Caribbean Winter

No, I'm not heading off on a cruise or a trip to the sunny south, unfortunately. But that doesn't mean we can't enjoy the flavours of the Caribbean mid-winter!

Des and I are part of a potluck-style supper club that hosts an 'International Night' once a month. There are five couples, each of us taking our turn as 'hosts' about twice a year. The hosts choose a country and a date, then each couple then brings a dish of their choosing from that country. This month, our hosts decided to go with a Caribbean Winter theme, which was a lovely pick-me-up of flavours on a bleak February day.

The menu. 

Don't you just love the chalkboard. Our hosts usually use this to keep their weekly family meal plans noted, so everyone knows what's on the go. They wiped the slate clean for our get-together.

Our menus usually come together pretty well with an appetizer, a main and some sides and a dessert. Sometimes the menu includes our own 'twists' on the regional dishes, usually depending on our access to ingredients (we do live on an island in the middle of the Atlantic after all, so exotic and ample options are not easy to come by!). We've also had a few 'misses' on dishes, but overall each night is a new experience and we regularly say 'this is probably the best night yet!'.

This time we started with Des & my appetizer - beer battered coconut shrimp with an orange rum sauce (recipe below). The shrimp recipe is delish, one I picked up in a cooking class I took last winter. The sauce was a bit too sweet for my taste, though I only had the tip of a spoonful for quality control purposes given it contained rum and I'm preggo! (We also used non-alcoholic beer for the batter, in case you were concerned for my baby's well-being!). Next time, I'd decrease the orange marmalade and up the rum for sure. Despite my review, the shrimp and sauce were a huge hit!



The island-style cod, which was absolutely fantastic. I believe it was marinated in cream and hot peppers, giving it the perfect amount of heat. Then lightly battered and pan-fried. So very tasty!

The Caribbean salad was chock full of beans, corn, peppers, onions and flavourful herbs and spices. Served on a lettuce leaf it was one of my favourite parts of the meal.

I didn't get a good pic of the rice and beans, but you can see them on the plate. We usually go with a self-serve approach and, as you can tell, my focus was getting a tasty helping of each dish and not on plate presentation!

The meal was then topped off with the most delicious dessert I've had in a while: Chocolate Natillas with Coffee Bean Granita.


Dessert chef putting the final touches on the treats.



The dessert was like a very rich chocolate mousse topped with a light and flavourful coffee granita. You could tell it was a HUGE HIT as conversation stopped for about 10 minutes while everyone enjoyed every single spoonful. There may have even been some bowl-licking going on. Just saying. It was that good!

 

And of course, what's dinner without a nice bottle of wine. Depending on the country, we sometimes try to pair regional wine and other times (like when you know the region isn't known for great wine) we just go with a usual favourite. Or in my case, I went with one of the non-alcoholic beer left from the shrimp batter.

All in all another awesome evening of great food, great conversation and even better company.

******************************************

Recipe for Beer Battered Coconut Shrimp
60 large shrimp

2 cups all purpose flour
3/4 to 1 cup of beer
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper (or more to taste)
1 large egg
2 cups shredded coconut

1. Peel and devein shrimp, leaving tail piece intact. (or buy already peeled/deveined like I did!)
2. Combine 1 cup of the flour with the beer, baking soda, salt, cayenne pepper and egg in large bowl, Whisk until smooth.
3. Put other cup of flour in another large bowl. Dredge shrimp in this flour.
4. Put coconut in a bowl.
5. Holding shrimp by tail, dip in batter (allowing excess to drip off) and then dip in coconut. Press coconut into shrimp to help it stick. Transfer to parchment lined baking sheet until all shrimp are battered.
6. Fry shrimp in vegetable oil in batches of about 8, turning once, until both sides are golden. About a minute total. Serve with dipping sauce.

Orange Rum Dipping sauce:
1 cup orange marmalade
2 tbsps (or more, according to your/my tastes!) of rum.

Combine marmalade and rum in a small pot. Simmer over low heat on stove for about 5 minutes. Serve warm or cool.

