once they know your intentions are not that of the general white tourist that is there just to spend money and get drunk.

Old San Juan

Our first day in our new home so we wanted to get out and explore!

We actually wanted to visit a tourist info office and pick up some maps so we could start getting our bearings, so we thought we'd venture to Old San Juan where there was one. We ended up getting sidetracked and could'nt stop exploring all the nooks and crannies of this beautiful part of the city. This was everything that i imagined - brightly painted buildings, cobblestone roads and old forts. We had lunch in a little alleyway - traditional Puerto Rican fare coupled with salsa music and friendly wait staff. Pina Colada icecream to follow!