Food demo #1 at Finca de Vida

At our stay at Finca de Vida we wanted to get inspiration for healthy cooking and booked two raw food demos with Itzel and Stephan. Demo # 1 was a raw bread, salad and banana ice cream!

Raw bread sandwich (needs a dehydrator)
Example ingredients to make raw bread:
1 cup flax seeds (make powder in ex. Vitamix)
1 cup chia seeds (make powder)
1 cup almonds (make powder)
1 cup big oats (make powder or keep them whole)
1/2 cup nutritional yeast
Mix everything in a bowl

4 large tomatoes (the tomatoes in Costa rica are two to three times the size of tomatoes in Norway) - cut the tomatoes in pieces and put in blender
3-4 celery sticks - cut in pieces and put in blender
4 avocadoes (if you want to make a sweet bread, you can replace the avocado with banana) - put in blender
20 cloves of garlic - put in blender
A large handful of fresh rosemary - put in blender
A small handful of fresh oregano - put in blender
1 tablespoon salt (maybe you want to use less!) - put in blender
Mix everything in a blender/Vitamix

Pour the liquid mix little by little in the bowl with the dry and mix well. If you have too much of the liquid, save it to make sandwich spread!
Spread the dough in a 0,5 cm thick layer on your dehydrator sheets/plates. Let it dry over night.
Divide into sandwich size pieces.

Sandwich spread
Use the liquid rests from making the bread (if you have any)
Add 1 avocado
Mustard seeds
Salt
Juice from 1/2 lime
Put everything in the blender and mix.


Sandwich filling
Start with a piece of bread and add the avocado spread. Add:
Thin slices of tomatoes
Thin slices of red beets
Thin slices of zucchini
Thin slices of apple
Thin slices of cucumber
Thin sticks of red bell pepper
Grated carrot
Fresh dill, parsley or coriander
A piece of lettuce on top, or if you want more bread, another slice of bread (we liked it best with only lettuce on top!)

Salad

1 to 1 1/2 mango (diced in small pieces)

4 tomatoes (diced in small pieces)

onion (minced)

coriander (minced)

lime juice

you can also add more greens (lettuce, spinach, kale) in tiny pieces

Tip:

Use a small bowl to place the salad on the plate

Slice a red beet in small sticks and use for decoration

Banana ice cream!

7 frozen bananas (divide in 2-3 pieces and put in blender)

1 tsp vanilla extract or seed from a vanilla "stick"

2 tsp cinnamon

Mix everything in the blender

Add to serving bowls.

Strawberry sauce

1 bowl strawberries

2 1/2 tbs honey

Mix in blender

Decorate the ice cream with the sauce

Use diced mango, blueberries ++ as decoration

We loved it, and Maria and Aurora made banana ice cream for the Christmas pot luck :)

- Line

Farm of Life!

This has been a difficult post to write. Not because there is nothing to write about, but because we had such a good time at Finca de Vida/Farm of Life, and it´s hard to describe it with words. But I´ll try!

We got a beautiful room with a big bathroom,
a gorgeous view and a hammock!

We booked our stay at Finca de Vida after Thommy showed me a Youtube video where John from okraw.com had visited Finca de Vida. We decided that that´s where we wanted to spend Christmas, sent an email to ask if they had a room for us for 5 nights and jumped with excitement when we got the positive reply from one of the owners, Jody!

We arrived in the afternoon after taking a taxi from Quepos to Dominical (50 USD) and then another taxi, that Jody booked for us from Dominical to Finca de Vida near San Salvador (40 USD). Jody´s husband, Brian picked us up and drove the last 2-3 km to the farm (4WD is a must).

The girl´s favorite: Banana Villa!

Brian showed us around the big farm (37 acres), enthusiastically giving us samples to taste from fruits, herbs and leaves from different edible shrubs and encouraging us to go out and pick our food while we were there.

On our first night the Calvis (Brian and Jody) and their volunteers Itzel and Stephan made a bonfire and we sat there talking and planning the next days. Sunday was supposedly a good day for a tour to Nauyaca waterfalls, because there are no other tours there, which means less people. We decided to go there with Brian as our tour guide the next day.

Perfect for swimming on a hot day.

The Nauyaca waterfalls were beautiful, we went swimming in fresh, cool water and the only other people we met were Eric, a neighbour of the Finca, with his two volunteers. The brave and strong made it over to the waterfall and got a water massage/shower as a reward, while the children and their mom stayed closer to the rocks on the other side. But everyone went swimming!

