Quick Nachos

Layer corn chips and grated cheese on an oven tray. I use a blend of 6 cheeses and white corn chips. Warm in oven until cheese melts.

Top with oodles of chopped capsicum, tomato, onion and avocado. Add baby corn and sprinkle with a good splash of pimiento or taco sauce. Top with sour cream if desired.

Garlic Lobster & Chili and Lime Fish

Garlic Lobster
Boil a pot of sea water and drop live lobster in and replace lid. Boil for 10 minutes, remove lobster and refrigerate to cool. Remove tail from shell and remove back vein. Heat a fry pan with butter and crushed garlic, pan fry quickly to warm....serve with crusty bread and salad.

Chili and Lime Fish
Place fillet of fish in foil with a good splash of chili sauce, cracked pepper and the juice of half a lime. Seal foil and fry in a dry pan turning until cooked (a few minutes).

Foodfront for past few weeks

We sampled fast food from Taco Bell, a popular American food franchise store. If you can manage to avoid the delicious double fried chips and crispy cinnamon twists it is possible to eat healthy here for a few dollars. Chips and twists are good though, so forget about the healthy!

Jac has taken the award for the best bread-maker and she makes a mean chocolate cake. The iced chocolate cake makes the blow of Steve losing his crown easier!

We got some meat vacuum-packed at Curacao two weeks ago….sadly a poor job was done and now our meat supply is fish food….so meat free recipes on our last few days of sailing…

Spinach & Feta Cheese Quiche

In a bowl, whisk 6 eggs, sour cream, grated cheese, crumbled feta cheese, tin of drained and rinsed spinach and salt and pepper. Pour into a greased pan (lined with bread crumbs…I omit crumbs) and bake in a moderate oven.

Fried Rice…
Pan-fry onion, chopped bacon and capsicum. Add cooked rice and pan-fry adding tinned corn , stir through beaten egg and add soy sauce and cracked pepper prior to serving…

A variation to this is to add pre-cooked red curry rice, omit egg and soy sauce. Add a tin of coconut milk.

Sandwiches ( home baked bread) with cold meat, cheese and pickles….ABC islands had a great supply of pre-packed sliced cold cut meats/sausage and gouda cheeses.
Serve with a lettuce side salad adding chopped tomato, onion, S&P and tarragon vinegar.
Grated and drained cucumber mixed with vinegar, cream and S&P is a favourite and fresh side salad.

Ostrich Burger,Cocktails & Apple Pie

Not all at the same time....but a sampling of our "eat outs" the past few days.

We visited an ostrich farm....Ostrich meat is red and tastes very "gamey" and seemed a little rare, and seriously, difficult to eat something that eats it own poo! Also, if an ostrich is being pursued by a predator it will continue running until it drops dead. Meanwhile, the pursuer has long ago gone looking for easier prey. Oh, to be an ostrich.
Curacao liquor is flavoured with the dried peels of Larahas, which were developed from the sweet Valencia orange transplanted to the island by Spanish explorers. The nutrient-poor soil and arid climate of Curaçao changed the fruit's taste, creating the Laraha.The recipe was created by accident by the Senior family in the 1900's....and voila....Curacao! Flavours are the same for orange, blue, red and green curacao. Chocolate, Coffee and Rum Raisin flavours also available.
Apple Pie...nothing quite like it
In particular, dutch apple pie(appeltaart or appelgebak)
We have become very good coffee and pie samplers. Every place has awesome appelebak, we may need to attempt a second round to decide the best.

Bread Update....

It is official, Steve is changing his surname from Brown to Baker!
How can a man who struggles to boil water make an awesome loaf of bread...I mean this man seriously cooks nothing....and yet my bread flops and his is awesomely (?) delicious!
His latest effort.....

