liamsaunt

Monday, chicken shawarma Tuesday, ziti with creamy broccoli sauce

Thanks, we made it. We connected in Charlotte and were the last Boston bound flight to get out, all the later ones were already cancelled when we arrived. The standby list for our flight was huge. The flight itself was basically fine. There was no cabin service and they asked us to keep our seatbelts on for the whole flight. It was a little bumpy at times, but not too bad. I have certainly been on bumpier flights. We really liked Little Exuma and will definitely return. There’s a lot of the island to still explore on a future visit.

The water is 72, which is not warm enough for me to swim comfortably. Hence all the beach walks. I brought a wetsuit and did get in a few times. The beaches are very sandy and it is safe to swim. The rocks are only on the sides. I just like the way they look so take lots of pictures of them. It was delicious! Very spicy, very lime-y. Today was more of the same. Breakfast at the house More beach walking on beaches you have already seen too many pictures of. Husband wanted to go back to Blu on the Water, so of course we did. Coconut shrimp appetizer. It was not sweet, which I appreciated. Husband had the grilled lobster and I had the seafood pasta We passed on dessert. One last beach walk Our airline has waivers in place for tomorrow and Sunday, but we are going to try and get home ahead of the storm. There are three more storms behind this one, and if our flights are on time, we should get in before it arrives. If we stay I think we would be stuck for an entire extra week. Fingers crossed. If you see me on the dinner thread on Sunday you will know I made it 😀

Today was very chill. We really are not doing too much this visit, just relaxing Breakfast, basically the same as yesterday Beach walking, same as yesterday We did have to venture back to town today to buy ice. One disadvantage to staying on Little Exuma is that there are no stores. At all. So if you need anything you have to drive back to Georgetown. (A one lane bridge connects Little Exuma to the main island—you have to stop and make sure no one is coming the other way before driving on to it). All we needed was ice, so to make something more of a 40 minute trip each way, we decided to stop by Sonia’s, a well regarded local food stand, and get some takeout. The menu Sonia's stand We ordered the conch salad, the chicken wings (husband wanted, I don’t like them), and the sautéed shrimp. It’s all made to order, but we thought to bring a cooler for the ice, so husband went and bought that after we ordered. I think the food took about 40 minutes to come out. Conch salad (it was almost a quart, we could not eat it all) spicy wings sauteed shrimp, which came with seasoned rice, sweet potatoes, and slaw And a post dinner walk on two deserted beaches as well. We are supposed to fly home Saturday, but we will see if Mother Nature decides to keep us here for a few days longer…

I think term “cracked” refers to the fact that the conch is sliced and pounded to make it somewhat tender, then deep fried. At least, that’s my understanding! This version was topped with stewed onions. It was just OK to be honest. The tartar sauce was too sweet and the conch was a bit greasy. The shrimp was the best dish. Breakfast was a slice of the coconut bread I picked up yesterday, with yogurt, fruit, and iced coffee Then it was beach walking time for me. When we got hungry, we decided to drive over to Tropic Breeze, another casual place pretty close to the house The view from our table It was very windy today and some sargassum came up on their beach The menu was very small, and I forgot to take a picture of it. We just ordered what the server recommended anyway. Margarita for husband Fried lobster chunks. I actually ate some of this and enjoyed it. I guess I don’t dislike lobster anymore haha Husband’s surf and turf burger, topped with lobster, served with garlic fries and fried grouper with plantains and rice for me. The portion was huge and it was really good, so I brought half of this home to possibly eat tomorrow We got home in time to get in two laps up and down “our” beach under the stars before it got too dark. I think I need to find something not fried for dinner tomorrow 😀

Breakfast at the house. Not too exciting. Those are vegan “eggs” I brought from home. Basically they are mung beans soaked and pulverized with spices and stuff. I like regular eggs too but these are pretty tasty for what they are. A yellow crowned night heron was hanging out on the beach in front of the house all day Went walking on three different beaches today, all beautiful, all deserted We drove down the road for an early dinner at Santanna’s Bar and Grill Very casual The menu Shrimp app Cracked conch Grouper Husband’s margarita I also went to Mommy’s Bakery next door to see what was on offer, and picked up a loaf of coconut bread for breakfast. We got back to the house in time for a beach walk before sunset

Today was pretty lazy. We went into town (about a 40 minute drive each way) to buy some fruit and pick up a couple of bottles of wine for my husband. The lady at the wine shop randomly announced she was giving him a 50% discount. Not sure why, but he’ ll take it. The prices for wine are about the same as at home. The grocery prices are not that much more than home too, maybe $1-2 more per item, which isn’t too bad. There is a 10% VAT on top of all purchases. The rest of my afternoon was spent alternating between sitting on the house deck and walking on the beach. (I dipped my foot in the pool, but am not sure if I am going to end up swimming in it. I am a wimp when it comes to water temps) We went to dinner at Blu on the Water, one of the closest restaurants to our house. Probably a 15 minute drive. We were seated in a screened porch area, so the photos of the view did not come out, but it’s on a cliff above the water, and very lovely. Here’s the menu Husband had a margarita, and I had club soda with lime We shared the seafood fritters to start. There was not a ton of seafood in them, but the batter had a nice flavor, and I did get one big chunk of conch. Husband had the seafood risotto, which he enjoyed very much. It had lobster, grouper, and shrimp. And I had the grilled grouper. They brought out some of their jerk sauce on the side for me to try And then we shared a slice of key lime pie for dessert

No, there were four or five, just piled on top of each other in that little dish. It was enough food for me.

