Fiji Pawpaw Rum Cake aka Papaya Rum Cake

When I have too much ripe fruit I freeze it. Sometimes I then end up with too much frozen fruit. This recipe helps use up a lot of pawpaw aka papaya quickly.

Fiji Pawpaw Rum Cake

Fruit filling
1.5 cups pawpaw, diced (I defrost and drain the frozen pawpaw I've been accumulating, the pawpaw is softer and easier to mix after being frozen, the flavors also intensify with the liquid drained out)
1 cup dried fruit (raisins, sultanas, mixed fruit, whatever I have that day)
2 tablespoons citrus juice (lime, lemon, orange, whatever you've got handy)
.5 cup dark or flavored rum (in the interest of baking you should try a variety of rums, decide which flavors complement the pawpaw best. Or invite me over, I'll sample the options, give you my professional opinion)

Add directly to the prepared bundt cake pan:
4 tablespoons butter
.75 cup brown sugar

Cake Mix
2 cups all-purpose flour
1.5 cups granulated sugar <-- this is a lot of sugar, feel free to use less
1 teaspoon salt
5 teaspoons baking powder **hint: this is going to be a dense cake
.75 cup butter, diced
4 eggs
.5 cup yogurt or coconut cream or evaporated milk or a mixture of all of them
1 tablespoon vanilla extract (or more if you love vanilla the way I love vanilla)
1 tablespoon citrus zest (lemon, lime, orange, whatever you've got on hand)
1 cup dessicated coconut

Rum Glaze (I skip this step, it's already a very sweet very moist cake)
.5 cup butter, melted
1 cup granulated sugar
.5 cup rum

Directions
In a bowl, combine the diced pawpaw, dried fruit and lemon juice. Add .5 cup rum and allow to soak for half an hour... or overnight...or a week.

Spray a large 12 cup bundt pan with cooking spray and add 4 tbs melted butter and .75 cup brown sugar to the bottom of the prepared pan. With a tablespoon strain 5 heaping tbs of the fruit mixture and add to the sugar mixture in the bottom of the cake pan.

Cream your sugar and butter together, add your eggs one at a time, the yogurt (or coconut cream), vanilla and remaining fruit mixture. Slowly add in the dry ingredients, lemon zest, and coconut, occasionally scraping the bowl, until well mixed. Add in anything you forgot because, well, someone had to sample the rum.

Pour the batter into the bundt pan and bake in a preheated oven at 325°F/165°C for 1 hour. Check for doneness with a wooden pick. Remove from oven and let cool for 10 minutes. If skipping the rum glaze you can serve immediately after cooling, otherwise go to the next step:

Rum Glaze: In a small pan on the stove, mix butter, brown sugar and rum and bring just to a boil. Spoon the glaze onto the cake until it is completely absorbed. Cover with plastic wrap and let sit overnight. Before turning out the cake onto a serving platter, warm it in a 325°F/165°C oven for 10 minutes to loosen the sugar mixture at the bottom of the pan. The cake will be very delicate.

Take a picture and send it to me. This cake goes so fast I can never get a picture first. 

It's Different This Time

I've been in Suva for a month now. It's different this time. I'm trying to pinpoint the exact reason why. In some ways, it's easier.

My first visit to Fiji was a hotel visit. Every morning my husband would get up and go to work, our son and I would head down to the lobby for breakfast. We swam in the pool, explored Suva, on the weekend we ventured out to a resort and watched spinner dolphins jump in the sunshine.

 By the time of my second visit and later visits we were in a house. That was much more of a cultural experience than staying in a hotel room. For one thing, because we had a kitchen I *had* to go to the store and the market for groceries. It also rained every day of my visit. Even so, I had coffee almost daily with neighbors and enjoyed my stay. Because all of our belongings either came with us in a suitcase or were provided with the home, the visit felt more like camping than being home.

 It's different now.

 Part of the difference is easy to see: we have our stuff with us. Everything is physically in close proximity to us. Unpacked? Well, that's a whole different story. But it's here. The biggest differences are more internal. Before when I couldn't find something, I laughed and chalked it up to the grand adventure. Now, if I can't find anything, I have to decide if I'm going to let it mess with my mind, or if it's still part of the grand adventure. One thing is for certain: If I can't find it, I don't have the option of just getting it back in New York. 

Speaking of which: where is home now? If I book a trip "home" what airport code do I enter?

