Sweetly Southern

A big fat slice of Red Velvet Cake and “Driving Miss Daisy” on dvd help to cure a bit of homesickness.  I love my life in Costa Rica but I have my moments when I miss the south.

Hearing the twang in folks voices…

The smell of fried food…

Southern hospitality…

Feeling the excitement of a high school football game…

Waving at folk’s, even if you don’t know them…

Sitting in a rocking chair on the porch, sipping on the perfect glass of sweet tea while watching the fireflies go by and listening to John Lee Hooker…

God I love the South! So when I am feeling all nostalgic there are a few ways to bring the south all the way to Quebradas! One of my favorites is Red Velvet Cake, even the name is decadent! It’s not quite chocolate, not quite vanilla. Imagine the perfect yellow cake that’s been given the most gentle kiss by chocolate. That’s Red Velvet Cake! There is still the mystery of why its red, but I don’t give a damn. Its great cake and great cake can work wonders!

List O’ Stuff: Red Velvet Cake

2 ½ Cups of AP Flour

1 ½ Cups of Sugar

1 Teaspoon of Baking Soda

1 Teaspoon of Salt

1 Teaspoon of Cocoa Powder

1 ½ Cups of Vegetable Oil

1 Cup of Buttermilk *

2 Large Eggs

2 Tablespoons of Red Food Coloring

1 Teaspoon of White Vinegar

1 Teaspoon of Vanilla Extract

      How To

• Pre heat your oven to 350˚
• Grease and lightly flour 3 9 inch round cake pans.
• In a stand mixer combine  flour, sugar, baking soda, salt, and cocoa powder. Set aside.
• In a large bowl mix together the vegetable oil, buttermilk, eggs, food coloring, vinegar, and vanilla extract.
• Slowly pour the wet mixture into the stand mixer bowl until the batter is smooth and well combined.
• Evenly divide the batter between the 3 pans.
• Place the pans into the over spaced evenly apart.
• Bake for about 30 minutes. Halfway into the cooking time rotate the pans.
• The cakes are done when they pull away from the side of the pan and a toothpick comes out clean when inserted into the cake.
• Remove the cakes from the oven and run a knife around the edge.
• Allow cakes to cool.
• Once cool, remove the cakes from the pans.

List O’ Stuff: Cream Cheese Frosting

1 Stick of Butter, Room Temp.

4 ounces of Cream Cheese, Room Temp

2 Cups of Powdered Sugar

1 Teaspoon of Vanilla Extract

      How To

• In a large bowl combine the butter and cream cheese. It’s a lot easier to use an electric mixer.
• Add in the powdered sugar gradually.
• Add in the vanilla extract.
• Mix  until the frosting is smooth and creamy.

        Tips

• For the life of me I have not been about to find buttermilk in Costa Rica so I use a little trick to make my own for recipes. Simply combine 1 cup of milk with 1 tablespoon of lemon juice or vinegar.
• It’s also better if the ingredients are all at room temperature before starting.

Adult Milk & Cookies

Hormigas Are Not Amigos

I'm no meteorologist but I know the rain is about to dominate the days! Want to know how I know? The "Hormigas" told me. Every year before rainy season starts my property is suddenly littered with little trails of "leaf confetti". The leaf cutter ants make these trails while starting to prepare for the winter. These pequeño pest cut the leaves from trees and haul them back to their nest. There something sort of special happens. The ants don't eat the leaves, instead they use them to create a compost to grow a type of fungus that doesn't grow anywhere else. The fungus is then used as food for the ants. The whole business is pretty cool & yucky all at the same time.

Now I'm all for the "Hormigas" doing their thing to support their colony, but I draw the line when they begin to attack my fruit trees. Our first attempt to thwart the leaf thieves was to spray the trails and anthills with an organic pesticide. That did diddly-squat. It was sort of insulting to see them continue on their business as if I had just offered them a spray of perfume to make their journey more pleasant. We were stumped until one day a neighbor with a finca schooled us. He informed us that the best way to rid ourselves of the ants was NOT to kill the ants. Instead, we should kill the fungus. Genius!!!

