Hello Everyone! Hope you are all having a relaxing Sunday. I am sure by now whenever you see my bun-eating avatar, it means that the post is food related! As promised, I have posted up my recipe for Beef Jerky and Wild Mushroom Soup after yesterday’s fungi foraging. This is a warm, hearty meal for winter because it also contains red kidney beans, pasta shells, onions, ginger and leafy greens. If you haven’t been out mushroom foraging, the recipe can still be used with shop bought items (either Wood ear bought from Asian Supermarkets or Button Mushrooms bought from almost anywhere except for Belize).
Anyway, here is a picture of the dish with fried Mayan mushroom used as a garnish.
Beek Jerky and Wild Mushroom Soup Garnished with Fried Mayan Mushrooms.
And, this is a picture of the Wood ear mushroom , sliced before cooking.
It has been pouring down in Toledo so this is the best time to go foraging for mushrooms! Take a look at what we found today…a bountiful treasure for Munchkin and Gnome!
We found oyster mushrooms growing on some peach palms. We identified them as Pleurotus ostreatus which is a smaller type of edible oyster; they are fleshy and full of texture.
Oyster Mushrooms Growing on Palm.
Yay! There are more Oysters coming up!
Lots of Baby Oyster Mushrooms!!
We also found more Wood ear mushrooms which are edible. These mushrooms are well-liked by the Asian population and are usually cooked in soups and stews. Of course, we like them too! Moreover, this little number also has medicinal properties which include anti-cancer, hypoglycaemic, anti-coagulant and cholesterol lowering activities. What a wonderful mushroom!
Wood Ear Mushroom with Two Romantic Snails.
Fungi foraging also revealed more of the Mayan mushroom known as Schizophylum commune. These are rubbery in texture but are edible nonetheless.
Mayan Mushroom on Log.
There was a plethora of Turkey Tail Polypores which came in a spectacular array of different colours. Not only are they nice to look at but they can be made into a medicinal tea. This type of fungus is known to have anti-cancer properties and so a cup of tea now and then won’t do you any harm.
Trametes versicolor on Log.Big Trametes.
You may have gathered that we are really Big on Mushrooms. Gnome has written many essays on this subject. Check out these links:
We were both cleaning up our coconut plantation today. I had to collect the coconuts and pile them all in a specific area. Gnome had to clean up the coconut palms by cutting down the old leaves and mulching them around each tree. We made it a bit more fun by admiring (and taking pictures) of beautiful bush plants and mushrooms as we went along. Here are the pics:
Earth Star Fungus.Orchid on Coconut.Beautiful Pink Flowers on Bush Vine.Wood Ear Mushroom.
Of course, real life is better than the actual pictures but I hope that we have captured the essence of the simplicity of our lives through them.
Since we are doctors down here in Toledo, most locals are actually more interested in our medical products. Our copal products were the first things we made and still remain the most commonly sought after preparation in Belize.
Copal Resin (Protium copal) has been used by the Mayans for centuries in skin ailments including infections and inflammatory conditions. It is a medicine which is still used in the villages of Toledo but with westernisation and modernisation, many younger Mayans are losing these traditions.
If you are interested in reading about how we came about making this medicine, please read my article Copal in the Library.
It is nice to have an alcoholic beverage at the end of the day to wind down after some hard work. After having lived here for so long and having tried all of the drinks available, I have had to go back to my student pass-time of brewing. In this climate, rum and spirits are generally too strong; the cheap spirits aren’t distilled well enough to enjoy; the expensive spirits that could be enjoyed burn a hole in our pockets; wine is also expensive and generally crap, no matter where it has come from (and has sat at customs in a container in 45C heat for weeks to months); and the beer is fine if you just like a light lager style. Unfortunately, this situation is unacceptable to a Gnome of my (lack) of sophistication and home brewing has become a necessity for a continued existence. Brewing is fun and, as the Italians would put it, the result doesn’t taste of copper.
I’ve already talked about malting corn and making gluten-free beer from it but this requires quite a bit of work to get happening: the sprouting, kilning, roasting, mashing…it all ends up taking something like six weeks to get accomplished. So, the next logical answer is mead. I’m not at the stage of producing my own honey but fortunately, rainforest honey is available here and turns out to be much easier to brew than beer.
Traditional mead ends up being quite strong, 12-14%, and I find that this level of alcohol only allows a small drink, any more and the price is a headache. So I have reduced the concentration of honey in my meads so that the final result is closer to a beer, say 4-5%. This allows one to drink a pint without getting drunk and also appreciate the flavour of something different.
This is the honey that I use:
About Four Litres of Rainforest Honey.
You can see that it is a dark honey and if you could taste it, the strong almost musky flavour would be very evident.
It all gets poured into a big pot with added water to make five gallons and boiled for five or ten minutes to sterilize it. Then the specific gravity is checked once cooled down…
Checking the Specific Gravity.
