Up and Coming Food

It was in July, after the BB episode, that the garden shade-house thingy got covered and I started making my trays and filling them. The time to start plants in now, but I couldn't wait...seeds are cheap entertainment...and I can always replant! I couldn't help myself so I planted things and am having some results! As soon as the really wet weather comes (if it does) I will most likely lose some things but I don't really care. Things around the yard are always available ...it is just a question of whether I want to eat them or not. When it comes to jumbo guavas the answer is NO. Too sweet and too many inedible seeds. I don't want to make guava jelly (sweet) or pastry goo so I leave them for the birds. Much more entertaining. I gave the gutters another go and this time thinned out the lettuce. It appears that my not thinning them last time was the problem. Things are looking good! We have these fat bananas that have a few more seeds in them and are kind of orange inside. Manzanas are my favorite but the size and shape of these is perfect for making little banana plates to balance other things on.

I gave the gutters another go and this time thinned out the lettuce. It appears that my not thinning them last time was the problem. This time things are looking good!

 This is kale and the malabar climbing spinach I let reseed itself. The kale grows really well (why I don't know since it is a cole crop and we are in the tropics). I coat the leaves with nutritional yeast, cashews and a little olive oil and dehydrate them into chips. Yum! The reviews on the spinach are not so yummy - ya gotta mix it with better greens since there is that familiar tropical slime thing going on.

I've got one out of the 5 lemon cucumbers I planted really taking off. I am using cement mixing trays as the beds and put lots of holes in the bottom. I put aluminum screen in the bottom and a mix of mostly compost and some soil I loosened up by leveling my shade-house area. There is a tray of lettuce I've already thinned and a tray of cilantro.

I made myself a little sampler plate. I've got baby lettuce, wing beans spinach and micro-greens. What a disappointment on the micro-greens. I made an entire tray and they are stunted micro-greens or maybe they are supposed to be like that? I think they'd be better if I sprouted them in my sprouting jar. That's what I'll do with the rest of the seed. They are powerful when they get a little bigger like the radish and mustard tops but come on, micro greens aren't worth the hassle. I eat papaya on my granola, freeze it and dehydrate it. It is always good to have around. I continue to save and plant seed so I probably have a dozen trees ranging from 15 feet to 5 inches. I've got some peppers I probably started from seeds from something I ate. A lone pumpkin might be ready for Halloween. I'll carve it instead of eating it.

All my little trays that I hope will be lush with food some day soon. Turmeric looks like any ginger plant. The root is supposedly good for digestion and coloring food but I just like growing cool stuff because I can. Wing beans are all over the fence. I REALLY want zucchini. I mean REALLY want it. I have only gotten a couple in my previous attempts - just don't like humidity.

So stop and smell the lantana and grow some food today!

Saint Martin - the Other Food...ahhhhh

I don't know where the world went wrong. I just don't understand how coke can be consumed with African, Japanese, Indian, French etc. food. How is it that a sugary chemical laced beverage enhances a meal? I don't think it does. I think America and maybe everywhere else is messed up in the coke department. It was disappointing but expected that Coke will have infiltrated into fine French cuisine. At least they had mini cokes! Either Jeff's head got incredibly large or this Coke shrunk! Yes, it was a mini coke good for just a taste.

Near our condo there was a little bakery. I get up a lot earlier than Jeff and I like my coffee. I figured I'd get coffee and then he could sleep and we'd go for breakfast after. To my surprise this bakery had a wide selection of croissants, pastries, breads, savory things and desserts. After seeing the selection at this spot we stopped in at 4 or 5 other roadside bakeries and found things like these...eclairs, napoleons, croissants filled with almonds or chocolate or (my favorite) apricot. There were savory things like quiches and made to order crepes. There were sandwiches with proscuitto and real cheeses (we never got to those - too full).

Our final meal on the island was at Zee Best Restaurant on the Dutch side. I had a starter of an almond croissant filled with marzipan and topped with crunch slivered almonds.(this was a second breakfast after my croissant and coffee earlier).  I moved on to fresh squeezed orange juice and a jumbo coffee and this delicious smoked salmon, onion, and amazing sauce crepe! Oh my god it was heaven!!!

Since we were headed to the airport I decided I'd try to bring a croissant and some bread home. I didn't know if I'd be able to get them through security but I had to try. We stopped at another roadside bakery and found shelves of dark breads, oat breads, french breads and baguettes. Of course there were desserts.

