Fresh Nectarine & Tomato Salsa

First off I have to start by saying that neither my mother or I can take the credit for this recipe in its original form. The credit must be given to a lady called Jennifer Hill who has an awesome food blog called foodess.

Now that that is said and done, the recipe is beautifully simple and you can throw it all together in under ten minutes. You can also swap out the ingredients to suit what’s in season.  

Ingredients

• 1 medium nectarine, pitted and diced
• 1 cup diced tomatoes
• 1/2 cup finely diced sweet onion
• 2 serrano chilis, seeded and minced
• 1/4 cup cilantro (American for coriander), minced
• 1 tsp sugar
• 3 tbsp white vinegar
• Salt

Instructions

1. Combine all ingredients in a serving bowl and season generously with salt.

May be made up to 6 hours in advance – refrigerate until ready to serve.

Sweet and Sour Cucumber Salad.

We threw a little party at the weekend for our birthday. Mum manned the battle station - the kitchen - we (my Dad, Brother, Husband and I) were given our marching orders at various points in the day. When all was done and the battle was won mum had roasted 5 chickens, made healthy potatoes wedges, invented a desert, and created at least 7 side dishes and a vast number of salads. She had as always, created a feast of glorious colours, flavours and aromas. Just at the very sight of all the food my taste buds went into an imaginary over drive and like my two huge lumps for dogs that had gone crazy at the sight and smell of so many chickens in the oven, I was drooling.

One of her creations was a cucumber Salad, which was a pleasant surprise on the pallet, sweet yet sour. I thought that I might share it with you all. The great thing about this is that you probably have almost all the ingredients in your house already.

Original recipe makes 8 servings

• 4 cucumbers, thinly sliced 
• 1 small white onion, thinly sliced 
• 1 cup white vinegar 
• 1/2 cup water 
• 3/4 cup white sugar 
• 1 tablespoon dried dill, or to taste 

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Directions

1. Thinly slice the onions and cucumber then toss them together in a large bowl.
2. Combine the vinegar, water and sugar in a saucepan over medium-high heat. Bring to a boil, and pour over the cucumber and onions.
3. Stir in dill, cover, and refrigerate until cold. This can also be eaten at room temperature, but be sure to allow the cucumbers to marinate for at least 1 hour.

building an Island in Xerocampus

On extremely short notice my Brother managed to get an extra day off work and so joined the family for the weekend here in Crete.  Given the line of work that he is in and the hours he puts in it is a very rare occasion that he actually makes it over to the island. On this occasion he pulled it off.

He wanted to go for a swim, and my Mum wanted to take him somewhere that he hadn’t been before … so after a minor debate we settled for Xerocampus. Given that we live on an old volcanic rock, a majority of our beaches – at this end of the island - are dark brown in colour, however Xerocampus beach is sort of white.  With a slight stretch of the imagination, it’s as if you have been transported to a West Indian island.  The water is almost always crystal clear and the off white sand gives it a turquoise look, even now at what you would call the end of the season when the clear blue skies can no longer be guaranteed (we have had at least 3 clouds this month!) the water still looks inviting.

We packed up the whole family, excluding two very disappointed dogs, into the car and drove to the beach. This beach is on the south coast and is a little bit on the remote side. There are two ways of getting there from Sitia.  One is to head south as if you were going to Makri Gialos but in the middle of the island take the road to Zeros which will eventually take you to Xerocampus. The other way is to take the road to Palikastro and then over to Zakros where you will find the signs to Xerocampus.

My Brother, like most members of my family, is completely incapable of sitting still for longer than 30 seconds, when a beach is added to the situation the 30 seconds seem to become 15!  He decided, in all his wisdom, to make himself an island. He is as strong as an ox and within no time at all and to the great amusement of the rest of the family, had set about building the foundations of his island in the form of some rather large rocks. The Island then became a bridge and half an hour later had extended to one of the small rocky outcrops a few metres from the shore. Mission complete my Brother was ready to eat!

The beaches in Xerocampus are fairly safe for swimming, there are no strong currents and the water is quite shallow to start with, making it a good place to take young children. There are plenty of rocky outcrops to have a look at so take a mask and snorkel. There are also plenty of little coves if you would like a bit of privacy and at the same time the main beach is very long and open so take a sunshade.

This year was the first that I have seen sunbeds for rent on the beach, they are next to a small café where you can pick up a light refreshment or two. There are tavernas in Xerocampus but I would recommend taking an icebox with some snacks and water.  With the beaches slightly lacking in shade I would recommend an umbrella or at least a ton of sun cream, if like me, you have fair skin.

In September the beaches sprout lilies directly from the sand. It is well worth the trip just to see the beach covered in lilies. Though please don’t pick them, let everyone else have a look at them too.  

Richtis Gorge

So yesterday was our birthday – Dad and I - several years ago I popped out so now we share the day. We try to celebrate together but given that I went to boarding school and then moved away, celebrating together has always proved to be somewhat of a challenge. This year, at the very last minute and by the skin of our teeth, we managed to wangle it!

Having gone to all the effort to get us together we had to decide what to do … after a long discussion that went along the lines of whatever it is I don’t want to sit in the car all afternoon.  Dad and I tried to work out what we hadn’t already done that was close to home, we settled on Richtis George.

