A Jeanne in the Kitchen

Our first meal for this trip to Bonaire was at Mezze, a Mediterranean/Middle Eastern restaurant, just a short walk away from where we were staying, at the DIVI.

When we visit areas known for fresh seafood, we always eat as much fresh seafood as we can, since fresh seafood isn’t a thing here in mountainous, land-locked Colorado. We ordered Pasta del Mari to share as our main entree, with a Middle Eastern sausage as a starter. We split everything, and everything was very good. I really loved the sausage.

Not only did we enjoy a delicious meal, but we had a gorgeous view as well. We we seated right across from the dock, where we could enjoy the beautifully painted sky dancing over the calm waters.

It was a great ending to a very long day. Stay tuned. I have lots more to share. this is just the beginning. 🙂

Have a great day and make everyday great. Live life to the fullest and enjoy the ride. ‘Til next time.

Bonaire is one of the Dutch ABC islands in the Caribbean. There are six main Dutch islands in the Caribbean – Aruba, Bonaire, Curacao (the ABC Islands), Saba, St. Eustatius and St. Maarten. We’ve been to all of them, multiple times, except St. Eustatius, and Saba, we have only seen from underwater. Dutch is the official language of all of these islands, but they all speak English, Spanish and their own local language of Papiamento too. Bon Bini means welcome in Papiamento.

Because we were underwater for a good portion of our trip, I don’t have nearly as many pictures from our trip as usual. We were there to DIVE, DIVE, DIVE, and that we did! That means, I have already edited all my pictures and they are now ready to share. This was also our 4th time visiting the island, and I already have lots of pictures from previous trips too.

I had a goal in mind when embarking on this trip. I wanted to make my 450th dive, and that I did and then some. My current dive total now stands at 457, and I am definitely still counting. My next goal is now 500. I am only 43 dives away from that goal. I will achieve that one soon. 🙂

When we visit Bonaire, we always stay at the Divi Flamingo Resort. One of the many reasons we stay there is because it is geared specifically for divers and they have a great dock and reef just steps away from the rooms. We can dive off the house dock ANYTIME we want, as often as we want. We also get the unlimited tank option that allows us to just grab tanks and go, anytime, anywhere, as often as we like. We rent a truck and pack it full of tanks and off we go. The whole island is one big dive site.

Our mini apartment was behind these signs, at the far right right, just behind of the pool

This is the dock, just a hop, skip and a jump, and literally a big giant stride, away from our room. Over the years, we have dived MANY, MANY dives from this dock, including this trip. All of our island night dives were dived here (yes, it is dived, not dove).

After a VERY long travel day, we arrived at the DIVI just in time to view a gorgeous sunset. It was definitely a very warm welcome.

We dropped off our bags then headed out to go get some dinner. We didn’t have our truck yet, so we had to go somewhere within walking distance. After a delicious dinner, we called it a day and turned in for the night. After all, we had to muster up our energy to let the diving adventures begin.

This is just day one of our trip. Sit back, grab some popcorn, and enjoy the adventures.

Life is short. Make the most out of everyday and do the things you love to do. Live life to the fullest and enjoy the ride. Have a great day and make everyday great. ‘Til next time.

Hello Everyone. We’re back. We got back last night. We had a great trip, with lots of diving. But as usual when we come home from a trip, there is always so much that needs to be done to get back into the swing of things. But soon, you will hear about all our recent adventures. 🙂

I have been busy in the “silver mines ” lately. Even more so than usual. I have been working on a whole bunch of gifts for all my September birthdays. I have completed 4 out of 5 and started the 5th gift today. I made a lot of progress on it too. That one won’t get finished until I return home though.

Here is the last set I completed. I just finished it today. As usual, it was full of trials and tribulations, and a lot of blood, sweat and tears too. But it is now done, and even if I do say so myself, I think it came out very nice. 🙂 The stones are Snowflake Obsidian. (I have NO idea why the photo kept flipping on me, but with as many troubles that I had with this set, I am NOT surprised). I already had the small stones for the earrings, and Bruce and Julia gave me the larger stone, with a bunch of other beautiful stones, when they came out to visit. It was a good match to complete the set. 🙂

OK. I’m off now. I’ll be back before you know it. I’ll miss you. Talk to you soon. 🙂

Life is short. Make the most out of everyday and live life to the fullest. Have a great day and make everyday great. Enjoy the ride. ‘Til next time.