The next day was Christmas Eve, and the girls really wanted to go horseback riding, which Jody and Brian booked with another neighbour, Linda. So we got up early to ride about 1 hour to a small waterfall nearby and back again. The girls loved it and I enjoyed it too. But I have to say that I´m glad we didn´t stay longer on the horses, because my body was hurting...

For Christmas Eve, some of the Calvis´ neighbours were invited with all the Finca´s guests to a potluck dinner at the Finca! Oh, the anticipation in the air when the chopping, blending and cooking was going on in the Harvest House (communal kitchen)! We had sweet soup, vegetable soup, different salads, stuffed red bell peppers, bean hummus, red beet hummus, sweet mashed potatoes, apple pie, pumpkin pie, raw chocolate and for final dessert banana ice cream with mango sauce!

On Christmas Day a big group of us went on a hike to the Diamante waterfalls. The hike started with steep climbing up to a nice garden, where we had a chance to taste the fruits and plants that grew there. We tasted cacao fruit (delicious), suger cane, a really strong mustard leaf, chili peppers and sweet lime. After this nice break in the gardens, the hike continued up to the waterfalls. We had a chance to jump in (7 m jump), swim and look at the stunning waterfalls from different levels. We also met an American family that were going to spend the night in the caves behind the waterfalls. Exciting!

Sunset view from the Harvest House.

We spent our last day just relaxing at the Finca. We tried the cool pools and had a final raw food demo with Itzel and Stephan. The girls were sad because we were leaving the next day, and so was Thommy and I. The atmosphere at the farm was warm, fun and friendly and the people who were there at the same time as us were such great people. It felt like being at a really healthy summer camp, and who wants to leave summer camp!?! But we had only booked 5 nights, and if we had known what a great place Finca de Vida is, we would have booked a longer stay!

- Line

Fifth Day: Beach time

Beach at Manuel Antonio, Costa Rica

We found out that we wanted to go to the beach since we are close to Manuel Antonio National Park. We took the local bus to a beach near the park and used most of our day in the shadows of a tree on the beach. The current and the waves were a bit big for swimming and the kids are not old enough to manage swimming in the ocean alone yet. It looked like it would be some clouds in the morning hours, but it cleared up pretty fast and became very hot. We opted out of the chairs and parasol at first, but had to cave in and rent it anyway to get some more shade.

  

8kg Sandia

The breakfast consisted of pineapple, papaya and bananas together with a great smoothie. This time around we brought our own lunch as well! 8 kilo of water melon that took at least an hour to finish between the 4 of us. This is one of the best water melons I have ever had. Only wish I had a spoon instead of a knife so I could scoop all the good liquid as well.

The way to and from the hotel was easy with the local bus.

Next stop is Farm of Life which is about 2,5 hours in travel time from here. The blog posts will be less frequent during the Christmas time and our stay at the farm. Here is the link for the farm website. They even have their own youtube channel.


-Thommy

Third and fourth day: leaving Arilapa and arriving at Mono Azul (Quepos)

After breakfast we packed our backpacks and took a last stroll around the garden at Arilapa. We went to the river that is in the back yard of the  Arilapa b&b. It was amazing! Then, we just walked to the bus to Alajuela.

In Alajuela, we changed to another bus that was going to San José. From San José (Tracopa terminal), we jumped on a bus to Quepos. We were lucky, because the bus was going in about three minutes when we came to the bus station. It is boring to sit on a bus in three hours, but we saw crocodiles and weird cows. The bus had a stop after one hour. We found a refrigerator in a corner of the "shop" with some sliced fruits in plastic boxes. I wasn´t happy, because I only like watermelon, and I don´t like fruit as a meal.

When we came to Quepos, we took a taxi to the hotel. "Mono Azul" is between the town Quepos and Manuel Antonio National Park. The hotel had three swimmingpools! Aurora and I were ready to swim as soon as we got there. It was nice to swim when it was dark outside.

Today we had breakfast at the hotel (fruit salad, pancakes, french toast) and just relaxed by the swimming pool. I swam alot. We saw two toucans high up in the trees! They were beautiful! For lunch, we bought delicious smoothies! I love smoothies!






We ate dinner in the sunset in Quepos. The restaurant had  a nice view over the beach and we saw a beautiful sunset. On our way home, we bought a huge watermelon, sunscreen and mosquito spray.

Oh, we just lost the power, or, the whole town lost it. It is very dark, except the light from the computer screen. I wonder how long it will take before i can post this post...


 - Maria 12 years. Norway.

Second Day: Volcano Poas

Our second day started early, as they all have. We got up with the sun, so about 7 am we started our preparations to go to the volcano. The local bus was leaving at 9:20 from the main road, a quick 15 minute walk from our B&B. So quickly after breakfast we headed bak to our cabin where we realized that we had managed to lock ourselves out. We got some help getting in like a burglar, but the only thing we stole was precious minutes before the bus departed... So some of the preparations was left on the counter when we left for the bus (read: the food).

