From the monthly archives: January 2015
Ingredients for Mango Avocado Salsa
Wonderful, fresh fruits and vegetables are one of the many great things about living here in Mexico. We now eat so many more of them because they taste so good. After a lifetime of living in Calgary, where the produce was hard and tasteless, especially in the winter, I don’t think we really knew what “fresh” tasted like. Now it is such a pleasure to have great greens available just down the street at Chulim or from the passing vendors. When mango season starts you can hear the call of “Mango, Mango, Mango” from the loud speakers of the passing produce trucks as they come door to door. And since we have moved here, my love of avocados has increased. What better way to enjoy fresh mango than with avocado. This recipe takes full advantage of our best local produce. And you can spice it up or down to meet your taste.
Lovely Red Onion
Since moving here I had to learn essential skills like how to slice an mango.…
and an avocado. Including the knife twisting trick to get the pit out.
My favourite new gadgets is a pairs of herb scissors that I use for chopping up cilantro.
No Mexican recipe would be complete without the ubiquitous squeeze of lime.
Finish it all off with a little sea salt and some habanero pepper to taste and you have a wonderful side dish for chicken or fish. It also makes a great appetizer with tortilla chips.
¡Buen Provecho!
Recently we had friends staying with us that couldn’t believe how close we live to nature here in Puerto Morelos. For those of you not familiar with PoMo, we are a thin strip of land located between the Caribbean Sea and the mangrove. The mangrove or el manglar is a living, breathing, vibrant area filled with trees, plants and plenty of wildlife. Our home is only steps from the beach but it is even closer to the mangrove which gives us an amazing opportunity to see lots of birds and other animals.
The wildlife usually stays pretty close to home in the mangrove, but the other day we had a visitor in our garbage can. Now a raccoon trapped in your trash can may not be a big deal for some people, but we are a couple of city kids, so we were a little perplexed. Luckily a friend from Montreal had the stunning idea of just putting a palm branch into the trash can, so the little fellow ran up, out and back to the mangrove.
Crocodile Hanging in Puerto Morelos
The other day on a walk to our local supermarket we came across this happy fellow, sunning himself on one of the mangrove viewing points. He or she, we didn’t get close enough to find out, must be quite young as he was only about five feet long. He didn’t move a muscle, so we got a chance to take a good long look at him. Very cool. “Old school technology”as Rob calls it. When we passed back the same way about an hour later he was still in the same place still working on his tan. Our friends that had stayed with us just the week before had really wanted to see a crocodile, so this post is for them.
The USA Border to Puerto Morelos, Mexico
We have complied our stats from our latest drive from the US border, crossing at Columbia near Laredo,Texas to Puerto Morelos, Mexico and here is how it breaks down. You can compare these to our trip north in the spring of 2014.
Distance Covered: 3124 km or 1941 Miles
Hours behind the wheel: 39.5 (Google Maps is a little optimistic)
Number of Days Driving: 6.5 days
Camping at Mayabell
We took a total of 9 days to do this trip, taking an extra night in San Miguel de Allende and Cholua, Puebla. Our prices in gas and tolls are based on driving a truck and pulling a twenty-five foot trailer.
Cost of Gas: $10,490 pesos or $771 usd
Cost of Tolls: $4328 pesos or $318usd
Cost of Camping: $1614 pesos or $119 usd for 7 nights.
Cost of Repairs: $650 pesos or $48 usd
Road Side Service
While on the Arco Norte around Mexico city we heard a strange noise coming from the back of the trailer. We pulled over at the nearest Pemex to find that we had a broken trailer spring. This happens to us often, so we always carry spare springs. All we really needed was a mechanic who could change out the broken one. There was a mechanic where we stopped, but he was on the wrong side of the toll fence and he couldn’t cross over. We then went to a tire repair shop, they couldn’t help us, but they did have a buddy who was a mechanic. Within twenty minutes he was there replacing our broken spring. Forty-five minutes later we were all set to go…. but as we pulled out of the parking lot, we heard this terrible grinding sound. So back to the mechanic, only to discover that one of our brake assembly had fallen apart. All of the pieces were still inside the wheel so he was able to fix it and we were back on the road after only an hour and a half delay.
Hope you were able to get a cake! Costco in Cancun seemed to have a shortage of them yesterday 🙂 And you know that they will sell out of them today. If you are not familiar with the tradition of Los Tres Reyes Magos you can read about it here. In the mean time, Happy Dia de Reyes!