Enjoy!

Month in Photos

A lot of scrapbookers have started doing a version of Project 365, which is basically taking a photo a day for a year and putting those pics in an album with short notes or stories. Becky Higgins has a fantastic kit to make the whole process easy-peasy. Part of me wishes I had the stamina to do it, but taking pics, printing pics, recording notes every day for a year is just more than I know I can realistically commit too. In fact, it was just this weekend that I started to finish up my Week in the Life album from April 2010!

Still, I know having that album of images and stories all together at the end of the year would be amazing. So when I saw these templates on Simple As That I immediately thought it was the perfect solution for me. I could use as many or as few pictures as I happen to have in a month and make a few quick notes about the month's highlights. And the templates are free to boot!

In just a few hours this weekend, I captured our January in photos.

I plan to do one or two pages like this each month for the year and then print them and put them in an album. No fancy papers, no embellishments. Just photos and short snippets all in one place. So easy. Love it.

Simple Things - Snow Day



We ended up with a snow day, well a snow morning, this week - meaning we didn't have the normal morning get-to-the-office routine (aka rush). Instead, we started the day in PJs, relaxing with cup of a coffee and a stack of blueberry pancakes. Normally a weekend-only experience, it was a small, simple pleasure during the usually hectic workweek. Pancake recipe and more pics here.

For more simple things, visit:

Flower Power

How about that pretty pink on a chilly February Friday?

Old man winter may have just begun here in NL, but I'm already longing for spring. The warm rays of sunshine, blossoming buds on trees, songbirds in the branches and signs of fresh life at every turn. Makes me envision my one little word. Alas, spring is still weeks and weeks away here in our corner of the world. Until then, this little bit of flower power will have to do.

Have a bright and beautiful weekend whatever the weather whereever you are!

Snow Day

Well, a snow morning at least. Making it a perfect morning for warm blueberry pancakes and coffee. The same one's I talked about in this post on weekend breakfast routines. mmmm. It's not often my hubby and are home together and awake early enough on a weekday to enjoy breakfast together. I also figure whipping up a batch of hearty, delicious, hot pancakes is the least I can do for my hubby who will have to go out in the cold to shovel 20+cms of snow from the driveway.  And so you don't feel left out, I think a snow morning is also a perfect morning for sharing the recipe love.

To whet your taste buds, you'll end up with this:

The recipe is actually from Janet and Greta Podleski's show Eat, Shrink and Be Merry on Food Network Canada. The pancakes received such glowing reviews on the TV show, I decided to give them a go one weekend. Janet and Greta's recipes and cookbooks hadn't failed us yet, and these were no exception. You start with these ingredients, most of which are pantry basics. I've substituted applesauce for the banana and I've also used some yogurt when I was low on milk, both with equally tasty results.

You mix your dry ingredients together (bran, flour, baking soda and powder), set aside.

Then combine your wet ingredients (banana, egg, melted butter, milk, vanilla, maple syrup) and whisk to combine:

Add wet to dry, mix just until they've become friends. Don't overwork it or your pancakes will be more tough than fluffy. Trust me :) 

Batter will be thick. That's the way it's supposed to be. Add your blueberries to the mixed batter. Fresh or frozen work equally well. And if you didn't have blueberries, I'm sure diced bananas, chocolate chips or nuts would be delish - though you won't get those antioxidants!

Put about a half cup of batter per pancake on a hot 325 degree griddle. Let cook for about 3 minutes.

Flip those babies over and cook for 3 more minutes on the other side. I know three minutes per side seems like a long time for pancakes, but the batter is thick and needs that time to cook through.

And trust me, these are worth the wait. Add your favourite toppings. The recipe suggests yogurt, but my choice is a little pat of butter, some maple syrup and a sprinkling of extra berries. (And no, we didn't have Starbucks on this snowy morning, this pic is from a previous shoot ;)

This pic, this is from this morning. Mmmmm. Mmmmm. Delish.

Full recipe for Batter Be Good to Me pancakes here. Enjoy!