We had a really nice and relaxed weekend – which seems to be a bit of a theme recently. It has been so long since I haven’t worked through every weekend, so we are making more effort to take time off and just do nothing.
Friday night was had a couple of cocktails in the garden and I made lasagne, as I have been craving it for ages. I made it with spelt pasta, which I have not tried before. It was really nice. I’m not sure what I expecting, although it was a little chewier than I though. Will definitely buy it again though.
As always, our cat Chilli joined us – hoping he was going to get something off our plate.
We live in a really big Caribbean community, but despite this, we haven’t really taken advantage of it by trying any of the local Caribbean food places. This weekend there was a Caribbean festival with a carnival/parade, so we made an effort to go this time, as we have lived here for 7 years and still have not been yet.
We got there at the time that the parade was meant to start, but it seems they were actually on Caribbean “island time” and it started 45 minutes late.
I must admit, it wasn’t as impressive as I was hoping, and a lot of the dancers seemed like they couldn’t be bothered to be there. But the costumes were colourful and it was fun. It was also free – so I can’t complain.
After the parade, we went into the park that was hosting the festival part of it. As soon as we walked in, we were greeted with an overwhelming smell of Caribbean spices that just made us want to find the nearest jerk chicken stall and order everything. It turns out, every other stall was serving jerk chicken – there was so much choice. We also saw about 10 stalls asking people to sign up as foster parents, which was a bit random.
We had a walk round, trying to decide which stall we wanted to buy some chicken from and found lots of other things that caught our eye too – including this rum cake. We didn’t buy any, but I definitely want to make some of my own.
As well as lots of cake, there was also lots of fresh and tropical fruit on sale. We came across this stall selling waffle cups with fruit and covered in chocolate. It looked so tempting too - but I only had chicken on the brain.
We came to the conclusion that all the places selling jerk chicken were pretty much the same and they would all be amazing, so we just went to the next one we came too.
We shared a portion between us, and got a dumpling as well. I have never had dumplings before, so it was nice to try something new. It was all so good and the chicken was really flavourful and juicy. It made me want to cook lots more Caribbean food at home.
Saturday night, we had some friends round for a BBQ to make the most of the nice weather. Corn was on offer at the local market, so I bought some to BBQ. I had only ever bought ready made corn before (I know, the shame), where it had already been peeled and it just had to be thrown on. But I wanted it to cook, without burning, so leaving the husk on was the way to do this.
It was really simple and really tasty. I just peeled the husk back and then I mixed together some melted butter and honey and brushed it all over the corn and then sprinkled some red chilli flakes over and some cracked pepper. I then put the husk back to how it was and put it on the BBQ for around 30-40 minutes, turning occasionally. Pull the husk back, use it as a handle and enjoy – perfectly cooked corn.
We were meant to have a meteor shower last night – but we couldn’t see anything, despite there being a clear sky.
AND…..I completed something else on my Summer Bucket List! I stayed up until 6am. It wasn’t easy, but I am glad I did it – probably for the last time. I’m getting too old to be doing that now.
Tomorrow is a new week on couch to 5k and I will be doing a 5 minute run. 5 MINUTES!!! Wow!
