During the off-season, there are a lot of good deals to be had at local hotels and resorts. Hopkins Bay Resort had a great deal going on, so off to the beach for a long weekend to take advantage of it. Ron & Rhonda also found out about it, and since they only live an hour away, they decided to join us for a Mother’s Day weekend getaway.

We really had no plans in Hopkins, the whole weekend just revolved around chill’n out, doing some bar hopping, seeing friends, enjoying the pool, and of course eating. Then again, that’s what these little getaways are usually for.

One of the little beach bars we went to check out was closed, but the owner was there on the shore teaching his son how to fish for the first time. He was nice enough to take time out from helping his son to get us a couple cold beers. While we were on the beach sipping our beers, the kid caught his first fish ever. Of course, we all cheered for him, and Kelley went over and took his picture. After we got back home we sent the picture down to his father and he was very thankful.

That was a great little getaway, but now back to the jungle.

We finally made it up to Blacaneaux Lodge one Sunday to check it out and grab a quick bite.  Blacaneaux Lodge is a high-end, Francis Ford Coppola resort only about ten minutes from our place. They have three different restaurants on site: an Italian, a vegetarian, and a Guatemalan. Being the off-season, the Italian restaurant was the only one open at the time, so we opted for a pizza and a few cold draft Belikins beers. They have a 3.5 acre garden on the property that supplies 80% of fruits and vegetables for their meals, which makes everything very fresh, and of course, they have a good selection of Coppola wines. The Italian restaurant had a great-looking menu, and would be a great place to bring guests, or for a special occasion dinner. We will definitely be going back to try the other restaurants, if not for a fancy dinner, then for another pizza and beer lunch.

We are still getting quite a few cayenne peppers off our plants, but it’s looking like the plants are starting to slow down a little. Kelley has been using the peppers in many dishes, such as soups, Chinese food and Mexican food. We’ve had more than we could keep using fresh, so besides making our pepper sauce, we decided to dehydrate a bunch and vacuum seal them in jars. Cayenne peppers are not common here and are almost impossible to find anywhere. We decided to grow these peppers since they are not really spicy, but pack a lot of flavor. So, as needed, we will be able to grind some of these up to be used on pizzas and others can be used whole in different dishes when our fresh ones aren’t available anymore.

We were talking to Ruben the other day about clearing a little more bush out behind the back deck. As we were pointing out trees to be removed, there was a dead one that was full of oyster mushrooms all around the base of the tree. This was a surprise to us, as we haven’t had any rain in quite a while. Kelley picked about a pound of mushrooms and we gave half of them to Ruben. They were a delicious addition to our meal that night, sautéed in butter with a little garlic salt and pepper. It’s great when you can find delicious stuff growing wild in the jungle. As for that dead tree that was going to be removed, we decided to let it stay where it is, just in case there might be more mushrooms that pop up.

After we got back from Hopkins, Ruben had underbrushed and cleared some of the smaller trees out from the area behind our back patio. It really opened it up a little more and should look great once we finish getting it cleaned up. Eventually, we will start planting decorative and flowering plants in that area, and who knows what other crazy idea we might have.

We are starting to get star fruit off our tree. It seems that the tree always has blossoms on it, but we never see any fruit. The other day I finally saw one that looked like it was ripe, so I got a pole and shook the branch. When I did a bunch more fell to the ground. They are very hard to spot on the tree, as they look just like the leaves and we usually don’t see them until they hit the ground. So far, we’ve gotten a few dozen. Every few days, I’ll see one that looks ripe and shake the tree, and when I do, more start falling that we didn’t even see.

Recently Ruben brought down a stock of apple bananas from one of the plants on our farm lot. He grabbed some for himself, Amanda took a few and we had at least another 25 left for us. These are my favorite little bananas, they are just so sweet and you can easily eat 2-3 at a time, especially with a little peanut butter on them. It looks like this week’s breakfast will be bananas and star fruit.

We’ve got nine cacao trees that we planted about six years ago and at this point, they are providing us with a constant supply of cacao. These plants germinate very well, so when we get some seeds that aren’t good enough to make chocolate, we’ll sometimes plant them. We’ve probably given away at least 50 good-sized plants, and we have another 50 that are just getting started. Recently, for some reason we decided that we might as well plant a few more trees around the property. So we planted twelve more plants (2′-4′ tall) out in a clearing on the side of the house. If these grow like our original plants, we could end up with a whole lot more cacao for making chocolate. Maybe we’ll even plant a bunch more in the new clearing behind the back patio. Is too much chocolate really a problem?

This is just in case you didn’t know about cashew nuts. Cashews actually grow very well here in Belize. The picture of the cashews above was growing on the side of the road down in Hopkins. The one nut itself actually grows on the outside bottom of the fruit. The cashew fruit is used locally to make wine, jams, and jellies, though mostly it’s grown for the nut itself. Once harvested, the nuts need to be separated from the fruit, dried, roasted and then shelled before they are ready to eat. Parts of the cashew must be handled with care, because it is related to poison ivy and poison sumac, which can cause an allergic skin reaction in some people. They are an expensive and very delicious nut, but considering the process to get to that point, I think they are well worth it.

If you know us, then you know we are always up for trying some new foods. Last week when we were in Hopkins, we stopped in at Beef Masters and picked up some beef steaks and some other cuts of meat. They also raise and sell buffalo, so we picked up some burgers and thought we’d give them a try. This is not buffalo (bison) meat like they sell in the States, here they raise Asian water buffalo. One Friday night we fired up the grill and invited Amanda over for some bacon, green chili, water buffalo cheeseburgers to see how they compare to regular beef. Okay, we all agreed that these were some very delicious burgers and ranked them way up on the burger scale. On our next trip to Hopkins we’ll be picking up some more burgers and maybe a steak or two. If the steaks are as good as the burger, we could become big fans of water buffalo. We also picked up some smoked pig tails while we were there. We’ll have to let you know how those were a little later.

It’s a great time to visit Belize, we hope to see you soon.