Bossing the Leftovers

Making the most of our spare ingredients, and sharing some food with new friends- at Balandra once again!

As we're due to cross to the mainland today- we're currently sat waiting on getting onto the boat- we needed to take a step back and look at our produce as the customs guys sometimes like to take fresh produce from you to help control the spread of bugs.

From our travels before, we know this sometimes results in some interesting concoctions in a bid not to waste anything. On this occasion, it was complicated slightly further by the fact that I'm trying to control certain elements of my diet in an attempt to limit the effects of what I think is an intestinal parasite that I seem to be carrying- I need a doctor soon to get that confirmed and dealt with.

So, cucumbers and habaneros were pickled; I rustled together a great pasta sauce with tomatoes, aubergine, onion and oregano, blitzed; green tomatoes were turned into some green sauce, although I bloody well burned the tomatoes so the recovery mission resulted in a smaller portion than planned. I needed up the coriander content in the green sauce as well to use what I could of what I had left of that, the result being pretty good, actually. Lastly, leftover chipotle chillies blitzed with some mayonaise- I didn't make my own mayo, as I wanted the pasteurized bottled stuff so it'll last.

Jen made us a bunch of 'vannini' with asadero cheese with a lemon and oregano olive oil marinade- a take on a BBQ halloumi dish I used to do at home- all that stuffed in the tortilla with fresh tomato and heated in a non-stick was a delight.

Lastly, Jen put her skills to work once more to knock out easily the best Spanish Tortilla that we've ever made. Our previous attempt using our new cast iron skillet resulted in it sticking- the pan needs further use with easier foods before it'll really turn as non stick as you hope for. So this time, she used a non-stick frying pan, and altered the recipe to cook the potatoes in a full cup of olive oil first. She tweaked the recipe to include some white onion, and boom! What a result. She was so (deservedly) pleased. We've been munching it with the pasta sauce I made and some good old British HP Sauce. The Spaniards would likely slaughter us for such an offensive act, but screw it. Why not?!

Our other notable story on the food front was when Thom and Madi came to visit- our friends, Patrick and Susie, had met then whilst a walk at Balandra. They came and hung out for a while and, seeing as Susie was assembling some leftover veggie burgers anyway, we offered to defrost some more and feed the guys, also. Madi is Celiac, so couldn't have the veggie burger, so instead, she got some tortilla chips with my bean chilli, guac and pick de Gallo. All the food went down really well. It's so nice to spread the love via making happy bellies. It's the one thing I can give people, and it is my pleasure to do so.

So, next stop, Mazatlàn after our 18 hour ferry ride to get over the Sea of Cortez. I'm not sure we'll hang out there- it's a city twice as big as La Paz, so we may well just move on as we don't hear anything about the place that makes it sound like a desirable stop. We'll be pushing down towards the fairly touristic Puerto Vallarta and around, before heading to Guadalajara where I believe we can expect some great food, not least in Taco Fish! We have some contacts who we'll likely be meeting there, so I'm sure we can get the inside track and maybe I can finally start getting under the skin of some real food stories and personal history.Read more