Watching Your Money Go Up in Smoke

Diwali, the Festival of Lights, is a huge thing here in Fiji. It's an official Fijian Holiday and according to Wikipedia,

is also known as Deepavali. It's an ancient Hindu festival celebrated in autumn every year. The festival spiritually signifies the victory of light over darkness, knowledge over ignorance, good over evil, and hope over despair. The festival preparations and rituals typically extend over a five day period, but the main festival night of Diwali coincides with the darkest, new moon night of the Hindu Lunisolar month Kartika. In the Gregorian calendar, Diwali night falls between mid-October and mid-November.

Before Diwali night, people clean, renovate and decorate their homes. On Diwali night, Hindus dress up in new clothes or their best outfit, light up diyas (lamps and candles) inside and outside their home, participate in family puja typically to Lakshmi – the goddess of wealth and prosperity. After puja (prayers), fireworks follow, then a family feast including mithai (sweets), and an exchange of gifts between family members and close friends. Diwali also marks a major shopping period in nations where it is celebrated.

The kids took the fireworks part of the whole thing very seriously. While half a dozen families were inside eating sweets and enjoying a family feast the kids were outside working their way through half of Rup's Big Bear's inventory of fireworks.

In the rain.

I have to say, I was impressed. I've lit more than my share of fuses, but I can't remember ever doing so in the rain. Of course, I also don't remember it ever raining on the 4th of July or New Year's Eve either.

Either way, I just watched our money go up in smoke one Roman candle and one fountain of flame and sparkler at a time. And you know what? It was pretty fun. 

Happy Diwali y'all. The victory of light over darkness, knowledge over ignorance, good over evil, and hope over despair is definitely something to celebrate. Personally, I'm tickled pink that I don't have a long dark winter ahead of me here in the Southern Hemisphere. That's a triumph of light over dark if I ever saw one. 

Pink Marshmallows

I made rice krispie marshmallow cookies for my son's lunches.

The recipe I've used for years to is to take a one pound bag of mini marshmallows, melt them with a couple of pats of butter and a splash of vanilla. Once the marshmallows are melted, stir in 5-6 cups of puffed rice, turn the styrofoamish mix into a greased pan and refrigerate. Let cool, cut into bars.

Well, it's not quite the same here.

The large marshmallows I've been able to find here come in colors, I have yet to see any all white ones or any mini marshmallows. To keep the cookies from being a brown mess I separate the pink/white marshmallows from the blue/yellow ones. I then make my cookies in batches. 

For me, this is kind of like my time in Fiji so far.  Everything I need is here, just not exactly the same as I was used to...and it takes longer.

Goal: Blog Daily

Excuse: I'm almost out of battery

Excuse: it's almost tomorrow

Excuse: I have nothing to write about

Excuse: I'd rather research bagel recipes

Excuse: there are major creepy crawlies in Fiji and I should use my battery life to find out what is out there. But I'm not sure if I really want to know. 

Oh look, this is enough for a post. Goodnight! 

When life gives you lemons.... make cheese!

How do I love cheese?  Let me count the ways...

I once organized a wine and cheese tasting just so I could try different cheeses.

I have been known to make special trips to stores based solely on the strength of their cheese counter. 

One of my earliest memories is of my dad slicing cheese off a cheddar round and giving each of us kids crowded around the butcher block a slice, repeating the process around and around the butcher block until the cheese was gone.

My go to after school snack growing up was a quesadilla.

Nachos were invented practically in my backyard. 

Did I mention I eat and buy a lot of cheese? 

Well, cheese is ridiculously expensive in Fiji.  Mind bogglingly pricey. I used to pay US $4.99 for a 1 pound block of mozzarella at home.  In Fiji a smaller block of the stuff starts at about US $10. And that's just mozzarella. If you're hankering for Haverti or craving Camembert it'll set you back US $20-40/lb.

What's a cheese loving girl to do? 

Well, few years back I watched some friends make cheese in the common kitchen of our annual retreat. Even though I didn't get hands on, I knew it was totally something I could do.  So I did.  A fellow expat had some extra rennet, a neighbor gets fresh milk delivered for US $1.25/liter, and there's a lime tree on my walk in that supplied my citric acid.

I gotta say, in all the twists I've ever heard on "when life gives you lemons" this is probably my favorite.  Although technically life gave me limes.

Things I want to learn

Things I want to learn: Everything. I'm not kidding. Let me chunk it a little more finely though:

• What blooms when in Suva. What smells good, what tastes good, what looks pretty. 
• What foods are in season when in the market
• Where to get stuff. Like oh, m/f connections for my water hose. That's right, I bought a water hose and it was exactly that. A water hose. No more, no less.  

  Random fact: my new hose doesn't have any connectors. #surprise! pic.twitter.com/z9KK1q7kUD
  — Amerika (@amerikag) August 20, 2014