More desserts...

Savory little pizzas and quiches and sandwiches.

In a quest for good dark chocolate we went into a small market the size of a gas station market and found all kinds of green things! We bought some dark chocolate, dates that were juicy, and some other goodies for Jeff's dad. There were fresh figs, round zucchini, white asparagus, all kinds of tomatoes, normal sized carrots, artichokes and many many more things.

Yes, for an island that is 37 square miles they manage to import fresh, gorgeous food. Puerto Rico imports over 85% of its food - why can't they do this? Well we all know the answer to that one, so now we are back in the food wasteland of Puerto Rico where people think Velveeta is cheese and there isn't a hint of a real grain in a whole loaf of bread. I guess I can look forward to eating at an unsanitary roadside van. Yeah.

St. Martin Mini-Vacation -- the Overview with Dinner Specifics

Jeff and I have been married for 16 years (end of June) and have never been on a vacation. First off, I have to differentiate between a "trip" and a "vacation."  We have been on several "trips" to far away places. We have gone to the Galapagos Islands, Bonaire, St. Croix, Akumal Mexico, Papua New Guinea, and Hawaii. We have gone on other "trips/adventures" near Washington State -- Hurst Island British Columbia, the San Juan Islands and numerous backpacking/camping/hiking trips  (Lake Ozette, Olympic National Forest, Oregon Coast ...) . All of our "trips" are primarily dive related with maybe some add on adventure stuff. Before I met Jeff I had gone to Fiji, Cozumel, Honduras (Guanaja), Australia (Brisbane and Tangalooma), and ice diving in Eastern Washington. Australia was more a vacation but the others were all diving. Anyway, I digress...when you live on a tropical island and go diving every week, caving or surfing or kayaking during the week and on weekends and can be on the beach or in the jungle in 20 minutes it makes no sense to go do that somewhere else (unless it is exotic like in the South Pacific or something). Why pay to do the activities we do every other day? What we wanted to do was go do something we don't have here in Puerto Rico -- we wanted to go have excellent food! After researching and reading and hunting for ticket prices etc I found a Jet Blue Getaway to Saint. Martin for what seemed like a reasonable price. You would think island hopping would be cheap and easy but it isn't - to go 100 miles south you need to go up to Florida so you can fly back down over PR to get to a lot of the islands. There are, however, some airlines that island hop - Liat, Air Sunshine, Cape Air, and Jet Blue are a few.

For $362 each we left San Juan for 3 nights, 4 days on Saint. Martin. That price was for airfare, condo, car, and departure taxes! This was a food vacation! I had done a lot of research and narrowed down the 200 or so restaurants to the 3 we could fit in. I had breakfast spots selected and the trip was all about eating eating and more eating! I am very picky about food - I don't generally like meat, starches (except real bread which I absolutely LOVE), organs, carcasses (bones and sinew and things). I can say we did not have any meal that was less than excellent! I am going to review the 3 we went to with some picky comments just so you can determine what is important to you if you decide to go there. I repeat though....any restaurant on St. Martin will be miles above anything in PR and will rival anything in the states!

We arrived Monday around 5 (an hour delay because of the Florida tropical storm). We got off the plane in an uncrowded airport that was sparkling clean and walked straight to the car rental where there was NO LINE, 2 minutes later the shuttle took us to the car and another 5 and we were off! Collision is covered with our credit card and the rental place covers liability (nice surprise). We checked into the condo which was Le Flambouyant, got our key, showered, and headed to Grand Case for dinner. The free GPS had a "restaurant" button and gave directions to a lot of the best ones. (that is how to do tourism)

Grand Case is the big food area on the French side. We parked and walked up to a bunch of small, open-to-the-air restaurants that had 20 at most tables.We did not eat on the water side of the street since the menus on the other side were what we wanted. The owner generally came up to explain the specials. If I am going to pay for food I expect good service, better food than I can make and different food than I can make. I also don't want to have to wear a coat (like PR places). We went first to L'Auberge. The restaurant was a few little open rooms painted a nice yellow and open to the street. We went immediately in (it is the low season there) and were seated. Water was poured, bread was delivered (hmmm real bread and butter), drinks and we ordered. The little amuse bouche (tongue teaser) was brought out. I had a salad with a phyllo purse filled with oozing goat cheese and crunchy nuts. I think Jeff had snails (escargot). I am not a fan of chewy things but I did try one of his and am a total convert!

