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Broiled Cajun Red Snapper

Yummy Snapper DinnerOne of the best things about living on a tiny Caribbean island is the fresh fish. Fish that was swimming probably that morning winds up on your plate and it is so yummy. Tyler and I went to the market last weekend and were fortunate to find that there were a ton of huge red snappers, which has quickly become one of our favorite fish. So for about 15 US dollars we were able to get 6 pounds of freshly caught snapper. We gave the “fish master” a couple bucks to fillet them for us and have since been reveling in the deliciousness.

That night we decided we had to have fish so I made one of our favorites, Broiled Cajun Red Snapper. The fish comes out moist with that amazing citrus taste and yummy savory spicy goodness.

What You Need:

Red Snapper Fillets
Cajun Seasoning (this is super common here in Grenada, but you could easily mix your own if you don’t have the pre-mixed stuff)
Limes (or lemons)
Onion 
Garlic cloves
Olive Oil
Black Pepper

First I dice up the onions and the garlic cloves. Then in a hot pan I saute them with some olive oil until they are a nice golden-brown in color. I slice the limes up into thin circular slices and then set them aside. Next, I spray my trusty toaster oven broiler sheet with some cooking spray (we don’t have a broiler in our oven, but a regular baking sheet in an oven will work too) and place on my dried fish filets. Next I season the fish well with a little black pepper and lots of cajun seasoning. I drizzle on a little more olive oil, top with the onion-garlic mixture.Fish with the onions all ready

ahen cover with the lime slices. Then place the whole sheet into the broiler and cook until the fish flakes, about 10 minutes or so. That is all it takes.

This is seriously one of our favorite dishes. So much so that not only does Tyler request it, but we made it for his parents when they were here too. I usually make it with some lime flavored white rice and steamed veggies for a good, healthy mid-week dinner. Enjoy!

All Done!

Doesn't that look delightful?

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Our 1st Spice Boyz Match

Kickoff

As soon as Stefanie and I found out this summer that Grenada’s national football (soccer) team’s name was in-fact the Spice Boyz (with an annual match against the rival St. Kitt’s Sugar Boyz), we put attending a match near the top of our Grenadian bucket list.

Grenada is currently competing in a pool against Guatemala, Belize and St. Vincent & the Grenadines in the World Cup qualifiers. I saw on the FIFA website that they had an match on Saturday and despite the women at the market that morning having not heard about it, we decided to treck down to National Stadium to check-out the action. We arrived just as the national anthems were being played (our first time hearing Grenada’s) and found some seats in the stands.

There were no goals in the 1st half with both keeper’s being on top of their game. There were around 500 in attendance at the game, which doesn’t seem like a lot, but if you do the math, per capita that’s about the same as 45,000 people showing up to something in Los Angeles.

Sugar & Spice Ice Cream

As soon as the half-time whistle blew, the DJs started blasting the reggae and we bought some delicious fresh-roasted peanuts (they were literally still hot) and a cone of Greanda’s surprisingly delicious Sugar & Spice ice cream. After a string of phenomenal saves by both goalies, St Vincent took the lead in the 62nd minute and the spirits of the crowd started to go downhill after a few missed scoring opportunities.

During a late injury time-out, both team’s whom I’ve dubbed “flag men” started dancing to reggae, doing push-ups, and of course, waving their flags to get the crowd pumped. A timely penalty in the 92nd minute gave us one last chance to equalize and off the indirect kick we headed in a last second goal! I was stoked, we got to have our moment of screaming and yelling with a bunch of strangers from another country – and it was awesome! It reminded me of being in Uganda last summer and watching the USA vs Slovenia game with about 50 other Ugandans on a tiny TV at the soda shack in a little shopping center.

We ended the day with a sunset walk along the coast back downtown to the bus terminal happy to have had a fun afternoon outside of our normal routine.

Grenada's Flag Man

Grenada's Flag Man

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Road Trip Around the Country

My faithful driverLast weekend marked the end of midterms! After a week of studying nearly nonstop, I needed a break and both of us wanted to not only get far away from the campus study halls, but far away from our side of the island. So Tyler rented a car and we decided that on Saturday we would drive to the other side of our country (our little tiny island of a country) to the north side and see what kind of good stuff was over there.

