There is something far more rewarding about making yummy things to eat in a place with limitations. Sometimes the limitations are that ingredients are hard to find or don’t exist. Sometimes they are far away and you don’t have the right transportation to get there. Sometimes you don’t have the local know how or connections to get what you want (read the fish post below). Other times you know where the ingredients are, but you are not willing to pay “gringo” prices to get them. So you work with what you have and the success is much sweeter as a result.
Smoothies
For those of you that know Sam well, you might know that it is still hard to get fruit down him. He will eat applesauce, fruit leathers and smoothies. Fruit leathers are not great for his teeth or for him, so we don’t buy those anymore. That leaves us with apple sauce and smoothies. Apple sauce works in a pinch, but prevents any variety. So, smoothies it is. I make big batches of these all the time at home and freeze the excess into these awesome silicon popsicle holders I bought online. That way when the boys come from home school and want a “treat,” they can have a smoothie popsicle with a whole variety of good things in it.
Our first week or so here, we tried out few different smoothie places. They ranged from okay to pretty good. I consider myself a bit of expert, since Gus is always telling me I should open up a smoothie food cart “Seriously, Mom. You would make SO MUCH money!” I doubt that, kid, but I will soak up all the appreciation you throw my way.
It was pretty obvious to me that the problems with the smoothies here were that they were generally not cold enough, they were too watery and not particularly sweet…probably because of the WATER or small amount of ice they add. Water? Seriously? After about the fourth time I ordered one, I thought to myself, “This is stupid. I just need to make my own.”
So, once we figured out the best places to buy produce, I started cleaning, cutting, bagging and freezing my own strawberries, pineapple and mango. If you’d like to give it a go at home, place into blender about 12-16 ounces of orange juice, add a fresh banana, some Greek yogurt and some frozen strawberries, pineapple and mango. Blend and you have a thick, super cold, sweet bonanza of fruit flavors. I am still the smoothie queen…even in Costa Rica!
Pre-Blended Yumminess 
Not Watery!
Banana Bread
I was reading a great book (The School of Essential Ingredients by Erica Bauermeister, brought by my awesome sister-in-law…this is a shout out to you, Jackie…to our Book Club’s annual white elephant-style Christmas book exchange and luckily picked by me) and paused at a section where the author was talking about the importance of not mixing quick breads too much. “Hmm.” I thought “I always make banana bread in my Cuisinart. I’m probably mixing it too much. Maybe I should try hand mixing a batch here?” And, so I did.
Thankfully, I have made banana bread SO MANY times off my recipe card at home titled “Gus’s Favorite Banana Bread” that I actually have it memorized. Ingredients were easy to come by, so I was off. One cube of unsalted butter becomes soft on the counter here after only a couple hours, add in a cup of sugar and mix. Mix two eggs by hand in a separate bowl (or in my case a coffee cup) and add them to the butter/sugar mixture. In a separate bowl, mix 1 3/4 flour, 1 teaspoon baking soda, 1 teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon cinnamon (or if Gus has his way several tablespoons) and 1/4 teaspoon baking powder. Add to wet mixture in two batches. Using the now empty flour bowl, mash two soft bananas and mix with a heaping tablespoon or so of yogurt and one teaspoon of vanilla (optional), then add to other mixture and stir. Put in floured pan and bake at 350 for an hour.
I was really surprised how great it came out. Delicious. And, it had a really nice airy texture, a little less dense than at home and a little less cleaning since all the mixing was by hand. I’m sold.
Ceviche and Poke
One of the real delights here is eating seafood multiple times a week. Back home, if I am honest, we maybe eat seafood once a month. I’m realizing how sad that is as I type that, but it’s the truth. We’ll need to work on that when we get back to Oregon.
My two favorite fish dishes to make here are ceviche and poke. They are both so easy. The mixture I came up with for ceviche is Mahi Mahi (the stuff I bought off the beach…see the fish post), red onion, cilantro (sorry, Blair), jalapeno, avocado, mango, a lot of fresh lime juice, a little fresh orange juice and salt to taste.
It is SOOO good…so fresh, light and cold. It’s the perfect thing to eat in the heat.
We all love poke, but Gus is particularly obsessed with the stuff. We bought some tuna from the pescaderia we finally found at Playa Potrero which is about 40 minutes away by car. We paid 8,000 colones per kilo (2.2 pounds) or about $14 per kilo/$6.50 per pound. We got one dinner and two school lunches for Gus out of this purchase. What a score and what a lucky kid to get poke in his lunch!
Poke is ridiculously easy to make. I just cubed some tuna, then tossed it a sauce of soy sauce, fresh grated ginger, sesame oil and sliced green onions. Then, I added cubed avocado and garnished with sesame seed and more green onions. So good!
Presto! Sounds wonderful?