Then it was on to the entrees. I had Monkfish stuffed with lobster and Jeff had "blackened" tuna. I had never had Monkfish before and it was a flaky but dense fish in a sort of roulette that had a very rich and delightful sauce over it. Jeff's tuna had the blackened flavor profile but wasn't what he expected - he has had better. The sides were amazing...some of them. One of the best ones was a cauliflower disc that was creamy, there were stuffed tomatoes, mushroom stuffed pepper and the highlight was some kind of carrot concoction that was fluffy and creamy as well. The only criticisms I have are that the portions are way too big and Jeff's dish and mine both had the same sides. That made it a little less thought out in my mind, and more like Bonefish restaurant or something. With food this good I would prefer the sides to be specific ones that match up with the main protein. Yes, we both had ocean things but still it would be better to have fewer and more specific sides. The photos do not show the excellent plating...just quick shots in low light... The salad with endive and peeled tomato and a little purse of warm goodness!

After all that we were too stuffed to eat dessert! This was only night one! Service was excellent. The portions I thought were too big. This was the most expensive restaurant and least favorite (nothing to complain about though - just not our best food or service). While waiting for the check some shots of raspberry/rum were presented.

Night 2 we went to La Villa. This was a nice, open restaurant with a pleasant atmosphere. The owner (Christophe) was exceptionally warm and the service was the best of the three we went to. On night one there was a scallop dish I wanted and this night it wasn't on the menu. The owner said they had scallops and I could tell them how I wanted them and they'd make them for me! This restaurant had a one-to-one dollar to euro which is beneficial. The dinner was a fixed price which was also very nice - one appetizer, main and dessert for one price. Two flutes of champagne started us off (part of the price and unexpected) and a chilled parsley soup amuse bouche.I tried the mahi mahi tartar since I hadn't ever had mahi that way before. I prefer tuna tartar since the mahi mahi was a little bland. I enjoyed the wasabi mousse on top but it wasn't strong enough. The pink peppercorns were a nice taste and visual and the balsamic reduction on the plate edges were really nice but there wasn't quite enough of it. The star of this dish though was the seaweed! I don't know what they did to it but it had just enough sesame and maybe it was fried? Yummy.

For the main dish I had seared scallops that were perfectly cooked. There were some very nice sides including beet chips and a sweet potato puree. There was an onion preparation, spinach, endive (can live without it) and a broccoli spear that was slightly misplaced. This was a very good meal. If I had a suggestion it would be to pair the scallops with a small mound of the seaweed I had in the appetizer! The color and flavor would have been an excellent match.



Jeff had Chilean Sea Bass which was perfectly prepared and not like any sea bass he'd had before. He had the same sides, which as I said before...I think the sides should be specific to the meal. Both of us had a cheese crunch/frito thing on top which was a nice textural element (I watch too many cooking shows, huh?)

For dessert Jeff ate most of his before I could get the camera out! I don't remember the name, but they were little eclair/custardy discs full of ice cream with chocolate and nuts etc. I had a tiramisu that didn't look like other tiramisus I've had but the flavors were amazing!!!

Night three ended up being our favorite food. I had hoped to get out of Grand Case and go toward Orient Bay to Ti Bouchon. We were very early and they weren't open so we went back to Grand Case. After looking at menus (we were going to eat on the water side of the street) I was settled on a crispy duck but Jeff didn't see anything that excited him. We looked back across the street and at the confusing menu of Le Cottage. I didn't like the way the menu sign looked (not as intimate as the other two restaurants) and it was kind of confusing. The owner came out and after explaining how it worked we gave it a try and it turned out to be our favorite food! For $39 you could choose 3 appetizers and 5 main dishes in "tasting" sizes with a dessert. There were many things to choose from. I couldn't eat that much stuff let alone decide on 8 things so for $23 I had 5 "tasting size" mains. I had scrambled egg with creme fraiche and stuff, bacon on a little toast, tuna carpaccio, anchovies and something or other, a shrimp egg roll thing and something else. Jeff had a whole smorgasbord of things - duck con fit with mashed potatoes, snail lollipop, anchovy thing, regular snail, some kind of tuna with wasabi and sesame,  and other stuff we can't remember.  The portions were perfect, the assortment was awesome, I was satisfied and the service was really good! The favorites for me were the duck con fit, snail lollipop, anchovy thing and that egg! The scrambled egg was put back in its little shell and served with a little spoon - I like that sort of thing! For dessert with split Jeff's warm chocolate souffle which was amazing! Then, I had coffee and they brought out some dark chocolate! How perfect is that. This was our least expensive and best meal of the trip!