Lust List: #1. Tortoise Table Lamp

We all want stuff. Trinkets, Baubles, Knick-Knacks, It's all Stuff.  Stuff can do just about anything! And in this world if there is stuff folks want, then there is somebody somewhere selling that exact stuff. I know, AMAZING isn't it!  Now the only problem with stuff, is that sometimes Stuff cost too much! This problem has become the driving force behind one of my favorite past times, Creating the "Lust List"! The "Lust List" is a cool lil' compilation of all of stuff I see & want. Getting these things is a whole other issue. My husband is a miserly man. To convince him to buy something that is not an essential need, ie. food and shelter, one must be prepared with an entire dissertation, complete with a power point and statistics from a verifiable source. Oh and Wikipedia doesn't count.

Ok, now we all know what the lust list is... Allow me to begin the list....(insert drum roll) Presenting the Tortoise Table Lamp by Z Gallerie!  It would be such a subtle, sexy nod to the beaches of Guanacaste. Now I have started formulating my plan of attack by playing up how this particular lamp fulfills both "form & function". It's a beautiful sculpture, but it's also a light! How novel! I already have a spot picked out for it in my living room.

The Color Purple Eggs

Easter is now all but an afterthought and we are left with only our fond memories & a gang of hard-boiled eggs. I for one enjoy partaking in some good eggs for breakfast, but there's no way we can down the dozens of eggs that we dyed. As a family we have taken on a "waste not, want not" attitude. So regretfully the hubby and I could not have our "Eggtravagant Explosion". What is the "Eggtravagant Explosion" you ask? Well, its only one of the best traditions in the Kelley household. I am BIG on holidays, my better half... not so much. He does however love me and will do anything within reason to shut me up. We would decorate and dye eggs to celebrate the Easter holiday. After the delight of decorating was over...we were left with a basket of eggs that neither of us wanted to eat. Now this is where the some of the details get a bit fuzzy, but somehow we came to the BRILLIANT conclusion that watching the eggs explode into colorful bits would be AWESOME! We gathered up our ammo and proceeded to the back yard. Once on the scene we would take turns throwing the eggs into the branches of this great old tree we had. The sight was one of glorious gore. All of those brightly colored egg bits would shower down upon the earth. Our smiles were ones of mischievous children. I miss those days...Now we are all grown up and have to act like if most of the time. So instead of having "Eggtravagant Explosion" we have to settle for "Pickled Eggs". Bit of a let down, huh? I will be the first to tell you that "Pickled Eggs", while not as cool as the "Eggtravagant Explosion" are pretty dern good with lunch.

List O' Stuff

12 Hard-Boiled Eggs, Peel 'em Please

2 15 oz can of beets in juice

1 Medium Onion

2 Cups of White Vinegar

1 Cup of Sugar

1 Teaspoon of Black Pepper

1 Teaspoon of Salt

1 Teaspoon of Garlic Powder

 How To:

• In a saucepan combine the vinegar, sugar, pepper, salt, and garlic powder. Bring to a boil until the sugar is dissolved. Allow to cool.
• While cooling, cut the onions into rings and set aside.
• In a large container/jar combine the canned beets, eggs, and onions. ( I used a big old pickle jar)
• Pour the vinegar solution into the container over the eggs.
• Place in to the fridge overnight. (If you are in a rush you can serve after being refrigerated for at least 2 hours.)
• The longer these soak the better they get!

Dye Job

kids+eggs+dye+"spin an egg"= The most amazing memories

Tico Tidbit #2: Easter = Mass Exodus...

Happy “Good Friday” folks! Hope you and yours are enjoying the holiday weekend. Costa Ricans are mostly Catholic so here Easter is a week long celebration called “Semana Santa” or Holy Week. Several things go down for “Semana Santa”, you still have all of your typical religious ceremonies, but there are some things that one may not expect.

1. There is a mass exodus to the beaches! Now I am not quite certain why everyone heads to the coasts but San Jose and pretty much all of the central valley becomes a ghost town. I’m pretty sure that Jesus isn’t in Jaco walking on water, but something is drawing everyone!

