What I Ate Wednesday: Nicaraguan Eats [2]

I’m a terrible blogger. I never remember to photograph my food. I think it’s a muscle memory you have to train. Or it’s because I’m lackadaisical in most things I do. I wish I could be a more serious person. Did you know the Spanish word for “almost” is “Casi”? I think this blog name was meant to be.

I’m writing this at 6:30 a.m. since I woke up for a run and it’s pouring the rain. I wanted to share a few more of the things I ate while in Nicaragua. I still am having a little white rice PTSD – I saw a container in the fridge at work yesterday and almost had a panic attack, but other than that, I’m already ready to be back there, waking up early to surf, not waking up early to push back a run because I’m being a baby and don’t feel like running in the rain.

This isn’t a whole day of eats – just random things I photographed that you’ll probably see again if I ever bother to do a recap. (I will, I promise – getting serious over here).

Smoothie Bowl from Buddha’s Garden

Smoothie Bowl at Buddha’s Garden.

I was Skyping with my #WCW, Davida, last night and told her about the smoothie bowl I ate at the new raw foods cafe in San Juan Del Sur, Buddha’s Garden. Her reply? “Of course you would find the only raw foods bar in Nicaragua.” This smoothie bowl was made with a papaya base, then topped with mango, banana, watermelon, chia seeds and raw granola. I love how not-sweet the raw granola was. Do I now need a dehydrator? The answer is no.

Fish Taco from Bad Ass Eats

Fish taco from Bad Ass Eats.

You can’t go to a beach town without a fish taco, even if fish tacos aren’t really native to Nicaragua (still Mexican, but readily available at every beach stand and just about every place in town). This was super messy. It’s crazy windy in San Juan Del Sur (offshore winds from Lake Nicaragua, hence why the surfing is so good) and whatever creama sauce was on it was everywhere. Then I also felt the need to dump a random hot sauce on the counter into it. The tortilla was a  homemade corn tortilla and was so good. BUT – the fish tacos my dad and I made from “It’s All Good” still are the best fish tacos I’ve ever had. Is that blasphemy?

Lobster from Cloud Farm

Lobster… with the dreaded white rice.

As I said before, my meals were included in my lodging. The next to last night included lobster. I don’t even know where you find lobsters in Nicaragua, aren’t they a cold water creature crustacean? It was delicious and was in some red veggie sauce. The green thing is some sort of squash (though I wish it were kabocha squash) and the thing that isn’t rice is mashed potatoes. I’m just not into mashed potatoes/white potatoes in general… They’re both just bland to me. I was kind of hungry after I ate this since it was a few slices of squash and one lobster tail so I ended up making a salad with a random cucumber and tomato I found with balsamic vinegar and this delicious smoked cheese.

Steak and Chicken Kebobs from El Colibri

Beef and chicken kebabs at El Colibri.

I had spoke with a few people who had visited San Juan Del Sur, including Abby from All Dolled Up, who told me about the sangria at local Mediterranean restaurant, El Colibri. We went on their second to last night – their lease was up and the owners of the building wanted to start their own restaurant there. Since Nicaragua’s only food to speak of is rice, beans and plantains, I felt zero guilt about eating a cuisine I could get at home. Everything looked amazing – they had Spanish meatballs, steak with vodka bacon sauce, gnocchi (how I miss you, gnocchi) – but I went with chicken and steak kabobs (I love all things grilled, especially grilled veggies) and they were nice enough to swap polenta (weird polenta craving) for the potatoes.

Although I love eating while traveling, I’m also a creature of habit and truly love making my own meals because I love cooking, so coming home is always a little bit of a relief for me – I no longer have to forage for food out in the world and instead can throw random stuff in a bowl and eat it. I’ve also been eating mustard on everything since I didn’t have mustard for a week and I’m currently OBSESSED.

I’m linking up with Jenn from Peas and Crayons for What I Ate Wednesday.

 

Chat with me: What food/condiment are you currently obsessed with? Do you like eating out/eating at home more? What’s the best thing you’ve ever ate traveling?

What I Ate Wednesday: Nicaraguan Eats

Incase you missed it, I’m currently at surf camp with Chicabrava in Nicaragua (as part of my “actually achieve something as a 25 year old plan“). As part of the camp, they provide all of your meals, which is super cool because I’m staying on a farm and 90% of the food they make is from the farm (there’s nothing like fresh eggs). I thought I would share a little bit of what I’m eating, but I’m a terrible blogger so I always forget to take photos.

Sorry for the crappy iPhone photos (per usual) and being totally unedited – WiFi here is a bad sitch.

Nicaraguan Breakfast: Plantains, Rice and Beans + Eggs

Also un-pictured was fresh fruit (watermelon, cantaloupe, pineapple) and coffee.