Le Cottage - best food (perfect for my style of eating)

La Villa - absolutely the best service and excellent food

L/Auberge - nothing to complain about...excellent food and service

So there you have it! Ya gotta go!

Dehydrator Crazy

First off I am happy to say the blog stuff didn't revert to Spanish this time and I am able to post! For some reason every once and a while we go to our blog and it is Spanish up there and there isn't a way to find the "new post" thing. So the weather has been kind of odd this "dry" season. It isn't just because we are up north either. I woke up a few days ago like I do every morning to pink/orange out two windows I have a view of from bed. This is the pre-dawn view. With the troublesome clouds and cool (as in 64 degrees) temperatures it seemed like a great indoor dehydrator day!

I haven't had the Excaliber dehydrator for very long and am still figuring out the thicknesses of things, the dehydration times and recipes. It is like all "cooking" in that once you understand how things work you don't need recipes. For example, once you understand that you can fry, saute, bake, poach or boil chicken the rest is just about timing and seasonings. It is the same thing here. The great thing about dehydrating is that you know exactly what is in your food and how it has been processed. Using the dehydrator is dabbling more into the "raw food" world which is a place I'd like to live (at least a majority of the time). So here are the day's diversions: This first counter of stuff is the makings for some thyme crackers. Fresh thyme from the yard, water, ground flax, nutritional yeast, onions, cucumbers and a few raisins made a sheet of crunchy crackers.

The next crackers involved soaked raisins (sweetener), 4 cups of bell pepper, flax, nutritional yeast, lots of herbs and seasonings, water and almond butter. The results were really tasty! I have made the bell pepper crackers before and they are still my favorite. The super concentrated taste is the perfect carrier for bean dips or my favorite macadamia/squash dip. The interesting thing is how much quantity it takes to make a simple batch of crackers! These red crackers are made of 6 bell peppers, an onion, 1/2 cup of almond butter and some other stuff. That is a lot of food. REAL food! Usually for crackers you use flax or chia seeds since they have the slime required to stick stuff together.

Next I made some "bread." I hate it when vegetarian or vegan or raw recipes insist on pretending things are what they are not. I am sorry, a seedy, thicker-than-a-cracker cracker isn't a bread. It is a cracker in the broadest sense. Who cares if it is or isn't "bread"? Why mislead? It is something to sandwich stuff between or put stuff on. This was a basic Ani Phyo recipe for sunflower/black sunflower seed "bread." I tweaked it according to what I had around. It takes a lot of food to make 9 trays of highly nutritious, nutrient dense food!

This "bread" is great with cheese (the real kind, not fake cheese), avocado, onion, tomato on it and if you want to go hog wild...bacon. Everything is best with bacon (the vegetarian bacon is actually worth eating and microwavable - you can get it here in PR too!). Next up are the cookie-type granola-ish bars I've made before. I didn't soak my oats the night before but gave them a couple hours. Soaking oats and seeds and nuts removes phytic acid which is the stuff that makes them hard to digest. If nuts give you trouble just soak them. If you want them crunchy you can soak and then dehydrate them to maintain nutrients and make them easier to digest. By the way, dehydrating at temperatures below 110 keeps food enzymes alive so you extract the most nutrients possible. Dehydrating at low temperatures isn't considered cooking - it is considered "warming or heating" because nutrients are left intact. These bars are packed with nutrients - coconut oil, oats, peanut butter, honey, vanilla, chocolate, nuts, flax, coconut, dates and other odds and ends. You can get all this stuff in Puerto Rico! I even found non-raw dehydrated sour cherries that make a nice addition to things! All this REAL food combines to make a nutrient packed snack or heck even a meal! No white flour, processed sugar...it has its own vitamins and nutrients so it doesn't have to be "enriched" (which is code for "we've totally deadened the original food and now put vitamin dust on it to pretend it is food again").

