A delicious pure fruit orange and carrot ice lolly in Leon. This lovely cafe only sells these ice lollies. Nothing more. Nothing less. But they come in lots of tasty flavours, including watermelon, melon, coconut, tamarind, mango and rice pudding (which we realise isn't pure fruit, but it is natural and yummy).
By contrast, and contrary to its appearance, this is the most revolting drink and fruit you are ever likely to set eyes on - nancy, or to Nicaraguans,
nancite. Fortunately, the season is finally coming to an end, as its been stinking out buses, street corners and restaurants for a couple of months now. This nasty berry is best described as 'vomit juice'. The berries themselves are chalky, cloying and taste of vomit. In a juice, with plenty of ice, the first sip is bearable, but then as you swallow it, the full vomit force comes to the fore. Jon (pictured below) has recently arrived in Nicaragua. We thought it best that he experience the juice for himself rather than rely on our judgement. The vomit flavour had a delayed reaction for him and he got several sips in before it hit. At this point, he gave up and we gave the rest of it to a street kid. We were told by the restaurant owner that it is the most popular fresh juice in Nicaragua and the boy was delighted with it. They can all keep it and we'll stick with the passion fruit and guayaba juice options.
Taking on a nancite juice is an unpleasantly memorable experience for any tourist. You have to be brought up on this stuff or live here for a good long time to tolerate it.
ESKIMO has a national monopoly on ice-cream. There are at least five ESKIMO's in every town plus lots of ESKIMO street vendors with carts. Flavour of the month is a bargain at just 7 cordobas (around 25p) a cone. Simon buys the flavour of the month at least once a day when he's in a town and knows in advance the date that the flavour is due to switch. The flavours of the month are currently fig and condensed milk (Simon pictured with this), strawberry or chocolate and vanilla.
Another chalky, moderately offensive fruit (although it has nothing on
nancite) currently in season and popular with the locals called
jocote. Sold in clear food bags on the streets with salt and chile sauce, its dryness tends to leave your tongue stuck to the roof of your mouth and other than that, the main points are coping with the excessive salt and chile. We have also tried the ripe stewed version of this fruit in natural yoghurt and it is definitely the preferable option.
Guayabas are in season and they're yummy. The trees are full of them in the countryside and their distinctive sweet smell and refreshing zingyness are a current highlight on our long walk to Sontule each week. Larger varieties, like the one pictured, are on sale in the streets of Esteli. People bite into them as we would an apple.
A couple of weeks ago in Leon, Nick cooked a bean soup with lots of 'trimmings' for a group of us. It was an ambitious undertaking given the heat and that everyone's soup was tailored to their egg preferences (poached/scrambled/fried). He managed the individualised frying pans admirably and the result was delicious.
The bean soup included a poached egg, fried onion and garlic, baby sweetcorn, c
uajada salty cheese, green beans, peppers and avocado.
It was an early start for me in Sontule one day to make sweet corn tortillas,
guirilas, with Lucia. Normal tortillas have the consistency of a dry dough and have to be 'palmed' into shape - forceful downward finger taps with one hand whilst simultaneously circular shaping the tortilla with the other hand. This sort of g
uirila is much simpler, it just needed a bit of swirling around the banana leaf with a spoon to form its circular shape. It was then cooked on the banana leaf on a hot plate over the wood-burning stove.
The warm
guirila made a satisfying breakfast served with fresh cuajada cheese, made from curdled cow's milk from the farm.
When we're in Esteli, we like to go our local Mexican restaurant. Its delightful owner, Daniel (pictured above making Simon's burrito) proudly tells us that he is '100% Nicaraguense' but that he learnt to cook Mexican food from a wonderful Mexican chef years ago in Honduras.
The food comes with an impressive array of extras - refried beans, lime, tomato and onion salsa, a minty and refreshing guacamole, hot chile sauce and tortilla crisps.
This bizarre fruit which grows directly from the branches of the tree is called
jicaro. Its seeds are sold in a powder form to mix up with milk and water into a satisfying drink.
Waiting for the bus to Esteli one Sunday in a sweltering Leon, we ended up in the ropey, but air-conditioned, supermarket cafe. Simon picked out this rather large cake which I thought tasted overridingly of bubblegum.
Three months into living in Nicaragua and this is the first cooked meal that we prepared together for just the two of us one weekend in Leon when we were home alone. There's some good mince in the supermarkets, which bodes well for impressing our Nica friends with shepherd's pie.
There's a French baker in Leon and he does a good line in croissants and pan au chocolate.
I decided to made the most of a Canadian coffee roaster being in town to set up a coffee tasting session at Nick's to trial one of the cooperative's coffee brand's against the competition. Obviously it was far superior...if a little under-roasted. We're not about to drink it in this photo, we're smelling the coffee grounds.
We bumped into Simon's first language teacher from Lagartillo, Ermelinda, in Esteli the other weekend and were invited round for dinner to their place in Esteli. We thought the occasion warranted mum's flapjack and a bottle of red wine, both of which went down very well with Erme, her Colombian husband Luis and their son.
Luis had recently returned from Colombia and had brought with him some roasted big-ass ants (one pictured on Simon's palm above). We had heard of them in Colombia but hadn't tried them. They were an odd experience. On first crunch they were crispy and a bit fried tasting but nothing more. As we continued to chew, a strong, burnt pork flavour emerged. I wasn't convinced but Simon ate a fair few.
We have now repeated the flapjack a few times for various friends and it's going down very well. It is particularly popular with Brenda and Candida, the cleaning ladies, at the hotel in Esteli. They requested the recipe, along with the lady who runs the pharmacy. We had a run through batch with them all.
Sampling the finished product.
