The goal, eventually, is to have ONLY our own fresh fruit and jams served at breakfast. Jim currently makes the bread and the farl ( a traditional Scottish scone ). We buy European or NZ butter because it doesn’t contain growth hormones. We make our own hot sauce to adorn the scrambled eggs. Until recently the best we could do eggs-wise was buy from one company who declared their huevos hormone free. Now… we know our chickens personally… and they live only a few kilometres from Tesoro Verde. I get to pick the eggs out of the nest boxes…. awwwww. :-).
General Stuff
Veggie Burgers
Having lived 17 years on a boat, most of my favourite recipes became Americanised, ie, using cup measures rather than scales. Digital scales just don’t work on a boat at anchor, let alone under way, a sloop moves too much :-). Now maybe if we’d lived on a cat?
I’ve been trying to perfect my veggie burger recipe for a while, this is my current version;
Serves 4 people..
1 cup of very finely diced aubergine (eggplant)
3/4 cup very finely diced onion
4 cloves of garlic, put through a press
a good pinch of salt, and some freshly ground black pepper
Fry all of the above with about 2 tbsp olive oil, 8 mins
Meanwhile, process or mash 2 cups of canned black beans or chickpeas (garbanzo)
Add this to your fried vegetables above…
Also in a food processor, finely chop a cup of raw beetroot (beet). Peel it first.
Add this to your veg and beans mix. Sprinkle with; 1 1/2 level teaspoons ground cumin, a pinch of pure chilli powder, and a shake of smoked paprika. Adjust seasoning to taste, then add bind with a raw egg.
Make 8 burgers, chill them in the fridge for at least a couple of hours
To cook; preheat oven to 375,place now chilled burgers on a greased tray, brush the tops with a little oil, and bake for 35-40 mins. Alternatively, if you want them a bit crispier, pan fry for about 4 mins each side.
Serve on a roll (bun) with home made mayo, a big green salad, and an ice-cold beer!
To freeze; bake in the oven as above for 20 mins, cool, then freeze. Reheat from frozen 25-35 minutes.
They are tasty but crumbly….suggestions anyone?!!!!
The (Naked) Pool
Deep in the jungle (actually not far at all) you will find a little natural pool that’s a great place to cool down on a hot day.
We discovered the pool a number of years ago when we were looking for a source of water for the property. It was full of gravel and big rocks then but once we had moved the loose sand and stone and used the rock to make the dam higher we found we had created a beautiful little bathing pool.
The area around the pool is a great place to spot our little green and black dart frogs so bring a camera.
The pool is mostly shaded by the forest canopy but the light shining through is particularly pretty in the early afternoon.
It’s there for you to use whenever you like and as the name suggests skinny dipping (though not obligatory) is perfectly fine!
In rainy season the stream that feeds that pool can carry a lot of loose gravel, fallen leaves and branches with it and it’s not uncommon for a particularly prolonged downpour to deposit enough gravel to completely fill the pool. However we usually have it cleared in a day or two!
2017
It has definitely started well. We had a wonderful crew from http://www.pestleandmortar.co make us the most amazing promo for Tesoro Verde. And we thank the many friends who have shared the post. We are busy prepping for our tenth Burns supper (25th January) to be held in Costa Arriba, Colon.
This year we WILL make San Blas, California & Scotland. Look forward to catching up with you all, hugs, J&H xx
Year end…..
It’s been in some ways a braw year. Started in the new year with Fraser & Jackie, met some lovely people, started the BnB, went to Asia with Jim , and then also a bit of crap. Didn’t get to San Blas for our holidays. Brexit. Trump. Mark broke his leg. Lost our tenants. Spent a fortune on Woodside. Have an epic person handling that for us now (HF!). Discovered Workaway. Joined an art class. Experienced our first hurricane.
So I will attach some gorgeous photos. Wish you All That You Deserve, and a happy new year. Tesoro Verde is open to all friends, come see us!
Two toed, a couple of feet from the shower
after the hurricane, I am lost!
loving those bananas
free diving the tunnels
my favourite hummer
Two toed, a couple of feet from the shower
A papaya milk shake in it’s natural wrapping.
Bali, high….part i
Sometimes, you just have to accept it, and swallow what life throws at you, easy or difficult. Sometimes, it’s rubbish, but in this case, it was truly the trip of a lifetime. Asia. Jim’s first visit. Timing awful, but when is it perfect? So we just went for it. Awesome :-), and y’all know how I HATE that word used indiscriminately. We met new people. We re-met dear friends. We connected and reconnected. Life is Good.
Heart of school ( in the Green School, Bali )
Let’s go fly a kite, up to the highest height
Dragonfruit breakfast
Says it all!
Tanah Lot Sea Temple
Lovisa……..
Infinity, and love…..
Tanah Lot, Bali
My lovely boys!
To Bali in 36 hours…..
Half way around the world, and some things are exactly the same. The climate ( although here is dry season ), the hustle and bustle, the trees, the vegetables in the market, even the indiscriminate dumping of trash, but there in my opinion the similarities end.
Panama has a lot of undiscovered natural beauty, but what knocks me out about Bali is the culture.
