Where am I?

Many of you may be wondering where I am! I am still here! I have been traveling very much over the past 5 months on projects with my sponsors, television appearances, and in furtherance of my own telelvision series in the US. All in all, it has been a crazy year but we are all looking forward to a great 2010. I can tell you I am very happy to be home and looking forward as well to receiving guests at La Villa Bonita in January and February. Time to get back to what I do best -- teach my traditional Mexican family dishes to my guests and open windows into the richness of Mexican culture.

We had a great response to our sale for Christmas and New Year sale but it was restricted because of very high airfare over the holidays. We did notice, however, a great drop in airfare for January and February from hubs in the US and Canada. Since we are finally home and want you to join us, we extended our $875 USD off per room sale to January and February dates. It is almost like getting your airfare for free! Escape the cold at LVB this winter!

Peace, Love, and Good Food

Ana Garcia

Happy 4th of July from La Villa Bonita

My son said that I could get a temporary "green card" to celebrate the 4th of July if I made a cake with him for a party we are attending. We made a vanilla chiffon cake with a layer of lemon curd plucked from our trees, raspberries and blueberries for the stars and stripes and a whipping cream icing.

More coming up soon on kids and cooking!

Peace, love and good food!

Chef Ana

Grapefruit Curd Experiment

Many people have asked me what I do in my down time when I don't have guests in the culinary packages. One of my hobbies is to do my own canning and investigation of traditional methods of preserving fruits and vegetables. I have done lots of jams, jellies, compotes as well as preserves. So, this week I decided to do something with my funny little grapefruit.

In our citrus orchard on the property we have lots of different varieties. The previous owner was British and enjoyed her citrus. As a result we have many fruit-bearing trees that produce at different times of the year. We have 3 different types of lemons, 2 types of oranges, 5 types of limes, 3 types of grapefruit, and calamondines (I will do a blog soon on my calamondine liquor which is reposing right now!). A lot of these varieties are old, non-commercial varieties that are not prolific in size or quantity but have very distinctive properties that may not exist any more in the supermarket.

I have this strange little grapefruit tree that grows right next to our compost area(good place to grow, right?). It produces very small yellow grapefruit smaller than a baseball. They were so small that I doubted they had any usable juice. I opened them up and they had a enough juice to put it to use in something. I first used them as an "agua fresca" as we call them here which is juice of pretty much any fruit with a bit of sugar and water as a refreshing drink to accompany lunch with Robb and the boys. It was very good and didn't need much sugar. I decided on a whim to make grapefruit curd and see how it would turn out. I have made lemon curd from my orchard lemons before but never grapefruit. It should have a distinctive taste.

For a printer friendly PDF version click here.

For this recipe you will need 1.5 cups of juice, 2 sticks of unsalted butter, 2 cups of sugar, 12 egg yolks and your zest.

















Zest All Grapefruit


















Squeeze Grapefruit with Help of Small Person in Pajamas






















Separate Yolks


















Beat Yolks and Add to Saucepan on Low Heat


















Add the Sugar and Whisk


















Add the Juice and Whisk



















Stir on low heat for 10-15 minutes or until the mixture thickens. Do not bring to a boil.

Strain

















Add Butter Slowly

















Add Zest and Stir

















Cool and Add to Ball Jars with Help of Small Person in Pajamas

















Seal Ball Jar in Hot Water as with any Preserve