So off we went and managed to get to the bus stop, the first telephone booth after the yellow bridge. The bus arrived and we were finally on our way to Vulcan Poas. From where the bus stops at the top it is maybe a 20 minute walk on a concrete road to get to the view you see in the picture to the right.

We all agreed that it was worth it!

Laguna Botos at Volcán Poás.

We also wanted to see more of the area so we took the walking path that continued in to the bushes. The walk had squirrels to the childrens' delight and some beautiful flowers and green moss on the trees. Half way in to the walk we got to our destination, Laguna Botos.

We met some nice people from Venezuela on our way back. They were on their vacation from Merida. I have spent almost 3 weeks in Merida, and the conversation went on to good memories from 1997 and my first trip abroad.

Since we did not manage to bring our own food, we had to buy whatever they had in the cafe. Which were not much, I can tell you. Muffins, baguettes (ham or turkey & cheese), chips and cakes. In addition they of course had soda, water and coffee. For me this resulted in a muffin and some chips without cheese.

The bus ride back went by quickly since we had our new friends to chat with. The end of the day was enjoyed at a local restaurant in Alajuela, called Coffee Dreams Café. They did have some variety of vegetarian food like the one I had which was a spinach pie. Not sure if they had cheese in it but it felt that way.

We got back to the B&B by taxi, before darkness, and ended the day with planning our next travelling, south toward Manuel Antonio National Park.

First Day: Ojas de Agua

On our first day in Costa Rica we decided to place our base in Alajuela and move out on day trips from there. We live at the basic Bed & Breakfast Arilapa.

It has a few houses for rent and a nice garden area with chickens and a rooster running free. I nice place for the kids to get used to the warm climate and the new sounds of a tropical country.

During our first day here we went to a place called Ojo the Agua wich is a local water park for kids to go to swim and play in the water. We went there by local bus and thus experienced how the ticos get from place to place. The park had 4 different pools for all ages and sizes. Horseback riding and even a trampoline. We had brought our own lunch that was mainly tomatoes, oranges and apples. The tomatoes had a really good taste!

The breakfasts at the place we are staying at is nothing for a vegetarian or vegan. It is mainly meat, rice and dairy products. I´ve stocked up on bananas and water melon so it should not be so bad with regards to the intake of calories during the morning hours. We are up before 8 AM ! 

Cheesy Flights to Costa Rica

Our travel have taken us from Oslo to London and then further to Miami and last leg of the trip was to San Jose. Our flights was with American Airlines and its partners.

I thought that it would be easy to get vegetarian food on the flights. I was wrong. I wanted to at least be able to eat vegetarian if nothing else was possible. We brought some fruit to get our calories in the morning which was mostly bananas and clementines. We also had some nuts and a cucumber.

So here is the trouble with airline food today: It´s all about cheese! If the meal is a sandwich, guess what is in it? Ham and cheese. They consider a vegetarian meal to be the sandwich without the ham...

Here is the menu we had on our flights:
BA - Oslo to London : Sandwich with ham or cheese
AA - London to Miami: Meal 1. Pasta with cheese or rice and chicken (with bread and cheese). Snack: Cheese crackers.  Meal 2: Pizza with cheese.
AA - Miami to San Jose: Nothing (you could buy nuts and chips)

Since we have different views on cheese in the family I at least managed to get through the flights without any cheese. HOW you might wonder?

First we brought some fruits that I ate on the first flight, then we bought more food at the airport in London. A good tip here is to go to Pret A Manger and buy bananas and other fruits they have in addition to their vegan sandwich (and it is without cheese!). Their sandwich was full of spinach, tomato, red bell pepper, hummus and some spices. The only drawback was the white bread that it had. So we bought 4 packs and some boxes with mixed fruit in addition to  few bananas. This lasted all the way to Miami. When on the airport in Miami I was able to find some more boxes with mixed fruit.

If you want to eat and have no dairy in your food while taking a flight you really need to look on what the airlines have on their menus and what they have available on their flights.

Here are some useful sites that I have found after this experience:
Help to order "special food" like gluten free, kosher, vegetarian with a list of airlines.
United Airlines and their "special food" with guide to how to order
Bangkok Airlines with their list of "special food"

So do not do as we did. Check the food available on different airlines and make the decision on what airline and what food to take on your flight. By doing this you would also increase the demand for these kind of "special foods"and make it more likely to have the choices available.

-Thommy