Everything seems crammed together, and the scale is smaller. Narrow, winding roads. One minute you are passing through rice paddies, with people impossibly bent over the crop, and the next second and next bend, brings a temple adorned with offerings, penjors (graceful bamboo decorations) and fabric-wrapped statues.
We were fortunate to arrive on the equivalent of Christmas day, Â the Hindu festival of Galungan. It was a relief to leave the cold, dry air of the plane and walk across the tarmac in warm, humid air to the waiting bus.
Jim is here for a Bamboo Architecture & Building course, at Green School, Bali….
Looks like he will  be in the first class to graduate from Bamboo U!!
Twenty years later…..
Happy Birthday Jim:-)
Twenty years ago today, we sailed away from Granton harbour in Edinburgh on the good ship Charmer. Since then we’ve sailed thousands of miles together, met wonderful people and seen amazing places. The friends who waved goodbye that day, are still our friends. The new ones we’ve met along the way have changed our lives. The plan ( did anyone say ‘plan’?) was to be home in Edinburgh circa 2002, so we are a little behind schedule. Instead, I wake up to the sounds of howler monkeys most days, and look out at the Caribbean. We work, sometimes it feels like torture, to make Tesoro Verde the kind of place where people feel welcome, and can share our adventure. I am looking forward to the next one (!)
Your smile makes my day, every day, love you……. H
man build fire
doing a job I love
the view at breakfast
I love you this much!!
the smile….
the adventures!
The Potting Shed
is how we, in the UK, Â would describe a small structure somewhere in the garden. Traditionally the home of the gardening tools, plant pots, seeds being sprouted. Somewhere you’d go to hide from the stresses of the real world maybe.
In plan form it started as a storage space, but as the construction progressed, it has morphed. Included in the design are plans for a mezzanine sleeping platform, a tiny kitchen, and the possibility to add a deck and a second floor. It will be the perfect space to put friends and family in, even ‘workawayers’, and I suspect we’ll be sleeping there at some point in the future. But not this year. The rent for friends and family will be very reasonable. Tetley Tea Bags, Branston Pickle, Marmite, Cadbury’s Twirl or Flakes….. is everyone getting the message here?
The roof should go on this week, it will need secure doors and windows, and then we will fill it to the gunnels with all the ‘stuff’ filling the upper construction site :-). And when that upper house gets more ‘liveable’, space will become available in the Potting Shed, for our less intrepid visitors……
The Island
Jim & Jason at base camp
We can always justify an expedition by calling it research, and our trip to explore ‘Los Farallones’ fell into that category. This loose collection of small islands and breaking rocks sits a few kilometres off the coast near the village of Cacique. The largest island which hosts an unmanned lighthouse was our destination. It was our second attempt, the last time the swell was too big to allow a safe landing, and even this time in the flat calm the lancha could only get us within 50m of the rocks and we had to paddle our gear in on kayaks and a small dinghy.
We ferried our camping gear and supplies ashore as fast as possible, piled it up and quickly covered it with a tarp before an approaching squall hit. Even torrential (warm) rain and wind isn’t really a problem in the tropics, and as the sun quickly reappeared, we assessed where to put up the tents. A stark and vaguely hostile environment, dead skeletal trees, a jumble of bare guano-covered rocks, no shade, curious frigate birds and boobies wheeling overhead. We decided to explore and see if there was an easier place to make a camp.
We scrambled over the rocks, climbed up the scary near vertical steps to the lighthouse. The views were breathtaking but there really wasn’t anywhere obvious to set up. In the end Jim wished he’d brought a pick axe as we worked to create a flat space for our tent near where we came ashore. Jason ended up sleeping on a canted piece of concrete slab ( left over from the sea-destroyed dock ) and Amy & Austin decided on a spot up by the lighthouse. There was very little breeze that night and when it got too hot they abandoned their tent to sleep outside on the bracken-like grass. Amy said there was nothing quite like waking up to the sensation of a hermit crab combing through your hair (!) Jason felt the birds were deliberately using him as target practise, as he woke to find streaks of bird poop ONLY on him, and not his surrounds. We were lucky, slept much better on our lumpy floor than we expected, but it was sweltering.
If these are Boobies, does that make their perch site a Boobery?
Base camp from the lighthouse
Sunset over the Caribbean….
Our underwater experiences more than made up for the discomfort of the camping… we had wanted to explore out there for years… the visibility is spectacular, 10m, 15m, 20m? The fish obviously don’t see too many fisherman. We almost got tired of the Angels, both French & Queen. We’ve never seen so many Black Durgons. A pair of majestic Eagle Rays glided (glid?) past  several metres below us. The underwater landscape is like nothing I have experienced since Gozo in the Mediterranean, or Saba in the Caribbean.
The viz is out of this world, far enough from the mainland that runoff from rivers, or aguaceras, has no effect. The current sweeps it clean also.
Holding on tight!
A pair of Porkfish
A beautiful French Angel fish
Typical sea life
A Honeycomb Cow fish
Lined rock and pounding surf
School of Doctorfish
It was a great trip with great folk, and as Arnie would say “We’ll definitely be back!
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