I honestly hope I never see rice again after this week and it’s only the end of day 3, but I always forget how delicious plantains are. I ended up adding a little Wild Friends chocolate sunflower almond butter to the plantains for some healthy fats.

Nicaraguan Lunch: Huge Salad

These veggies and eggs all came from the farm.

This salad was a Godsend – I seriously always miss eating a ton of veggies when I’m traveling. The hardboiled eggs were so good because they were from the farm. Also look how crazy that avocado is. On the side I had a little rice with pesto sauce.

Nicaraguan Snacks: Pico de Gallo, Guacamole and Seviche

 

This seviche may have changed my life.

We took a super awesome catamaran tour that involved snacks – homemade pico de gallo, gauc and seviche. I literally will never have pico and seviche that delicious again in my life – mainly because that fish was probably swimming this morning. I would do bad things for that seviche recipe.

Also snacked on but unpictured have been a Quest bar, almonds, a Kind granola bar and a half (chocolate chip and maple pumpkin seed), a melted Kind bar and these Peter Rabbits Organics fruit and vegetable squeezes. Surfing seriously makes you hungry.

I also bought these protein bars from a local company, Grace and Honey. I have chocolate berry chia seed and they were AMAZING.

Curry in a hurry.

I seriously had been craving curry so this was amazing – lots of veggies and chicken. I of course also had some rice (ugh but whatever).

I’m linking up with Jen from Peas and Crayons for today’s post. Thanks for hosting!

Chat with me:
What’s the best thing you’ve eaten this week? What food are you so over right now?

What I Ate Wednesday [3]: 24 Hours in NYC

This past weekend, as part of my 6 week travel bender, I was in NYC. I was supposed to be in town a more substantial amount of time – 48 hours – but between a cancelled flight on Friday and changing my flight on Sunday because of the 1 millionth polar vortex of the year, I was in town for approximately 24 hours. It was for Carly’s birthday and I hadn’t seen her since Montreal so any amount of time was good time in my book.

The benefit of getting on an early morning flight last minute means you get upgraded to first class. I hadn’t sat in first class on such a short flight in such a long time (WOW I sound like a brat), so I forgot you get better snacks than peanuts or Biscoff cookies (not that I don’t love Biscoff cookies). Isn’t it annoying how on United you don’t even get any snacks? RIP Continental. Okay, flight rant over.

I didn’t eat anything from the snack basket but I did judge others around me for eating chips and Twix at 7:30 a.m. I had packed blueberry crumble overnight oats (recipe still being perfected, look for it soon). Yeah, I’m that freak who packs food for the plane. (#sorryimnotsorry) I did have a funny encounter getting off the train between terminals in Pittsburgh where a woman in sweats proclaimed, “I already smell ‘dem taters”. So basically my only airport breakfast option is McDonalds which clearly will never happen ever.

Overnight oats with a side of book and destroyed denim jeans.

After a short nap in NYC, I set out for a 10 mile run since the sun was shining and I knew #snowpocalapyse was upon me once again. I listened to two podcasts – both Dinner Party Download. About six or seven miles in I had half a coconut cream pie Larabar for a little extra fuel. I didn’t take a photo since I was running (obv) and I also think the other half is still in my jacket pocket. (The title of this blog is Almost Getting It Together, do you seriously expect more from me?)

Stolen coconut cream pie larabar photo from Larabar.com.

After my run, I set out on a mission to score Carly some much-needed birthday ginger ale and coconut water. The only store I know near her apartment is a Gourmet Garage so I made a huge salad to refuel incase she didn’t feel up to getting lunch.

Huge salad: greens, grilled veggies, grilled chicken, artichokes & feta.

Before dinner I was obviously hungry again and Carly is the best and keeps yogurt at her place for me, so I had a yogurt with quinoa granola. The below photo is not the actual yogurt I ate because I forgot, but a yogurt from a few days before with blueberries.

 

Favorite thing to eat ever – yogurt with stuff on top.

We went to dinner at an Italian place called Morandi. I wanted yet another salad but since they couldn’t add protein and I knew I would be hungry in an hour without it, I went with lamb chops. They were a little heavy for me, especially because I had red meat already last week, but they were good. They came with roasted vegetables which definitely had bread crumbs which was totally unnecessary and not gluten-free friendly.

Lamb chops from Morandi.

Later after we went to see Young the Giant in concert I had half a Kind chocolate and sea salt bar I found in my purse – craving chocolate, obviously.

Stolen Kind Chocolate & Sea Salt bar photo from kind snacks.com

I vaguely feel like I don’t eat a balanced diet. Whoops. This is pretty decent for me when I’m traveling. Look for a post on how to eat healthy when traveling coming soon! (Monday night I ended up out late with Angela so it didn’t get written.)

Special thanks to Jenn from Peas & Crayons for hosting one of my favorite link-ups to read during the week!

Chat with me:
Have you been to NYC? Do you have any places you love to eat when you’re there?