Toros

TOROS are coming, TOROS are coming! Ok I am so super crunk about the TOROS! I'm like Ralphie and his Red Ryder BB gun in "The Christmas Story". Now for those of you who are unfamiliar with this Costa Rican phenomenon, please allow me to school you. Basically you have brave and/or drunk upstanding citizens hanging around in a stadium waiting for a bull to be released upon them. Then said people try not to get murked by the bull. As the night progresses the bulls they release are more and more aggressive. Fun right? Now I will never have enough cojones to go out there and run with the bulls myself, but I sure as hell like to watch.

Toros takes place during "Fiestas de Verano", which is pretty much a "Summer Jam", Block Party, &Fair sort of combo. If Toros isn't your thing, there is a ton of other stuff to check out. You can check out the Quebradas & Calle Vargas Facebook. There you can get the full schedule of events and peep some videos of the action. Hope to see you there!

* Oh and just FYI Costa Rican people are really a peaceful folk so there is no stabbing the bulls with ish or any other cruelties. NO SHANKING HERE!!!

Mangos

Give my kids a mango and you are guaranteed at least 20 minutes of silence!  When you are a mother silence is truly golden! Unless you can't see your kids and don't know what they are up to. In that instance, silence usually means your kids are up to no good. If you don't know where your kids are at this very moment please take a second and GO INVESTIGATE IMMEDIATELY! I'll wait....Everything O.K.? 

We all have visions of our dream house. Mine included having a plethora of fruit trees and ducks...we'll talk about the ducks later. So, one day Im chatting with Alfredo, the Tico genius who has taught us everything about our property & being Tico. I was telling him all about my grand visions to plant all of these fabulous fruit trees. Upon mentioning mangos, a perplexed look grew across his face. Now at this point my Spanish sucked. I mean it really sucked. We were using google translate and hand gestures to get by. I just figured I pronounced something wrong. He began talking and I wasn't getting it... I bust out with one of the only phrases in my spanish arsenal "No entiendo". He then motioned for me to follow him and proceeded to give me a tour of my property. Along the way he would point out different trees and tell me what fruit they bore. He taught me a cool little magic trick.Take a leaf, tear it, & sniff it. It smells just like the fruit of that tree!!! Turns out not only did I have a mango tree, but I had several! #Winning.

* Alfredo started out being our neighbor. Then he began to oversee our coffee farm. Now he is family... 

Where is a Girl Scout when you need them?

Ain't no Girl Scouts in Costa Rica :( When cookie time rolls around I miss those smiley little girls standing in front of the grocery stores pedalling overpriced goodies. Everyone has their favorites, there are the "Thin Mint" folks, "Samoa" people, "Shortbread" guys, so on and so forth. But me I was a sucker for the "Do-Si-Dos". Those things are little pieces of peanut butter bliss! I could have some shipped down but I'm sure they would "magically disappear" in customs. Determined to get that little piece of home I hooked up a few "Half-Way to Heaven Peanutbutter Cookies". These cookies are "Que Rico"!!! Imagine a "Do-Si-Dos" but with a moist cookie and an even richer filling....Hear that?....Yes that was the sound of heaven opeing up and the angels decesnding sings songs of praise to the almighty "Half-Way to Heaven Peanutbutter Cookies".

* I had to do a bit of tweaking to the Broma Bakery recipe because down here you cant always find stuff :)