2. Be sure to have all of your business taken care of! Most of the banks and Government offices are closed after Wednesday but some are closed for the entire week. If you need cash try to get to the ATM’s as early in the week as possible. You wouldn’t believe how long the lines get!

3. If you want to “get in the spirit” with the “Spirits” that come in a bottle you better get to the liquor store early! Depending on what municipality you live in there is a “dry law” in effect from Wednesday to Saturday. We learned this the hard way our first year here. We went to grab some groceries and “liquid refreshment” from Auto Mercado only to find the entire liquor isles sealed off! We had to sulk home without our bottle of Patron.

4. Got niños? Well if you do, don’t forget there is no school. Better figure out some stuff to do to keep them occupied & entertained! I stocked up on bubbles and made sure the “Slip N Slide” was good to go.

5. The bus schedules are reduced so if you have somewhere to be check the schedule before heading to the bus stop. I would hate for you to be hanging out at the bus stop waiting for a bus that won’t ever come 

6. Have you seen “The Hunger Games”? If you haven’t go check it out. Most of the movie theaters are still open for their regular hours.

7. Lastly, please don’t waste your time looking to buy an Easter Basket. For the second year in a row I fooled myself in to believing that Wal-Mart would have plastic grass and chocolate eggs galore. Alas they didn’t have a damn thing!  This really surprised me because they have a nice selection for Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Valentines Day. I ended up tapping into my right brain and hooked up a “basket” using a beach pail & shovel set. I filled it with candy, bubbles, and little toys. Kids loved ‘em.

A lil Paint

My wonderful little bamboo trunk that I got on sale at Pier 1 back in the day ended up being murdered by Sir, my son, or so I thought. Sir figured it was a brilliant idea to open the lid and jump on it, which of course caused the lid to pop right off. Now this was after he spilled juice on it, let play-doh dry up in all the cracks and crevices, colored on it, and  I'm sure he probably peed on it a time or two. But with the lid broken, I had given up hope on my little ole trunk. My husband, Ethan, being the ultimate optimist and self proclaimed "Mr. Fix It All" told me to put it in the garage and he would do his best to revive it one day. Months and months and some more months passed and finally that "one day: was here. The trunk had accumulated a impressive amount of dust during its hiatus in the garage. I grabbed some "Mr. Músculo" & a rag and got to work. After cleaning that thing until my arms ached and my nose couldn't take any more of that "frutos rojos" stench, I was a bit disappointed. My once brilliant bamboo trunk now appeared to be nothing more than a bamboo box covered in nicks and scratches. Oh, what to do?....... Paint! Yes, Paint! Paint covers up a multitude of sins! After a small debate over the perfect hue for my bamboo, it was time to get to get busy. First up, we painted it with a white primer coat. My husband assures me that primer coats are  VERY important. Now for the fun part. SPRAY PAINT!!! I grabbed a can of "amarillo oro" and  a spray grip. Spray grips are one of those things that you don't realize you need until you have one. Then you don't know how you ever lived without it before.It makes spray painting 489,379,874 times easier. Back in the day I would end up with a dent in my finger, paint under my nails, and paint drips. The spray grip eleminates all of that! Ok now my infomercial is over... With a few coats the trunk was transformed into something spectacular. The bamboo trunk now is a stylish place to store my kids ish!

Raggedy Ol Trunk

Primer Coat

Not My Grandmothers Banana Bread

 When the aroma of banana bread wafts in your direction, most are intoxicated! That fragrance can invoke memories of a grandmother's smile as she creates miracles in her oven... Well, maybe your grandmother. Mine was the type that wasn't going to mess up her manicure for anything or anybody. Shirley Ree, my maternal grandmother, was a southern belle who would surely swoon at the thought of being anywhere near a hot oven. Besides she figured why sweat out her perm when Little Debbie & Sarah Lee have already done the work. Oh, how wrong she was. There are few things in life that compare to a slice of banana bread still warm from the oven. It is such a classic comfort food. Banana bread is sooo quick and easy to make, that even Shirley Ree could have made some if she felt so inclined.

P.S. Told you I had a bunch more stuff to do with all of my bananas :)