Timely Inspiration

I love to read other people's blogs; I guess it's the voyeur in me wanting to know how other folks live, what they do for fun, what they cook and eat.  I especially like to broaden my culinary horizons.  It felt like the stars aligned when I saw a fellow blogger mention  cream of apple and parsnip soup he and his partner served at a recent dinner party they hosted because for the first time in my life I had purchased parsnips!  I've never even eaten parsnips and had no idea what to do with them, so I was happy for the inspiration (Thanks Steve!).  I even had apples on hand - can't remember the last time I bought them in Belize - usually you can find only red delicious at the produce stands but this time I found Gala and Granny Smiths.  Other finds were wonderfully fresh leeks, which are hit or miss down here, and fresh cream from a Belize dairy.  I searched online for recipes, found 3 that looked reasonable, and combined the best parts to make my first ever dish using parsnips - Cream of Roasted Parsnip, Leek, and Apple Soup.

Plenty of counterspace next to the air fryer in the outdoor kitchen

I cut up the whites of the leeks and the parsnips for roasting.

Leeks sliced open on the bottom basket.

Parsnips on the top basket.  All spritzed with olive oil.  I put a spacer basket between the leeks and the parsnips for good air circulation.

Popped the baskets into the air fryer for 15 minutes at 400F while I cut up the green parts of the leeks and granny smith apples.

Nearly 6 cups of loosely packed leeks and apples.

Into a quart of duck broth from our Christmas duck.

After 10 minutes, the parsnips were just beginning to brown.  Turned the slices over and spritzed with more olive oil for the last 15 minutes.

Roasted leeks.

Roasted parsnips.

Added the roasted veg and crushed garlic to the pot and simmered for 15 minutes while thinking "oh my gosh - I hope the immersion blender is up to this because I really don't want to use the regular blender."

Kickass immersion blender.

One of the recipes called for seasoning with cinnamon, curry powder, cardamon, black pepper, salt, and dried coriander.  I had everything (except the coriander), so in it all went.

Fresh cream from the dairy, so wonderfully different to the cream you get in the US.

Stirred in the thick cream, heated to almost boiling and here you go -

Cream of Roasted Parsnip, Leek, and Apple soup.

A little greener than many versions because I used the leek greens and didn't peel the green apples.  It was/is/will be wonderful.  Which is a good thing because it made 3 quarts!

Outdoor Kitchen

We set up our outdoor kitchen a couple of months ago.  The biggest motivation was to keep the heat out of the cabana.  And the next biggest was to keep the smells out if we had the new AC running and all the windows closed while cooking.  We had been moving the air fryer and the small oven out to the veranda to use them, which was a big help but a total pain in the butt because we had to bring them back inside.  We couldn't leave them out there because the veranda faces the sea and the salt air corrodes the electrical components so quickly.  What to do to make it easier?  I decided to have our guys build a cabinet to house the appliances and even got to the point of drawing up the specs for it.  Then Dennis, smart guy that he is, suggested seeing what Ikea might have ready made.  The search was on.  Ikea had nothing suitable for outdoor use that met our needs.  The search moved to Amazon where there were many, many possibilities.  Those possibilities were quickly diminished by considerations of budget, quality (lack thereof mostly), size, availability, and shipping costs.  Finally there remained one clear possibility, which I ordered immediately.  

The next day after receiving the unit - oh wait, next day delivery is only a dream for us.  Five weeks later after ordering the unit, having it sent to our shipper in Florida  who put it on a boat to Belize, cleared our order through customs, and delivered it to our friend in Independence who owns a lumberyard and securely stores things for us until we come retrieve them, we unpacked the flat pack -  the process runs on as long as this sentence does!  The instructions list 149 steps, but it was actually straight forward for someone like me who loves to put things together.  I only needed Dennis's help to get the countertop in place.

Space inside the cabinet to store the toaster oven and air fryer away from the sea air when not in use.

Several reviews of the cabinet noted that the stainless top corrodes pretty quickly, so I am psychologically prepared to deal with replacing the top sooner rather than later.  In the meantime, I keep it wiped down using oiled wipes that are meant to clean guns.  They work a treat on other stainless steel items we have.  

The air fryer about to be used.

The new cabinet sits right outside the kitchen window with one of our dining tables  2 steps away.  We put in an electric line, but still need to use an extension cord.  So far it works very well and I usually even remember to put the appliances away after they cool down.  Best of all - if I turn around this is what I see -

Air fryer POV.