Kauai Day Two

The other day, I shared some photos of my quick trip to Kauai to visit family.  The rest of my time in Kauai was exploring the east and south sides of the island.

In Kapaa, we visited the Poli’ahu heiau in the Wailua River State Park.  A heiau is a sacred place, and Poli’ahu is one of several heiau in the park.  Collectively, they have been named a US National Historic Landmark District and are on the US National Register of Historic Places.  This is the whole heiau from afar.  Kapu essentially means taboo.

The Wailua River runs through the valley below

We wandered over to Old Koloa Town on the south side. Koloa is Kauai’s oldest plantation town and Old Koloa Town has restored plantation buildings, now filled with tourist shops, but still interesting to see.  As my mom’s side of the family came to Hawaii as plantation workers in the early 1900s, I really like going to old plantations to get a sense of what it was like at the time.

It’s basically a low key shopping center now.  This is inside the restored area.  The area was cute and didn’t feel tacky.

The Yamamoto Building

The Koloa Hotel

It was unbelievably hot and humid, so the highlight was guava and passionfruit shave ice!  I miss shave ice so much.

Just down the road a bit in Poipu was Spouting Horn, a blow hole.

The coast all around it was beautiful

I’m attempting to embed a video I took for Instagram on here.  I hope this works! (Sorry it’s a little shaky. Believe it or not, this was one of the first videos I’ve ever bothered to take on my phone.)

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A post shared by Jessica Neaves (@jessicaneaves)

Plumeria outside the hotel. Gorgeous colors!

And last but not least, I discovered a new dessert!  This is butter mochi, brought to my aunt’s house by her friend.  I haven’t tried it yet, but I found a recipe.  Please let me know how it turns out if you make it!

I do miss Hawaii and I can’t believe I let 15 years go by between visits.  I really want to go back and visit my cousins and aunt on Kauai, and lots of other family on Oahu, soon.

National Blueberry Month

Okay, well, the month is almost over, but it's still National Blueberry Month.  I love blueberries and have been eating them up like crazy.  It's been so cold in San Francisco, but eating berries makes me feel like summer is actually around somewhere.

To celebrate, I think I'll be making these scrumptious looking blueberry sugar shortcakes found on Whipped.  Yummy!

photo from Whipped

Normally, I tend to shy away from fresh mango but the compote sounds really good!  If I can't find mangoes, I'll probably try it with peaches instead.

Day of the Dead Cookies

For the past few years, I always mean to make sugar skulls candy for Dia de Los Muertos and somehow always forget to order the molds in time!  So, this year I decided to make Day of the Dead cookies instead.  I found some cute Dia de Los Muertos cookies here, but I've never been too good at making cookies you have to roll out and cut.  Luckily, I found a recipe for All Soul's Day cookies on Mangia Bene Pasta. These are simple and fast to make and are also yummy with a big mug of hot chocolate.

All Soul's Day is similar to Dia de Los Muertos, except it falls on November 2nd instead of November 1st and is also the day of remembering those who have died.  It's not quite the same as Dia de Los Muertos, but it was still a good excuse to bake some cookies!

All Soul's Day Cookies ~ from Mangia Bene Pasta
Makes about 40 cookies

1/4 cup butter, room temperature
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon grated orange zest
1/4 cup orange juice
3 tablespoons honey
2-1/4 cups flour
1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder
1-1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
Pinch of salt
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
Confectioners' sugar for garnish

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease 2 baking sheets.

In a large bowl, combine the butter and sugar until well blended. Beat in the egg, orange zest, orange juice, and honey.

Add the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt.  Stir until well blended.
Stir in the raisin and walnuts.

Break off a piece of the dough about the size of a walnut. Shape the dough into a 2-1/2 inch sausage.  Place on the prepared baking sheet. Press to slightly flatten the dough. Repeat with the remaining dough. Place the cookies about 2 inches apart. Bake for 12 minutes, or until the cookies are puffed and set.

Remove from oven and allow to cool on baking sheet for 1 minutes. Transfer the cookies to a wire rack to cook completely.  Dust the cookies with confectioners' sugar.

Store in airtight containers. The cookies develop more flavor the longer they are stored.

Enjoy!

Canadian Bakin’

My friend Heather has just started a new blog – Canadian Bakin'.  Yes, she's Canadian and she loves to bake.  For her first post, she has shared a recipe to make these delicious red velvet cake cupcakes….

I've tasted them and believe me, they are yummy!  Go here for the recipe. 

Raspberry lemonade

The weather has been absolutely gorgeous and unseasonably warm here, so I decided to whip up a batch of raspberry lemonade.  I'm usually not a big fan of plain lemonade, but I do love the fruitier types like strawberry or raspberry lemonade.

I found a very easy recipe online somewhere a long time ago for a yummy and quick raspberry lemonade.

Ingredients:

* 1/2 c fresh raspberries

* 1/2 c freshly squeezed lemon juice

* 4 tbsp of honey

* 4 tbsp of sugar

* 4 cups of cold water

* whole raspberries (optional – for garnish)

* mint leaves (optional – for garnish)

Press the raspberries through a strainer over a bowl.  Scrape the raspberry pulp out of the bottom of the strainer, then discard the seeds.  Place the freshly squeezed lemon juice, honey and sugar in a pitcher.  Add the strained raspberries and water.  Stir well and taste.  Add more sugar if you'd like it sweeter or more lemon juice if you'd like it more tart.  Serve over ice and garnish with whole raspberries and a few mint leaves if desired.

Red currant and raspberry granita

The other day, I was in my neighborhood produce market when I saw some red currants and I realized I had never tried them before! 

So, I picked up a small basket of them with some of my favorite other fruits, thinking of what I could make with them.

Most recipes using red currants are jams and jellies, but I found a  on the LA Times website.
So I gave it a try, hoping with my wishful thinking that it would help bring sunshine to our overcast city, or at least bring the temps up to the 70s!

And voila!  A yummy, slightly tart granita, wonderful even the 60 something degree weather we're having!

Now it's off to do my CraftGossip posts for the week and clean up the house a bit.  Not fun, but you definitely have to clean when you are in the mood for it and take advantage of the motivation!