Costa Rica is amazing and so is the fresh produce. From avocados that are bigger than your hands to the freshest seafood possible, everything is locally grown or caught off the beach and the quality shows in the taste. They have a farmers market once a week on Saturday where all the locals bring all their own garden grows, artistic designs or home brews of kombucha. We had been in search of some right out of the ocean fresh seafood the entire week we had been here and the only kind we had been able to find was the frozen fish, shrimp and squid in the little Supers around town.
We hit the jackpot at the farmers market, there was a fisherman selling shrimp, fish and lobster that had been caught that morning. We bought about a kilo of shrimp and mahi mahi to use for shrimp nachos and fish tacos at our little condo. We had been eating out pretty much the entire week and quickly realized if we were going to be staying for a month we needed to start cooking some meals at home. Our first dinner was shrimp nachos we using the jumbo shrimp we had picked out at the market and when I say jumbo I mean there was at least one shrimp that was the size of my palm. Let me tell you, there is nothing like fresh shrimp sauteed in butter, garlic, onions, cilantro and a little bit of lime juice. All of the meals that we had eaten out didn’t even come close to comparing to our homemade shrimp nachos. It was definitely a team effort putting this bad boy together. I cleaned and de-veined the shrimp
and then sauteed them. Jeff’s mom chopped up some tomatoes, onions, cilantro and lime juice for the pico salsa and whipped together some guacamole (that I could just eat by the spoonful) using the farmers market avocados, tomatoes and onions we had picked up that day. Jeff’s dad was the one to assemble the nachos which is not as easy as it sounds and a difficult art to master. The completed dish was so artistic I didn’t even want to tear it apart to eat any of it, but boy was it worth it. The shrimp was probably the best I have ever had and taste like the sea.
One of my favorite things that is so cool is that no matter what anyone is doing during the day the entire town & tourists pile up on the beach to watch the sunset every night. During the day the beach will have it’s flow of people that come and go to play in the waves or surf, but at the end of the day as far as the eye can see up and down the length of the beach people are lined up waiting to say buenas noches to the sun.
lovellie