Tyler, in all of his super awesomeness, found a sweet little resort inn for us to have lunch at. So we loaded up the rental car and braved the Grenadian roads and the left-hand driving to start our adventure to the north side. The little touristy resort “road map” of Grenada is in fact the official driving map and we did our best to follow the yellow road up the Atlantic coastline until we reached our destination – and we managed to do so with remarkable success considering there are maybe 15 road signs in the entire country. Oh, and this was made even more interesting by the fact that we had a left-hand drive car too!

Entering St. Patrick

A little view of the northern cities.

Driving was actually really fun! You have to honk your horn when going around corners, which is absurdly hilarious. We got it down after a while. And it is funny how many goats you see walking along the side of the road or when you get to a fork in a road and really have no idea which way to go because there are no signs. But every time we could see the beautiful ocean it was so great. After about 90 minutes of driving up the coast on what was a spectacular Saturday here, we got to the resort. It is owned by a British couple so we had some British cider and some legit British food for lunch while sitting in this super cute little restaurant overlooking a perfectly crystal clear ocean with all of Grenada’s smaller islands visible right off the coast.

So Fun!

View at Petite Anse Restaurant

After our delicious lunch, we just checked out the area a little and admired the view a little while longer. They had some sweet lounge chairs on their pool deck and we spent some time admiring the view and relaxing and enjoying a whole day in while we did not have to do anything. No schedule, no agenda, just fun and relaxation.

The spectacular view

Isn't that view just spectacular?

After lunch we started on our way to Bathway beach, which is a locals beach on the northern Atlantic side of the island that Tyler had read about. So we got back into the car, opened the sun roof and all of the windows, turned up the sweet driving CD we burned (so 90’s right?) and traversed some more roads.

Carib's Leap MemorialOn our way we saw the spot for Carib’s leap, which is a historical site of where the native Caribs committed suicide when the Island was under French control. We had heard about it and really wanted to see it. It was not nearly as impressive as we thought, but there was a sweet memorial and a beautiful lookout. However, it was kinda at the end of the cemetery so we were glad we went in midday because walking through a cemetery at night is just way too weird.

After our little detour at Carib’s leap, we managed to make it to Bathway beach. We were at first confused by the no swimming signs, but soon learned by the help of a passing local that we were just not supposed to swim beyond the rocky ridge that was a little bit off-shore. The waves crashing over the rocks made floating and swimming around here a lot of fun. We certainly enjoyed it. And after our little beach swim we decided to partake in the single most common Grenadian tradition, drinks from a local rum shop. These things are everywhere and are open at any and all times. So, the nice lady who had a little wooden shack right on the sand made us some drinks which we enjoyed while admiring the water and the waves.

Bathway BeachRum shop drinks

 

 

 

 

 

 

To end our night we decided that we would drive down the Caribbean side, thereby effectively driving around the entire island, and watch the sunset and just enjoy our country. We had a few funny experiences, one of which being the funny local Grenadian guy that took us to see the rock carvings at this random fisherman’s beach. The views were breathtaking, even if the rock drawings were less than impressive. But apparently best on the whole island!Duquesne Bay sign

After that little stop we pretty much drove straight home. It still takes over an hour to drive from north to south so we got to see the entire sunset along the peaceful seaside road. We even stopped for some roasted corn being sold on the side of the road, which was unexpectedly delicious.

All in all, we had a blast. We have learned that our little made up adventures are always the best. Tyler and I had flashbacks to our first roadtrip together we made last summer where we went border to border along the west coast. Hard to believe that we traversed an entire country in a single day when then we spent 2 weeks going through only 3 states. Makes the sheer size difference of our new home quite real. We look forward to possible getting a car sometime in the spring and then we can take more trips like this and see more that Grenada has to offer. We have quite a few things on our bucket list we want to see and do anyways.

Sheer Perfection!