Richtis is a small yet surprisingly pretty gorge located just below Exo Mouliana. It is about a 15 minute drive from Sitia to Exo Mouliana and takes around 20 mins to descend down to the beach where you start the walk.

Loaded with sandwiches, water, cameras and a dog we started the trek up the gorge. It is quite an easy walk, though there is potential to get your feet wet at various points where you have to jump across the small river as it meanders towards the sea.

The dog was in seventh heaven, running up down and around. Jumping into the river puddles and generally anything which meant that the inside of our car would resemble a mud pit by the time he got home.

We only walked up to the waterfall but you can carry on up the path. At the foot of the waterfall there is a picnic bench which we made good use of, luckily we were the only ones at the waterfall, in fact we almost had the gorge to ourselves only passing a couple of small groups on our way in and no one on our way out.

The nice thing about the walk to the waterfall is that it’s really not that far, it’s shaded, and you don’t have to be superman in terms of fitness to get there. It took us about half an hour to get to the waterfall. 

 

Driving from Sitia towards Heraklion you will find the village of Exo Mouliana. As you’re driving through the village on your right hand side you will see the signs for the beach of Richtis, follow these they will lead you down a very steep road which eventually ends up on the beach. At the bottom of the gorge take a right, after about 15m you will find a parking bay. Leave the car here and start your walk.  

bright yellow limoncello ...

Having completely reorganised my father's week, he arrived on Crete yesterday morning.  To fetch him we had to drive through a huge (thunder and) lightning storm which threw down enough rain to compete with the English summer.  In the pitch black on the cliff hanging roads, a 200 year old old lady, steadied by a zimmer frame supporting a wooden peg leg, would have overtaken us with such speed and velocity that she would, to us, have seemed like Usain Bolt as he took off to compete in the Olympic 100m. 

Thanks to Aegean Airlines he arrived on time and the drive home was, in comparison to the way to collect him, like we had been up graded to a supersonic jet – the sky was somewhat clearer; the road was freshly washed of all the summer's dust and dirt.

Dad had come from Italy via the U.K and from his suitcase spilled a wealth of Italian goodness, wild boar salami, wine, cured pork and amongst other bits and pieces a bottle of bright yellow limoncello. 

When he was in the shop trying to choose the bottle the shop assistant, who he described as very knowledgeable, had recommended this particular bottle.  When asked why she had simply replied the lemons are the best … I guess as the spirit is called limoncello the lemons are a pretty important part.

Last night we sat down at the freshly painted outside table and enjoyed dinner "a la mummy" – always an interesting (good) experience – and as an after dinner drink we opened up the bottle of limoncello.  Having read the bottle in my best Italian - a language which thanks to a very good Italian friend only extends to the swear words – arrived at the conclusion that the lemons were from Sorrento.  Apparently this really does make all the difference. The spirit was sharp (but not bitter) and sweet yet didn’t taste like soap at all.  In our limited experience we have decided that this particular bottle has passed the test!

A pilgrim’s walk …

It’s been a long while since I posted an update … my tail is between my legs, I have admittedly been rather busy … that list just never seems to get any shorter and so I don’t get out to play as much as before which, depending on how you look at it is not necessarily such a bad thing.

Dynomite decided that he missed us so much he just had to come and hang out on the Island again – this, much to my business partner’s dismay, gave me the perfect opportunity to skive work and go out and play.  

Our first trick after a good portion of Raki drinking was a walk, supposedly it started in Sitia and ended up at a church in Lithenes - a village in the middle of the island. I suppose the walk is more of a pilgrimage for all those who have made a deal with god and promised to walk to the church to hold up their end of the bargain.

I am about the most unreligious person in the world, I still can’t get my head around the whole idea but I have a deep respect for all those who do. I guess everyone has a calling and I have yet to take the call. Despite my lack of religious belief the walk seemed like a good Idea and so Dynomite (suffering from a rather large hangover) and I got ourselves ready to take on the walk… We were walking with some friends who for whatever reason decided to cut the walk short and start about 5kms away in another village.

They picked us up from the house all dressed up and ready to go, I climbed into the car in trainers and gym gear immediately thinking I was extremely under dressed for the exercise.

I had thought that it would be a gentle stroll through the olive groves, by now I should know better… the walk was along the main road, the road which connects the north and south sides of the island. It is busy and has many sharp corners, apparently there is more to a pilgrimage than I had previously thought.

We weren’t alone, my friend’s mother and her mother-in-law had decided to join us which left us with a problem of who was going to look after her daughter. Daddy to the rescue the only problem is that it would take half an hour or so to get to us and if we didn’t start walking it would mean walking in the dark … I am not a fan of walking unlit roads with oncoming traffic in the dark so we started the walk, Dynomite with my friend’s daughter on his shoulders!

Granny Marching up the road!

Shoe swapping ... can't go to church in trainers!!  

Apparently this was quite a wealthy church  

All the priests making a late entrance 

Eventually we made it to the village where the girls got glammed up changed their shoes applied some lipstick and went to the church to light a candle. Dynomite and I – still convinced that if we walked into the church it would spontaneously combust - headed for the village shop originally for a beer, which turned into water when we rethought the drinking beer in a churchyard full of people!