List O' Stuff

For the Cookies

1 1/2 Cups of Quick Oats

1/2 Cup of Flour

1/2 Cup of Sugar

!/2 Cup of Brown Sugar

1/2 Teaspoon of Baking Powder

1/2 Teaspoon of Baking Soda

1/2 Teaspoon of Salt

1/2 Teaspoon of Vanilla Extract

1/2 Cup of Smooth Peanut Butter

1/4 Cup of Honey 

1 Stick of Unsalted Butter, Softened

1 Egg

For the Filling

1/2 Cup of Powdered Sugar 

1 Cup of Smooth Peanut Butter

1/3 Cup of Honey

How To

• Preheat Oven to 350ºF. 
• In a Medium bowl, mix the oats, flour, baking powder, baking soda, & salt.
• In a Large bowl, mix the butter, both sugars, egg, peanut butter, honey, and vanilla extract.
• Pour the oat mixture into the large bowl. Stir until it is mixed well. 
• Place 1/2 inch balls of batter onto an a lightly greased baking sheet. (try to make an even number of balls)
• Bake for about 8 minutes. 
• When baked to your satisfaction, remove from the oven and allow to cool completely.
• While the cookies are baking...whisk together the powdered sugar, honey, and peanut butter until it is airy. I suggest using an electric hand mixer for about 5 minutes or so. 
• On a clean work surface, place half of the cookies upside down.
• Put a good dollop of filling into the center of each upside down cookie. 
• Top each upside down cookie with a cookie and press down a bit until the filling just comes to the edges.
• Sit back, Relax, and go "Half-way to Heaven"

Guanabana & Groceries

Occasionally I am a guest writer on other folks blogs. Here is a little something I did on guanabana's & groceries for a gentleman who is as cool as his name, Ivo Henfling. Ivo is the go to guy if you are even thinking of buying property in CR. You can check him out at Go Dutch Realty

Piña Party

"Sir" (that's my 3 year old son) keeps asking us for a yellow boat. Apparently he needs to row in the river that runs through our property. I’m not sure why it has to be yellow, but I guess he has his reasons.  This river of ours has brought about a lot of request. One of these request has resulted in more Pineapples than I know what to do with! 

One of our lovely neighborhood farmers wanted to buy an acre of our land. I'm not trying to sell off an inch of my haven, but I had to be nosey and ask why he wanted it. Turns out he just wanted river access to water his crops. Free river water...Huge water bill...free river water...huge water bill. Heck I would opt for the free river water too! It wasn't like I was using all of this water, so we allowed him to run a pump out of the river. I was able to help a neighbor and created a new friendship, Can't beat that. 

Fast forward a few weeks after our good deed... There is a ring at our front gate, it's the "River Water Dude" and he has come bearing gifts. Turns out he has a pineapple farm in another city (he is an exporter for Dole!) and wanted to give us pineapples as a "thank you" gift. How sweet...but then he showed up again about a week and a half later and he kept showing up again and again each time with MORE PINEAPPLES... Now what to do with em? 

I hooked up a "tropiguac", soft pineapple cookies, grilled pineapple w/ vanilla ice cream & rum sauce, pineapple-orange beef over a bed of rice, virgin banana pina coladas, (kids gotta drink too), and some lava flows for the grown folk! Yup we are going hard on the Piñas!

Psuedo Sidewalk Chalk

400+ feet of “canvas” and my kids want to draw on my house…such is life. Well at least at my house thats how things go. If my kids eyes are open, they have to be entertained. ENTER SIDEWALK CHALK... It is one of those things that are just so multifaceted. You can doodle, sketch out your super secret master plan, or hook up a game of Hopscotch. I whipped up a batch of magical chalk using this tutorial and the whole family got into the business of beautifying our"green mile" driveway.

List O' Stuff

Toilet paper or Paper Towel Tubes

Scissors

Duct Tape

Wax Paper

Small Bucket or disposable container

3/4 Cup of Warm Water

1 1/2 Cups of Plaster of Paris

2-3 Tablespoons of Tempera Paint

Paper bag or "mess mat"

How To

• If you are using paper towel tubes, cut them in half. 
• Cover one end of each tube with duct tape
• Cut a piece of wax paper in a 6 inch square for each tube. Roll the wax paper loosely and place into the tubes as a liner. 
• Pour the warm water into your bucket. Sprinkle in the Plaster of Paris and stir with a spoon. The Plaster of Paris will start to harden in about 20-30 minutes. WORK FAST. 
• Pour the tempera paint into the mixture and stir until it is mixed well. If you want brighter colors add more paint into the mixture. 
• Stand each tube with the tape side down onto a cookie sheet (or something flat & sturdy). Pour the mixture into each tube. Tap occasionally to release air bubbles. 
• Trim the wax paper so its closer to the tube
• Allow to dry. (It took me about 3 days) Remove the duct tape so the underside can dry after the second day. Once it is all dry, peel off the paper tubes and wax paper. 
• Get busy beautifying ish!