FOODIE FRIDAY!

Yay!  It's the end of the week (though the days seem to blend together for me).  I enjoy the weekends because the hubby is home and we get up to some fun shenanigams at some point.  Tomorrow evening we're having some friends over to the flat, which I am looking forward to.  Half of my kitchen space is currently occupied by bottles of spirits, wine, beer, and mixers, so it's bound to be an entertaining evening.  Plus, if I get sleepy my bed is just in the other room.  Not like that time at the Pirate Pub Crawl where I fell asleep at the bar before nine, lol.  My bad. 

Yesterday was truly awful, I was glad to see it go.  It rained most of the day and every follow up job phone call I made was a dead end.  Just to clarify the context, I'm a qualified social worker with three years post-qualifying experience and seven years total experience working with vulnerable populations, healthcare, and policy.  I'm too qualified for entry level jobs or "support work" jobs so even if I was desperate for the income (thank goodness I'm not) I wouldn't be considered for those posts unless I lied about my education and experience. 
However, the jobs I AM qualified for keep turning me away because they want someone with UK-BASED experience.  So in other words, a UK resident with 2 years of experience here would get a job over me.  How is that right or fair?  It's not fair to the client to have a professional without sufficient experience and it's not fair to people like me who are willing, eager, and able to put years of experience to work. 

Just as I was reaching my breaking point of frustration, I was informed that the landlord of our flat intended to put it up for sale and we'd have to move out by October.  WHAT.  Of all the ups and downs over the past two months, one of the few things that brought me comfort was this amazing flat that we have worked hard to furnish and make our own.  I felt like someone pulled the rug out from under me, although I shouldn't have been too surprised based on the random "appraisal" visit that was done last week.  After I cried for an hour and whined to my mom over the phone, I dusted myself off and booked some flat viewings over the next few days.  When Kieran got home, we both moped around and he made us chips and chicken for dinner--nothing like fried food to cure the blues!  We told each other that everything would be okay and we'd get through it.  At least we have each other!  Still sucks a lot, I love this place to bits :-(  I wish we could afford to buy it.
I am DREADING having to move--AGAIN.  Except this time, even though we won't be going far, we have a crap ton of heavy furniture to move! Rubbish.

Well, even after bad news, there's always a fun food story to share.  Here's this week's!

FOODIE FRIDAY!

Stay awhile, crocodile!

Last weekend we had a massive market along the seafront with different types of vendors, both food and non-food related.  After I had fallen asleep at home (see previous post about helping people move and assembling large pieces of furniture), Kieran went out and got some exotic meats from a South African food vendor, including bison burgers, llama burgers, and crocodile tail.  I had no idea where I was going to find a recipe for crocodile meat, but alas I found an Australian site with a good one

"Skewered crocodile with lime and ginger sauce"

INGREDIENTS
200 g crocodile meat, cut into 2 cm cubes
20 ml lime juice
100 ml chicken stock
20 ml honey
20 g brown sugar
3 g ginger, finely diced
20 ml olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste
Bamboo skewers
Rice of your choice

INSTRUCTIONS:
Soak the bamboo skewers in warm water so meat won't stick to it

Thread the crocodile meat onto bamboo skewers, place in a flat dish, season with salt and pepper, pour lime juice over and place in fridge for 30-60 minutes to let it marinate.
Heat olive oil in a frying pan and sauté crocodile skewers for about 5 minutes, turning halfway.  When finished, set aside and keep warm.

Prepare your rice based on box instructions.

In a pot or pan, combine lime juice, honey, brown sugar, ginger, chicken stock
Bring to the boil, reduce heat and simmer for 2 minutes.

Serve skewers over a bed of rice, spoon sauce over meat.  Add veg to the side if you like

Now I got a bit excited and also made fried bananas.  I tried to get plantains with no luck but the bananas were quite tasty!!  Check out the final result:

It was a very interesting flavor and the meat was a bit like tough beef but it was nice! The only similar thing I have had was "fried gator bits" from New Orleans.

I would try it again, but it was a bit expensive--£8 for just 250g.  Still worth a try.  I'll let you know how the burgers turn out!

The hubby has assembled our new hookah with lime flavored steam stones and is nudging me to have a go, so I'm off now.  Cheers for reading.  Have a fantastic weekend!

A

xxx