A Sail to the Caribbean

Dear Bloggers,
    Good evening. I tried my hand at making yogurt, making doughnuts, making Mandel bread and all three did not turn out right. However I also tried making  coconut rice with pigeon peas and that turned out beautifully accompanied by my grilled dolphin with mango chutney. Both of these recipes come once again from Cooking With Frogs. At this time, I have cooked 8 recipes from this book, with only 17 to go.
     Tonight was a night in the Caribbean and man, was it good! Let me begin with the delicious meal of grilled dolphin. The coconut rice with pigeon peas started by sautéing celery with1 red pepper, garlic, thyme, oregano, cilantro and olives in some olive oil. I then added the pigeon peas until sizzling. I added the rice to let it slightly brown and then added in the coconut milk and water. I let it cook for about 50 minutes until it was moist and topped it with cilantro. While the rice was cooking, I began by salting and peppering my Mahi Mahi, threw some oil on the grill, and let it cook for about 4 minutes each side until tender. It took about 10 minutes total. Then I worked on the mango chutney. I combined olive oil, mango chunks, salt, pepper, and orange juice in a food processor until smooth. I plated the fish with the mango chutney and a side of the coconut rice. It was divine. The creaminess of the coconut milk gave such a  nice consistency to the rice. It was so delicious. The fish was perfectly flaky with the sweet and slightly soured mango chutney. Overall, it was probably one of the best meals I have made in a while. I also decided to whip up some quick strawberry margaritas. Can you say yum?

I made some mandel bread as well, however this was not what it was supposed to be. I accidentally overlooked the 1 cup of butter and thought it was actually 1/2 cup. So, you can see how things got messed up there. My Mother's Mandel Bread turned out more so like a bread than it did a hardened cookie. Oh well, thank you Brooke, your photograph looks far superior and more delicious than mine turned out... I tried.





P.S. this is what my yogurt turned out like, but next time I make it, I will be sure not to have the temperature so high when I was letting the milk culture. I think I burned the milk because it is not as smooth as I had hoped. Anyways, until the next blog, stay healthy, don't make the same mistakes I did when cooking these recipes, and happy cooking!