For the next week I am staying on Little Exuma in the Bahamas. We decided to come down without knowing much about the island, or making any advance plans. It seemed like the kind of place where you can do that. View from the air The airport is small. This is the terminal. We are staying on Little Exuma. There’s not much here, which is how we like it. We got to the house just before sunset. This is part of the outdoor area Here’s the kitchen The giant snack bowl and bottle of rum was left for us by the house management. All the grocery stores close early, and there are no places nearby to get dinner. I did research enough to know that, so brought down a small cooler with some food for our first night and made dinner from that. This morning was a beautiful sunny day This is the beach our house is on. All beaches in the Bahamas are public, but you cannot access them over private land. I think there’s a public path over that rock outcropping you can see at the end of the beach. And this is the beach next to the one that we are staying on. There’s a public path between the two We headed out in search of a late lunch and drove down a rough and steep road to end up at Haulover Bay restaurant and bar. The menu was just a chalk sign, offering fried or grilled snapper, grilled shrimp, grilled chicken, or a grilled steak, all with pigeon peas and rice and either vegetables or corn. Cash only. We chose the snapper and the shrimp and went outside to find a place to sit I had a lemongrass iced tea, and husband had a mint drink Shrimp Snapper Everything was really tasty, and the setting was fantastic, with a wonderful breeze.

Rigatoni with roasted red pepper sauce

Penne with carrot sauce. I sauteed yellow and orange carrots, onion, and garlic, then cooked them in a quart of corn stock I had in the freezer, then pureed it in the Vitamix with some butter and salt. I added some chopped raw arugula at the end. Four out of five diners enjoyed it, and one grumbled that there was no point in eating carrot sauce when you can just have tomato sauce. Oh well, I have decided that I cannot please everyone. I just try and rotate who is going to be annoyed 😂

Chicken, bell pepper, and oyster mushroom stir fry

Coconut lime chicken with roasted broccolini and curried rice with carrots and raisins

Chiming in from the younger side (early 50s), so growing up when these recipes were supposedly marketed, I can say that my Mom never made food like that. She was on a limited budget, and I honestly think it would have been more expensive for her to cook all those canned foods glopped together than what we did eat. She had a Betty Crocker cookbook (I think all the moms did), and we had a huge vegetable garden in the backyard. The families in the neighborhood had co-ops for certain foods—for example, one person would drive in to a pick up site and get this massive 50 lb block of sharp cheddar cheese, and then it would be divvied up among all the families. I think there was something similar for meat, but I disliked meat even as a kid, so don’t remember the details. I do know there was a freezer in our garage and a truck would come and stock it with meat cuts and maybe other stuff…American Frozen Foods or something like that. I never ate any of it. The one canned food I do remember always being in the house was Campbells soup, generally the chicken noodle and the vegetable ones. They were served for lunch, not dinner. The only casseroles I remember my mom making were a chicken and rice thing (tolerable), Mac and cheese (hated it), and a tomato, summer squash, and ground beef thing (hated it). Dinner was more typically a small piece of fish or steak (and when I say small, I mean one steak for five people), lots of vegetables from the garden, and rice. Other times we had pasta with homemade sauce, or my dad would make hamburgers and hot dogs on the grill.

It is a mix. Some stuff is storage vegetables, like parnsips, radishes, potatoes, carrots, beets and cabbage. Other stuff is grown in the winter in greenhouses and high tunnels. Generally we get kale, micro greens, pea shoots, and arugula from those. And then they have a mushroom cave, where they grow mushrooms year round, and we get a box of those every week. At this time of year, they also include a loaf of bread and one pantry item, like jam, honey, or a jar of spices. This week we got locally made tortillas as the pantry item. I should clarify, that was 40 individual carrots, not 40 pounds of carrots! Your post did get me curious though, so I weighed everything. I currently have just under 10 lbs. of carrots, 8 lbs. of radishes, 4 lbs. of beets, and 4 lbs. of parsnips in my crisper drawers. Luckily my house has two full kitchens with lots of refrigeration storage so it is not a problem for me, and root vegetables keep forever. Generally when the roots start really piling up, I will roast a chicken on a huge bed of them, and then use the leftovers to make a soup for dinner, with leftover soup individually portioned and going into the "soup library" in our garage freezer. If someone in the house does not like what's on the menu for dinner, they can pull a soup from the soup library to have instead. There's always at least six flavors to choose from.