Hello There!!  It’s a bright and shiny day today so I feel a bit brighter and shinier.  How interesting that the weather has a lot to with your mood.  Anyway(s), we are doing okay although our never-ending construction has come to a temporary stand-still due to massive pond formations around the house.  Nevertheless, we have braved the days with our usual creativity and Munchkin & Gnome interesting ideas.  Since, we were both stuck inside the house together (with rains), we decided to have some adventures with food.  So, here’s some of the stuff that we got up up to in the kitchen, messing around.

Lotsa aubergines from the farm:

These are very nice cooked on a cast iron grill and served  with a little bit of olive oil drizzled on top.  Yum!!

Ahhhh….this one is for the Chinese or the very adventurous; these are stinkhorn mushrooms (aka bamboo pith).  These come out with the rains especially near bamboo patches but generally speaking, they do come up fairly commonly everywhere on our farm in Toledo.

This is a very pretty specimen with a lacy veil.

These mushrooms can also be picked at their young stage (aka known as Witches’ Eggs).

Clean them up, chop them up and put them in soups and stews.  This mushroom imparts a slimey texture kinda like eating fish eyes (ooooh…that’s the Chinese coming out in me…I’m trying to tell it tastes really good….but, you probably think that sounds really awful).  On the other hand, you could also describe them as “land oysters”…there, does that sound more enticing??

We are still going with the gelato; this one is made from canistel which is in season right now.

Canistel kinda tastes like cooked sweet potato.  There is a lot of carbohydrate content in the fruit and this provides a firm texture to ice-cream.  Oh, and we made this on with ground fresh jalapeño.  By the way, I just noticed that the picture looks a bit like a pair of breasts(!).  It wasn’t my intention but there you go!!

We still have more messing around in the kitchen.  Our 27 cubic feet freezer is in its last death throes.  It’s moaning and groaning and making awful gurgling noises all the time.  Plus, it’s sucking up a whole lot of electricity.  So, the plan is to to can (in ball jars) everything in the freezer until there is nothing left.  Switch it off and let the old freezer rest in peace.  That’s no mean feat if you can guess how much food a Munchkin is capable of hoarding!!

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