Food Packaging

This is not the local dump, it is a beach in Venezuela

We have been sailing now for eight months and to date and have travelled from Florida to Venezuela, making many stops at various places in The Bahamas, Turks and Caicos, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Spanish Virgins, US Virgins, British Virgins, St Martin, Saba, St Kitts and Nevis, Bonaire and Curacao.
What has been the one constant along the way?
The amount of litter we have seen on our travels. Do not even get me started on the careless over-use of disposables!
Ok, so far Venezuela has the most litter but are conservative in packaging and do not overuse. Beer bottles litter the roadsides, so much so if you were to throw a bottle you would be very lucky not to hit a bottle that is already there! It is a poor country, why not have a bottle return system, like we had in the good old days....a few cents a bottle adds up doesn't it? Not even sure if they actually even have bin collections. For some strange reason the litter in Venezuela didn't worry me, perhaps because they do not overuse disposables and it is heavily populated.
The Bahamas on the other hand is not heavily populated and truly have magnificent waters so to see them over-package everything (I have never seen so many styrofoam food containers) and just carelessly discard their waste is alarming. One fellow in Nassau had no qualm in throwing his KFC box on the busy footpath when he was done with it....maybe that island 'no worries mon' attitude.
Florida...well that is just a throw away society. I cannot believe Americans are only just now introducing re-usable grocery bags in the supermarkets. I might add some oldies are complaining about it..they believe it is their right to use plastic bags. So much for older being wiser!
Dominican Republic for a poor country still manages to have lots of styrofoam hot boxes.
Bonaire supermarkets charge for plastic bags and while the island still has it's fair share of litter, the people are at least making an effort, by reducing wastage.
Curacao (in fact most places I have been) on the other hand put three grocery items in a plastic bag that has been re-enforced by another plastic bag and I am expected to walk out with ten of these double bags with a few items in each. I don't think so.
Everywhere in St Kitts has don't litter signs and guess what....everywhere there is a sign, someone has kindly dumped their rubbish. Why?

I am not having a whine about a few pieces of paper or a couple of plastic bags, many times there are garbage bags full of waste just dumped by the roadside.

Every paradise we visited was littered! The exception to this was Saba, Dutch Antilles. It takes out the gold medal in my book for being the cleanest place we have visited. Congratulations proud Sabans for respecting your paradise!

Most of the people we have met so far are fabulously friendly and proud people. I just can't understand most peoples total disregard for the planet and the consequences of their actions. Someone enlighten me!

Ok, I will get down off my styrofoam soapbox now.

Lunch at Marsche Bieuw

Generally influenced by the Dutch, Curacao’s local cuisine is a mixture of some 50 cultures with a touch of local flavor added.
A majority of Curacao businesses close for lunch for a few hours and a hot lunch is favoured.
Marsche Bieuw, an old market in Willemstad, is a good source of authentic local cuisine. It is mostly frequented by locals, which is always a good sign that the food is good, portions are generous and prices can't be beat. There are several venders in this building and dining areas are differeniated by the colour of the tablecloths. The atmosphere is great here so it a good cultural experience for us.

We had Stoba di Cabrito, Curacao recipe style for kid (goat) stew, it was delicious. Another local favourite is Yuana – the Iguana Stew, but we passed on trying that.
Fried plantains (cooking bananas) and peas and rice are traditional meal accompaniments throughout the Caribbean.

Recipe....Guacamole

Avocados are in plentiful supply in the southern part of the Caribbean.
Finely chop avocado, onion, tomato and capsicum. Gently fold in a little sweet chili sauce, ground pepper, few drops of tabasco, good squeeze of lime and small dollop of mayo.

Bread

Steve tried out the bread maker....this is our third attempt, and we don't talk about the other two...oh, ok....I may have missed adding one cup of flour on the first attempt and the 2nd try, the power went off half way through..(is that my fault?)! Anyway the third attempt and this is the result...sorry about the pose...but he is strictly a 'boil water only' kinda guy, so he is feeling a bit cocky that his loaf of bread is so light and fluffy.
Presently we are still at the Curacao Marina. Let's hope when we are sailing the breadmaker doesn't zap too much power when we will be generating our own by solar, wind and battery.