We are busy getting last minute things taken care of before we leave tomorrow. Our flight to Bonaire leaves early, early in the morning. I think our flight leaves at 5:00 AM, meaning we have to be at the airport no later than 3:00 AM. UUUUUGGGHHHH!!!!!

I will be off the grid until we return home. I will be underwater, diving, diving, and diving. Try not to miss me too much. I’ll be home again before you know it. 🙂

These pictures are from our last trip to Bonaire, a few years ago.

I’ll see you soon. Live life to the fullest. Have a great day and make everyday great. ‘Til next time.

I always love recreating from my leftovers, but we really make a point of making sure we use up everything in our fridge right before we leave for a trip. This time, I re-Thai=ed.

When I made my Thai Swai Thai Swai, I had enough sauce leftover for something else. I re-Thai-ed it, and used chicken instead of fish and added some more vegetables. I served it over pasta instead of rice and once again, made it into something completely different. The “Queen” would be so proud. 🙂

I used both my remaining Thai sauce and the rest of my coconut milk, then added some more green beans, that I par-boiled first, some mushrooms a yellow heirloom tomato and chopped cilantro.

I cooked the seasoned chicken first, then removed it and sauteed the mushrooms. Next came the sauce and coconut milk, then I re-added the chicken and green beans.

When plating it up, it was cooked pasta, a little sauce, the sliced chicken, more sauce and vegetables, finished with the diced tomatoes and chopped cilantro. It was just as good the second time around as it was the first. 🙂

Life is short. Make the most out of everyday and live life to the fullest. Have a great day and make everyday great. Enjoy the ride. ‘Til next time.

I love to balance my meals. When I cook I always mix proteins with vegetables and some kind of starch or carbs on the side. I do this with any dish I cook, regardless of the ethnicity of the dish. I try to match my vegetables and starches to the ethnicity of the main entree the best that I can too. So when I made my Caribbean roast Caribbean Roast, I also made my vegetables Caribbean style. I am old school, what can I say?!

One of the veggies I served was a fried purple sweet potato (the last one from Julia’s garden bounty). Sweet potatoes are a Caribbean staple and people eat them everyday, as well as all other varieties of tubers. Various types of squash are also eaten on a daily basis in the Caribbean. My main vegetables were a medley of zucchini, yellow crookneck, peppers, onions and garlic all tossed together with my jerk sauce and some rum butter from Bella La Crema Bella La Crema.

First I sauteed the vegetables in the butter/oil mixture I used for my meat. I sauteed the vegetables for about 5-7 minutes before adding the jerk sauce (I divided my jerk sauce before marinating my meat).

Once I added the jerk sauce, I brought it all to a boil, then reduced the heat to a simmer and continued to cook it for an additional 2-3 minutes, stirring frequently. Then I added about 1-2 TBSP of rum butter to finish the sauce before serving. We all know how popular rum is in the Caribbean, so adding rum butter just seemed like a given. 🙂

So what made these typical everyday vegetables Caribbean? Let’s see ……. I used Caribbean spices in my jerk sauce, I used typical vegetables that are used in Caribbean cooking, and I used rum in my butter. They were sweet and spicy at the same time. Yep! I’d say that makes them Caribbean vegetables indeed. 🙂

As I always say, play with your food. Make cooking fun. Life is short have fun with it and live life to the fullest. Have a great day and make everyday great. Enjoy the ride. ‘Til next time.

We will soon be off to the Caribbean once again, so I started cooking some Caribbean styled foods to get us in the mood. I made a Caribbean roast with jerk seasoning and some Caribbean vegetables and fried sweet potato to go with the roast. YUMMY!

I marinated my roast in a jerk seasoning for about 4-5 hours before cooking it.

