4-20-2016 – Florida Foods

Every trip is an adventure. And every adventure is nothing without new food discoveries! We found a few things this year that are new to us, or are just plain great.

Café Con Leche

Once we moved into southern Florida, Café Con Leche was everywhere. And that’s a good thing, because we love it. Café Con Leche is Cuban, and consists of strong, flavorful coffee, with plenty of milk and sugar. Sounds simple, and it’s pretty good everywhere we’ve tried it, but in some places it’s divine.

Cafe con Leche

Chuck with Iced Cafe con Leche, at YUCA in South Miami Beach

Key Lime Pie

I first tried Key Lime Pie as a kid on our family trips to Florida and I loved it. And I just discovered that I still love it. Real Key Lime pie is yellow, not green. The crust is usually made with graham crackers and it is served cold, sometimes with whipped cream.  I tried it in Marathon (3 times!) and I tried it in Key West. My favorite is at Burdines, in Boot Key Harbor, where the filling is light, and the crust has the addition of nuts. They also have a “fried” version, that many people like, but I haven’t tried it. I’m not big on fried foods, and the regular is enough of a calorie splurge, thank you.

Here is one recipe, to get you started. I haven’t tried it yet. It’s way too hot to run an oven here.

Postcard with Key Lime Pie recipe

Key Limes

Key Lime Pie is made with tiny Key Limes, which are, unfortunately, no longer grown commercially in the Keys, but instead are imported from Mexico. I picked some up in the grocery store, just to try them. I squeeze the juice over salads and other foods as a condiment, and put them in water to flavor it. And of course, in plain tonic or Gin and Tonic.

And I picked up this cookbook in Key West, which contains recipes for salads, sauces, meals desserts, among them NINE different recipes for Key Lime Pie. That’ll keep me busy.

Key Lime Cookbook and Key Limes

Meyer Lemons

While we were in the citrus aisle, we had to try Meyer Lemons. I wasn’t sure what they were, but they are yellower, juicier and more fragrant versions of the regular thick skinned lemons that we are used to. They are not quite as sour as ordinary lemons, although the ones we tried were still very sour, too sour for us to eat like an orange (which some people do). And they are fragrant to the point of smelling a little like perfume, or a lemon scented cosmetic. We’ve used them to squeeze over fish dishes and salads, and to add to salad dressing and to water.

Meyer Lemon

Florida Strawberries

One day in the grocery store last year, a local lady checked the display of strawberries, and said, “I’ll wait for the Florida strawberries to come in.” I never realized where our strawberries come from (often California), but the fresh Florida ones are really wonderful. I like to get them at the farm markets, or in the grocery store.

Florida Oranges and Grapefruits

Yes, they really are wonderful. And the juice is fabulous too. One of my favorite things about the ubiquitous Farm Markets in Florida is the oranges and grapefruits. And they often offer samples of the fruit and the juice, yum!

Fresh Fish

Every restaurant menu has some Fish of the Day, which goes into sandwiches, over salads or on platters, grilled, fried or blackened.  I am enjoying blackened fish sandwiches, which are made with mahi, grouper, snapper, hogfish, yellowtail, and others.

Blackened Mahi Mahi sandwich

Fresh caught Albacore Tuna, in Naples, FL

Grouper, Red Snapper, and other fresh caught fish, in Naples, FL

Keys Fisheries, Marathon, FL (Restaurant and Fish Market)

Menu on the wall at Keys Fisheries

Stone Crab (Claws) with Mustard Sauce

This was something entirely new for us, and we absolutely loved it! "Stone Crabs" are the claws of the stone crab. The fisherman removes one or both claws, cooks it immediately (on the boat), and tosses back the crab. The crab then grows a new one. Stone crab claws are only caught between Oct 15 and May 15, and are found in restaurants, grocery stores and fish markets. They are pretty expensive, but we were lucky to find them on sale at the Keys Fisheries. We latched onto some other patrons who advised us. Since we hadn’t had them before, she said, it was fine to get the “Select” size, which are smaller. She thinks the "large" taste better, and of course are less work to eat (less shell per amount of claw meat), but she said we wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. I guess she was right because we thought they were amazing. Mustard sauce is the recommended (required!) accompaniment.

Stone Crabs with mustard sauce

Wild Caught Gulf Shrimp

We’ve had so much (inferior, frozen) imported shrimp in the last few years that we forgot how good fresh shrimp can be. And the wild caught gulf shrimp, which we were encouraged to try in Sarasota (on the west coast, thank you, Amy!) are really great. We picked up some more on our trip to the Keys Fisheries, and made Risotto with Shrimp and Asparagus. Yummy!

Risotto with Shrimp and Asparagus, made with fresh wild caught Gulf shrimp

Garden Fresh Arugula, Cherry Tomatoes and Herbs

One of our favorite things about staying at the Boot Key Harbor City Marina was the community garden. In the two weeks that we spent at the marina, the plants really grew! We enjoyed fresh salads almost every day, by just picking a few of the lettuce leaves, and leaving the plant to continue to grow. We picked the “almost ripe” cherry tomatoes that showed a hint of red, and by the next day they were fully ripened. We also tried nopales, the soft, edible, paddle shaped cactus with rubbery thorns. Eaten raw, it tastes sort of like a green bean or snow pea.

Salads of community garden arugula ("organic spring mix"), cherry tomatoes, dill, chevre, 

Garden Cherry Tomatoes in 3 stages of ripeness – Green, semi ripe, and ripe red

Homemade sushi

And not exactly a Florida food, (although it’s commonly found in restaurants here) but a first for us. I tried making sushi on the boat, since I somehow found myself with Sushi Nori (seaweed wrappers) and a recipe. I made vegetarian sushi with asparagus, avocado and sweet potato in various combinations, just to try to figure out how to do it. Not the most perfect, but not terrible for a first try. And very tasty.

Jak Fruit (aka Jackfruit)

A last minute discovery for us, we tasted jak fruit at the Farmers Market in Miami. It grows wild around here, somewhere.  The yellow part is sweet and eaten raw.  The man cutting it put oil on his gloved hand to handle it, because it's so sticky. The seeds are roasted like a vegetable. The white part is fibrous and I'm not sure whether they eat it raw or cooked, but they do eat it. I think they skip the core. If interested, you can read many internet entries about its uses in several exotic countries. We may not get to those places any time soon, but at least we can enjoy their foods!