Spectacular Sunset

On Saturday, after spending the day learning to cook, Imelda and I went to Playa Pinion for a looksie. All the beaches in this area are black sand beaches, but Pinion is a little different in that the beach is a steep drop down from the area off the main road. When the tide is out, you can walked down to the beach.





While there, we watched the sun set behind the mountains in the distance, across the water. I'm not sure when I've seen such a marvelous sight and I captured it on the digital camera at least 50 times!






To see the rest of the sunset photos, click here.

Costa Rican Cooking

Last weekend, I went to my Spanish teacher's family house near Jaco Beach. There were two objectives for the weekend. The first, of course, was to check out the area and the local beaches. The second was to learn how to make several Costa Rican dishes.

A traditional dish here is "arroz con pollo" or rice with chicken. The recipe is a little complicated but I'll try to explain.

Chicken
Cook 2 chicken breasts (still on bone) on stove in water with:
1 pkg chicken consomme
1 pkg chicken w/herbs mix
Sazon Complete (cover chicken) - Season Salt as substitute if no Sazon Complete
6 cloves of unpeeled garlic
2 tablespoons Lizano salsa
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1/2 red pepper - unchopped
handful of cilantro
1 carrot, thickly sliced diagonally
handful of oregano

Once cooked, let cool. When rice is almost finished, deskin and debone chicken into long pieces (vs. chunks). Grate 4 tomatoes and simmer the tomato meat on the stove. Add the chicken when the tomatoes are boiling. Mix well and cook 5 minutes.

Rice
In rice cooker (or on stove), mix, 1/2 cup of cooking oil, oregano, 6 cloves of garlic (peeled and finely chopped), large onion (finely chopped), cilantro (finely chopped) and 1/2 red pepper (diced) and 1/2 cup of achiote. Add chicken broth, 1/4 cup of Lizano salsa, 1/2 cup of Sazon Complete, and 1/4 cup of ketchup. Add 1 pkg of consomme and 1 pkg of chicken and herbs mix. Add 2 lb. of precooked rice (precooked in a package, not precooked like you cooked it an hour ago!) and cook until rice tops liquid.



Grate 1 big carrot and add to rice. Add chicken and can of mixed vegetables, drained to rice and mix with fork.

Serve!



I love this dish served with platones fritas, which is very, very simple to make. Slice a ripe plaintain (the ripe ones are yellow) and fry over medium heat in cooking oil until slightly browned. Pat dry and serve.



The other dish we made was very simple as well. It's called ceviche and we made it with fish. I've also had it with shrimp. Both are delicious.

Ingredients:
raw fish - white fish is what is usually used...tilapia, sea bass, etc.
red pepper
onion
cilantro
límons
ginger ale

Finely chop red pepper, onion and cilantro. Chop fish into 1/4" cubes (approximately). Mix together and squeeze fresh límon juice until it covers the fish mixture. (I plan to use limes with maybe one lemon for good measure.) Let sit for at least 3-4 hours in the refrigerator. In addition to adding flavor, the citric acid causes the proteins in the seafood to become denatured, which pickles or "cooks" the fish without heat (thank you Wikipedia!). Serve with saltine crackers. In Costa Rica, many people mix in ketchup and mayonaise. I prefer a little hot sauce.

To make shrimp ceviche, follow the same steps but use peeled, whole raw shrimp instead of fish.

Yum Yum!

Birds For My Friend Beth

My friend Beth Taylor in Hattiesburg is a bird watcher. These photos are for her...

Painted Palm Trees

South of Límon, on the Carribean coast, there are several areas where the palm trees have been painted beautiful colors on the bottom half of the tree. I'm not sure of the reason why, but in any case they are very interesting to see.

Red Things For My Mom

My mom loves all things red so here are some photos for her!

Monkeying Around!

This morning, Grasse and I walked through Cahuita National Park, which is very similar to the one we visited yesterday. However, we saw some really cool monkeys, up close and personal. This are white-faced monkeys...











And here's a monkey of the human kind...




And, you thought YOU had termite problems...




Finally, a few lasts shots...

Moseying Through Manzanilla

On Saturday morning, Grasse and I went to the Manzanilla National Park. This is basically an area that is preserved as is, with a walking trail throughout. It's bordered on one side by the Carribean Sea. I took LOTS of photos...here's a sample.

Blue Banana

As promised...some pictures of the hotel where we are staying...








The view from our breakfast table. Yes, that is the Carribean 50 feet away!



Photos of our really cool room...





And last, photos of the family of turtles in the water near the patio...

I Was Looking For Margaritaville!!??!

I'm off on another adverture this weekend. Grasse (pronounced Grace), another teacher at The Green H School, joined me for a trip to the south Carribean side of the country to explore Puerto Viejo and Cahuita, along with several beaches in between and two national parks. We left Escazu at 1:30 p.m. SEVEN hours later, we arrived at the hotel. Needless to say, we got lost somewhere along the way...on at least three occasions. Thank goodness Grasse is a native Spanish speaker since we had to stop and ask directions several times. Once we got to the "Banana Azul" we agreed it was definitely worth the trip. The small hotel is gorgeous and we could hear the ocean from where we had dinner. It was too dark to get any good photos, but I'll definitely have some to post tomorrow!

Christmas Shopping

I had planned to travel to the Limon on the Carribean coast this weekend for the annual carnival. However, the carnival was cancelled because the city has a trash problem and the Minister of Health wouldn't issue a permit. Very interesting. I had also been told it was pretty dangerous so it all worked out for the best. Another teacher and I are planning to pass through Limon next weekend on our way to Puerto Viejo and Cahuita.

So, I took the opportunity today to explore a little bit more and get some Christmas shopping done. I took the bus into San Jose and walked through the city, stopping briefly in Parque Central to take a few pictures of the park and Catholic Church in front of it.










From there I went to the Artist Market that I've frequented several times and bought a ton of presents. Then, I went to a town north of San Jose that my Spanish teacher had told me about, Moravia. Here, I hit the mother lode. There is a street with at least a dozen souvenir stores of varying sizes and items. And, for the first time, I saw pottery pieces...lots of blue pottery pieces.

This is probably the first year that I have finished my Christmas shopping before Halloween!