Jerk seasoning is fusion of flavors from the traditions of the native Taino Indians and the enslaved people known as the Jamaican Maroons. The English seized control over Jamaica from the Spanish in 1655, and there were a lot of Spanish influences. The Jamaican Maroons were slaves owned by the Spanish who escaped into the mountains of Jamaica. The Taino People used native herbs, allspice (pimento), and chili peppers to preserve and flavor meat. The word “jerk” likely derives from the Spanish word charqui, meaning dried or cured meat, or from a Quechua term for dried meat. Another theory suggests it refers to the poking motion used to pierce meat so spices could penetrate deeply. Authentic traditional blends rely on allspice, Scotch bonnet peppers, thyme, and scallions.

Caribbean Roast

Here in the United States, Scotch bonnet peppers are not as readily available as jalapenos or habaneros, so I substitute jalapenos when I make a jerk sauce.

1 4-5 lb roast

3-4 jalapenos or habanero chilies, diced fine

5 green onions, sliced

2 tsp chopped thyme

1 TBSP garlic

1/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar

1 TBSP soy sauce

1 TBSP dark rum

salt & pepper to taste, though go easy on the salt because the soy sauce is salty too

1-2 TBSP cilantro, chopped

2 TBSP olive oil

Mix everything together well and generously coat all sides of the roast. Cover and let marinate for at least 3-4 hours hours before cooking.

When ready to cook, preheat the oven to 375* F or 191*C. Get a large skillet VERY HOT and add a combination of butter and olive oil. Carefully place the meat in the skillet and sear each side for about 4 minutes per side, or until a nice crust is formed on all sides of the meat.

When the meat is seared completely, place it in a deep baking dish and roast uncovered for about 40-50 minutes, or until the internal temperature of the meat reaches 120*F or 49*C for rare; 125*F or 52*C for medium rare. Cook longer if you prefer your meat more done. After the meat reaches your desired temperature, let it rest out of the oven for about 10-15 minutes before slicing and serving. Top with a little of the jerk sauce before serving.

This jerk sauce will go with any type of meat, so try it over pork or chicken too. 🙂 The longer you marinate the meat, the juicier and more tender and flavorful it will get.

Life is short. Make the most out of everyday and live life to the fullest. Enjoy the ride. Have a great day and make everyday great. ‘Til next time.

We leave for Bonaire early Saturday morning, so we are mixing and matching and using up what we currently have leftover in the fridge. We like to leave our fridge as empty as possible before we leave for our trips. That being said, I will still cook a couple of things before we go. 🙂

So, today, how about some more fun food quotes to start our week off?! Last time, I focused on Julia Child and some of her famous food quotes. In The Words of Julia Child Today, let’s hear from the one and only, iconic Chef Anthony Bourdain. He is another favorite of mine. I like how he always lived by his own rules.

Barbecue may not be the road to world peace, but it’s a start.

~ Anthony Bourdain~

Food is everything we are.

People confuse me. Food doesn’t.

Good food, good eating, is all about risk.

To cook well, you have to like to eat.

Bad food is made without pride, by cooks who have no pride, and no love.

When someone cooks for you, they are saying something. They are telling you about themselves.

You learn a lot about someone when you share a meal together.

Life is short. Live life to the fullest and make the most out of everyday. Have a great day and make everyday great. ‘Til next time.

Wild strawberries have been growing around the world since the stone age. Many native people have eaten them and used them in many different ways, including treating all kinds of ailments and even crushing them to make ink. But the strawberries we know today are very different from the old wild strawberries. Wild strawberries are much smaller than the strawberries we know and love today, and the ancient wild strawberries were about the size of blackberries. The strawberries the world loves today were an accidental cross between the North American Virginia strawberry and the Chilean strawberry. They were first cultivated on a large scale in France in the 1750’s. But before that, French King Charles V loved them so much that he ordered over 1,000 wild strawberry plants for his palace gardens in the 14th century, which was the start of early European cultivation.