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Baked Sailfish Revisted

One of our favorite and very Grenadian dishes has been making baked sailfish. I wrote all about it here and you can follow my recipe as trust me, you will not be disappointed.  However, I wanted to take a minute to write about a variation we tried out. Since we get so many awesome local and  fresh spices in these bundles with our green onions, I got inspired to get extra savory with the sailfish. I sliced up some onions and green bell peppers but also added some carrots and celery to the dish (celery comes with the green onions). I seasoned the sailfish the same way but omitted the lime juice. I also through in sprigs of all the savory spices there was. I added some of the thyme and then a few other things that I honestly did not know what it was, but it smelled delicious. Then add a bay leave to the top and place the tomato slice on and bake it. It really did taste like a different dish. We were very happy, it was almost like a fish roast. Give it a try, especially if you can get your hands on a delicious bundle of Grenadian green onions and spices.

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Chicken Parmesan

Chicken ParmesanI know I have mentioned I am sure dozens of time about the local produce markets, but really – I just love them. We went this past Saturday and I was looking for some green onions. As I am now a pro stand shopper, I scoped out a lady on the street who had the best pickings and went to her. I bought two bunches and as she handed them to me I could just smell all the fresh herbs tied up with my onions. I feel as though I have mentioned this practice before, but I really think it is awesome that they do this. It is like fresh herbs for free. When we got home I was taking things apart to store, and noticed that in addition to the typical thyme, there was so much fresh basil and some celery and some other savory leaves that I don’t even know what they were. You can read what I did with the celery and such here. So with my new acquisition of so much fresh basil, I was inspired to try my hand at making one our favorite Italian dishes, Chicken Parmesan, here in Grenada.

What You Need:

2 chicken breasts
fresh basil
1/2 jar pasta sauce
mozzarella cheese
parmesan cheese
thyme
oreganogarlic powder
bread crumbs
flour
1 egg
olive oil
salt and pepper

You start off with a simple breading of your chicken.  I add some pepper into my flour mixture and then add the dried thyme, oregano, and garlic powder to my bread crumbs. Then pat chicken breasts dry, dip in flour and shake off all extra, dip in egg, then coat in breadcrumb mixture. Then saute the chicken breasts in a pan with a little olive oil until golden brown. Then, take a baking dish and cover the bottom with a layer of pasta sauce. Then add lots of fresh basil leaves. Then place your chicken breasts in, top with some more pasta sauce and more fresh basil leaves (and a little sprinkling of thyme if you wish) then top with mozzarella and parmesan cheese. Place the whole thing in the oven (around 400 degrees) for about 15 or 20 minutes until warm and bubbly. And that is all it takes. I usually serve it on top of some angle hair pasta (or spaghetti or linguine – whatever you like) and of course some garlic bread which is a favorite of Tyler’s when I make it with fresh chopped garlic pieces.

It was quite a delicious meal. We have decided that for the next time we get some basil, we might make this dish again and check out the wine shop and see if we can find something suitable there.

Enjoy!

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Fall in Grenada (Sort of)

So the other day it was really windy. The gently breeze is basically a constant here, but this was an unusually windy day. As I was standing outside waiting for the bus there were leaved falling from our neighbors trees and blowing everywhere. And they were even multicolored! It was like a little snapshot of fall, even if it was of the Grenadian sort. Or course, it was still 87 degrees outside and all and I am not holding my breath for any of the delicious fall treats to hit the stores (no Thanksgiving here and all – but I did find a recipe that I am going to make for pumpkin maple bacon bars!), but the leaves were fun. However, as I read friends from back home talking about their pumpkin latte’s I do miss Peet’s and Jameson Brown and Kean and all the wonderful coffee shops from back home. Tyler and I decided that over break we might just hang out in a coffee shop all day and just tell our friends to come to us. Sip yummy coffee and catch up with old friends.

Nevertheless, fall is here. Although, I am sad to report that the once colorful crunchy leaves are gone from a couple days of good ol’ Caribbean rain.

Oh, and I am one midterm down, two to go in the craziness and insanity that is exam week, so back to studying I go.  🙂