Next up comes yogurt. This is not yogurt I made obviously although you can do that in a dehydrator and therefor skip the sugar and preservatives found in this crap. I had this around though from a SAM's club buy (can only eat what you can find) and it was near its expiration date. Jeff has been on travel and since he is the one who eats it - here it sits. Well, you can dehydrate it! Last time I made a sheet of it and the fruit bits made it tear as it dried. This time I put it through a strainer and made blobs. It worked out much better.

I actually like dehydrated yogurt. It is kind of a taffy consistency and makes a good sweet snack!

I am really liking the dehydrator! It is great for dehydrating excess fruit (can't wait for mango season although our mango isn't blooming yet). Bananas, papaya, pineapple. I made crepes or leather out of peanut butter, cocoa powder and bananas that was yummy snack-food. It'll be interesting to see what else I can do with it!

Double Comb's Big Day and Misc Cleanup 'n Stuff

I don't know how it happened, but there has been an explosion of chickens on our property. Hens are ok, but currently (until this afternoon) there are 4 roosters which is about 3 too many. They start arguing in the morning as they try to pimp each others hens and they scream all day across the property. Double Comb has the worst voice - staccato and urgent sounding. Big Red has a low voice so it doesn't matter, Abby Normal has a squeaky voice but I doubt he could survive outside our compound and the other rooster is really bad. We finally couldn't take it anymore and borrowed Amparo's cage. When I finished mowing I came up and Double Comb was in the cage ready for relocation! Ha ha! I was sooooo excited! The worst one on the first day of trying - yah! I tied the cage in the truck and took a little drive and opened the cage near a big field (and some houses). I was gonna take a photo of him running up the road but a car came. He is gone and we are happy about it!

On Saturday there was a big, strong wind gust that blew over a bunch of bananas and snapped off a gigantic tree on an adjoining plot of land. We started to look at a couple of our huge trees and decided to do some chainsaw pruning of large ones around the house. The Tamarind tree got really tall and all the pods were way up where I couldn't get them. I decided to cut it pretty drastically to make it lower, bushier and try to harvest what I could. The pods were either green or too old, but the tree is pruned and should be nicer soon.

I'm gonna finish off with heavy duty large loppers to pull in the branches and even things out. Last year we cut about half of the Maria Tree pretty drastically. We only wanted to do half (the half that could shade the solar panels) last year and finish up this year. We cut quite a bit off and didn't want to cut too much and damage the tree (it is beautiful!). The right side is all full and bushy where we pruned last year. You can see the taller parts in the middle and on the left.

Jeff got quite a bit yesterday but there are still a couple huge branches that are tall and were waving around a bunch in our little storm. They have to go, but we want to wait until we harvest the avocados on the tree nearby or the falling branch will most likely take them out. It is the only tree this year with a lot of avocados. A very disappointing year for fruit. We don't have any little oranges, either (I did fertilize...they did bloom...we had odd weather...they didn't set fruit.)

I am waiting for the carambola to get a little riper and then I will prune/harvest them. I plan to cut at least a third off the tree to lower it and reduce the amount of fruit! This tree is loaded and already has blossoms on it. It gets fruit 4 times a year or more and there is only so much you can do with this much fruit.

Another hen with another group (7) of chicks. She paraded them around on days 2 and 3 and now we haven't seen them. With the number of chickens in the yard (more than 20) I think that is ok.

Goats on the road when I was driving Double Comb to his new home.

A father/sons outing - the dad was weed whacking the side of the road and his two sons were making grass piles I assume were going to be taken home for the horses. At least they had a truck - we usually see small cars packed inside the trunk and sometimes inside the car!

Finally - I have been making some "raw" food lately and found that now when I eat processed food it well, doesn't taste like food...it just sits in the stomach and tastes like salt or sugar or chemicals. It is kind of strange. I will always have coffee in the morning (with milk and a little processed sugar) and I love yeast breads. Occasionally meat is fine (once or twice a week and no meat for me is really better). Uncooked food has a tremendous amount of flavor in it but you have to have access to lots of different vegetables to make it work. Compromise is what will happen in our house but this evening's meal was a first stab at beet ravioli and a nice mango soup. The soup was really flavorful and the ravioli was really good but I lot most of the sauce (pureed peppers) when my pastry bag blew up. None-the-less it all tasted good, felt good in the stomach/intestines and for me is a better way to eat!