Long before these delicious non-berry “berries” were called strawberries, they were known as earth berries or eorþ-berige because they grew close to the ground. The older Germanic root matched terms like the German Erdbeere. The word later shifted to strēowberige, possibly describing how the plant’s runners are “strewn” about, and from there, the English word strawberry evolved. They got the name of strawberries because of their historical growth habit or use of straw, long before people knew what true “berries” were.

Wild Strawberries

The most popular type of modern strawberries are a cross between the Chilean strawberries, that the Mapuche and Huilliche Indians had cultivated for 100’s of years, and a North American Virginia species. French explorers brought the Chilean version back to France with them, but they only produced flowers and no fruit. They brought back only the female plants and no male plants. When the Virginia strawberries were introduced to the Chilean strawberries, it was love at first sight, and edible strawberries were grown. They were quickly cultivated all over Europe, and later the rest of the world, and have been from that time on.

Today strawberries, who are members of the rose family, are grown all over the world. They are found in most temperate regions and even in some subtropical regions of the world. The world’s top producers are the United States, and California in particular, Mexico, Turkey and China. Some of my Australian cousins were strawberry farmers too and did quite well with their strawberry farms. Strawberries are beloved fruits everywhere.

Even though the word berry is part of the name, strawberries are NOT true berries in a botanical sense. Botanists do not classify strawberries as true berries (like blueberries or grapes) because their edible red flesh comes from the stem that holds the ovaries, rather than the ovary wall itself. Their seeds are grown on the outside of the fruit, not the inside. There are roughly 200 seeds that cover the outer skin of each berry. Because they are members of the Rosaceae or rose family, they have a sweet fragrance and little floral blossoms.

Here are some more fun facts about strawberries I bet most of us, myself included, did not know:

1. Strawberries are powerful teeth whiteners. They contain Vitamin C which helps fight plaque.
2. Strawberries are the only fruit with seeds on the outside.
3. Unlike some fruits, strawberries don’t continue to ripen once picked.
4. Strawberries survive in a range of conditions and will grow happily in most places around the world.
5. There are about 200 seeds in every strawberry.
6. Eight strawberries have more vitamin C than an orange, that’s 140% of our daily recommended amount.
7. The strawberry plant, along with its good friend the raspberry plant, are members of the rose family.
8. Strawberries are full of a special substance called Ellagic acid which is thought to help fight some cancers.
9. The French traditionally serve newlyweds a soup made out of strawberries at the wedding breakfast, since it is considered an aphrodisiac.
10. The “seeds” of the strawberry are called achenes and each one is actually an individual dried fruit.

There are three main categories of strawberries. They are June-Bearing strawberries, Ever-Bearing Strawberries and Day-Neutral Strawberries.

June-Bearing Strawberries – Just as the name implies, are harvested in June. They only produce one large crop per year for a 2-3 week period in June. They are typically very large and very sweet.

Everbearing-Strawberries – They produce two to three distinct flushes of fruit during the growing season—typically a heavy crop in late spring, a lighter one in mid-summer, and another in early fall. The berries are usually smaller and not as sweet as the June-Bearing varieties.

Day-Neutral Strawberries – Flowers and fruits grow continuously from spring through fall, unaffected by the length of daylight, with production slowing down during the intense heat when temperatures are rising over 85* F. Usually the fruits are smaller in size too.

As with anything, there are many varieties of strawberries, each offering their own unique characteristics and personalities. They come in all colors, including blue, and all sizes. I never knew there were blue strawberries. Did you?

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Strawberries are very healthy fruits. They are jam-packed with Vitamin C, fiber and antioxidants, and only contain about 7 grams of sugar. They also have plant compounds called anthocyanins that help lower blood pressure and keep your blood vessels strong and flexible. They have a low glycemic index and can prevent large spikes in blood sugar after you eat. The antioxidants they contain help reduce cell damage and lower your risk of chronic illnesses. And because of their high amounts of Vitamin C, they help your immune system fight off illnesses.

So berry up and keep those strawberry fields growing forever. You’ll be very, or should I say berry, happy you did.

Have a great day and make everyday great. Life is short. Make the most out of everyday and live life to the fullest. ‘Til next time.