A delicious pure fruit orange and carrot ice lolly in Leon. This lovely cafe only sells these ice lollies. Nothing more. Nothing less. But they come in lots of tasty flavours, including watermelon, melon, coconut, tamarind, mango and rice pudding (which we realise isn't pure fruit, but it is natural and yummy).
By contrast, and contrary to its appearance, this is the most revolting drink and fruit you are ever likely to set eyes on - nancy, or to Nicaraguans, nancite. Fortunately, the season is finally coming to an end, as its been stinking out buses, street corners and restaurants for a couple of months now. This nasty berry is best described as 'vomit juice'. The berries themselves are chalky, cloying and taste of vomit. In a juice, with plenty of ice, the first sip is bearable, but then as you swallow it, the full vomit force comes to the fore. Jon (pictured below) has recently arrived in Nicaragua. We thought it best that he experience the juice for himself rather than rely on our judgement. The vomit flavour had a delayed reaction for him and he got several sips in before it hit. At this point, he gave up and we gave the rest of it to a street kid. We were told by the restaurant owner that it is the most popular fresh juice in Nicaragua and the boy was delighted with it. They can all keep it and we'll stick with the passion fruit and guayaba juice options.
Taking on a nancite juice is an unpleasantly memorable experience for any tourist. You have to be brought up on this stuff or live here for a good long time to tolerate it. 
ESKIMO has a national monopoly on ice-cream. There are at least five ESKIMO's in every town plus lots of ESKIMO street vendors with carts. Flavour of the month is a bargain at just 7 cordobas (around 25p) a cone. Simon buys the flavour of the month at least once a day when he's in a town and knows in advance the date that the flavour is due to switch. The flavours of the month are currently fig and condensed milk (Simon pictured with this), strawberry or chocolate and vanilla. 
Another chalky, moderately offensive fruit (although it has nothing on nancite) currently in season and popular with the locals called jocote. Sold in clear food bags on the streets with salt and chile sauce, its dryness tends to leave your tongue stuck to the roof of your mouth and other than that, the main points are coping with the excessive salt and chile. We have also tried the ripe stewed version of this fruit in natural yoghurt and it is definitely the preferable option.
Guayabas are in season and they're yummy. The trees are full of them in the countryside and their distinctive sweet smell and refreshing zingyness are a current highlight on our long walk to Sontule each week. Larger varieties, like the one pictured, are on sale in the streets of Esteli. People bite into them as we would an apple.
A couple of weeks ago in Leon, Nick cooked a bean soup with lots of 'trimmings' for a group of us. It was an ambitious undertaking given the heat and that everyone's soup was tailored to their egg preferences (poached/scrambled/fried). He managed the individualised frying pans admirably and the result was delicious. 
The bean soup included a poached egg, fried onion and garlic, baby sweetcorn, cuajada salty cheese, green beans, peppers and avocado.
It was an early start for me in Sontule one day to make sweet corn tortillas, guirilas, with Lucia. Normal tortillas have the consistency of a dry dough and have to be 'palmed' into shape - forceful downward finger taps with one hand whilst simultaneously circular shaping the tortilla with the other hand. This sort of guirila is much simpler, it just needed a bit of swirling around the banana leaf with a spoon to form its circular shape. It was then cooked on the banana leaf on a hot plate over the wood-burning stove. 
The warm guirila made a satisfying breakfast served with fresh cuajada cheese, made from curdled cow's milk from the farm.
When we're in Esteli, we like to go our local Mexican restaurant. Its delightful owner, Daniel (pictured above making Simon's burrito) proudly tells us that he is '100% Nicaraguense' but that he learnt to cook Mexican food from a wonderful Mexican chef years ago in Honduras.
The food comes with an impressive array of extras - refried beans, lime, tomato and onion salsa, a minty and refreshing guacamole, hot chile sauce and tortilla crisps.
This bizarre fruit which grows directly from the branches of the tree is called jicaro. Its seeds are sold in a powder form to mix up with milk and water into a satisfying drink.
Waiting for the bus to Esteli one Sunday in a sweltering Leon, we ended up in the ropey, but air-conditioned, supermarket cafe. Simon picked out this rather large cake which I thought tasted overridingly of bubblegum.
Three months into living in Nicaragua and this is the first cooked meal that we prepared together for just the two of us one weekend in Leon when we were home alone. There's some good mince in the supermarkets, which bodes well for impressing our Nica friends with shepherd's pie.
There's a French baker in Leon and he does a good line in croissants and pan au chocolate. 
I decided to made the most of a Canadian coffee roaster being in town to set up a coffee tasting session at Nick's to trial one of the cooperative's coffee brand's against the competition. Obviously it was far superior...if a little under-roasted. We're not about to drink it in this photo, we're smelling the coffee grounds.
We bumped into Simon's first language teacher from Lagartillo, Ermelinda, in Esteli the other weekend and were invited round for dinner to their place in Esteli. We thought the occasion warranted mum's flapjack and a bottle of red wine, both of which went down very well with Erme, her Colombian husband Luis and their son. 
Luis had recently returned from Colombia and had brought with him some roasted big-ass ants (one pictured on Simon's palm above). We had heard of them in Colombia but hadn't tried them. They were an odd experience. On first crunch they were crispy and a bit fried tasting but nothing more. As we continued to chew, a strong, burnt pork flavour emerged. I wasn't convinced but Simon ate a fair few. 
We have now repeated the flapjack a few times for various friends and it's going down very well. It is particularly popular with Brenda and Candida, the cleaning ladies, at the hotel in Esteli. They requested the recipe, along with the lady who runs the pharmacy. We had a run through batch with them all.
Sampling the finished product.
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