…to make sure that the concentration of sugar is right (to make a 5% strength mead). It is put in a brew bin and fermented with some lager yeast for a few months as mead generally takes longer to brew than normal beer.
I’ve been making “everyday” batches to drink early, like a Beaujolais nouveau (without being red, obviously), since Munchkin really likes mead for an evening drink and to cook with but I’ve also put some away to slowly clear and age. Eventually bottling it so that it can have a nice fizz.
I’ll let you know in a few months how the “special brew” turns out!
Hello Everyone! I have been reviewing my product descriptions and I have been re-evaluating the contents of each page. I feel that there is not enough oomph (or heart) in my words and I would like to do a better job in translating our inspiration and creativeness into words. So far, I have re-done the pages for the soaps and it is my hope that I have enthused some of our fun-loving charm into it all! The previous descriptions were really drab, formularised “copy and paste” drivel. I will be re-writing the page contents in an effort to keep up with our philosophy in doing everything with focus and awareness. Anyway, expect to see more thoughtful product descriptions as I am preparing the way for the Grand Opening of The Apothecary very soon!!
Today was a good day to make some lime sulphur, a smelly concoction that has multiple uses as a fruit tree anti-fungal and as a pet dip for things like mange and ringworm.
One of my friends is trying to grow grapes, which in this climate are very susceptible to a plethora of fungal diseases; he asked me to make some lime sulphur for him since I am a Gnome and Gnomes like messing around with smelly stuff. Also, I am a Catholic Gnome, and obviously Brimstone, Smelliness, Catholic and Gnome are a match made in Heaven (hee, hee, hee…)!
Anyway, you need sulphur or brimstone…
Flowers of Sulphur.
And you need white lime…
White Lime.
And you boil them together…
Boiling Sulphur and Lime together.
…to get Lime Sulphur.
It is dirty, smelly work and you need to be careful as it is quite poisonous and caustic though the sulphurous fumes of brimstone are very soul-cleansing!!
After boiling for a while it looks like this…
Lime Sulphur Transformation Complete.
…a dark red-brown-rotten-egg-smelling liquid…
If you want to make your own…look at my recipe in Bored-In-Belize: Making Lime Sulphur.
Hello Everyone. This is a fantastic recipe to start the New Year. This is Guinea Pigs stuffed with Pork and Passion Fruit and cooked in Mead. The Mead is wine made from honey and is of course home-made by Gnome. The passion-fruit adds a tropical twist and the passion-fruit seeds lends a nutty crunch to the entire gastronomic experience.
In keeping with the self-sustainable philosophy on our farm, we do have to face the practical reality of eating the animals which we look after. The best way to show our appreciation for the food on our plates and honouring our piggies is by cooking a scrumptious meal with them!
Here are some pictures:
Three Stuffed Piggies. Raw.Three Piggies Cooking in Mead.Stuffed Guinea Pig Parcel with Passion Fruit.
For a detailed recipe with more pictures, check out the link on Piggies Cooked in Mead. If you don’t have Guinea Pigs, try Goose Neck instead. And if you don’t have Mead, I guess White Wine will do. Guinea Pigs taste like miniature suckling pig and duck rolled into one…wonderful!
Every year, Sorrel flowers and fruits in the months of December and January. That is why I call it the Christmas Plant of Belize. It is also green and red so it fits in with the whole theme.
Sorrel Plant with Flowers.
I have been a busy little bee collecting sorrel over the holidays. It is quite intensive work so you really have to like the plant to do all this. After harvesting, the fruit needs to be removed from the seed pod and this involves scoring around the base of the fruit to pop out the pod. This gets quite repetitive especially after the hundredth one!
Seed Pods Separated From the Sorrel Fruit.
I had quite a bit of sorrel so I sun-dried the fruit to store in jars.
Fresh Sorrel For Sun-drying.Jar of Sun-dried Sorrel.
The fruit of the plant can be used to make a tea or a cool drink and it has a lovely, berry-like tart flavour. To make a tea simply use between 10 to 20 calyces per cup and boil for about 5 minutes until it is a deep red colour. This hibiscus has many medicinal properties including lowering your blood pressure so it is well worth the effort. It you would like to know more about the useful properties of Hibiscus sabdariffa, check out my link in the library.
It is New Years day and some of you may be thinking about detoxification after the festive season. I would like to recommend a cup of Jackass Bitters tea once daily for the next 7 days. It is really, really bitter so you just need to boil one leaf per cup (boil for 5 minutes). Add some honey but that won’t hide the bitter taste.
Jackass Leaves.
Jackass Bitters has been used traditonally in Belize for its purification and detoxification properties. It can also be used effectively for many skin conditions including ulcers, wounds and cold sores.
If you would like to read more on Jackass Bitters and the Medicinal Properties, please press on the link.
Hello Everyone! Hope you are all having a relaxing Sunday. I am sure by now whenever you see my bun-eating avatar, it means that the post is food related! As promised, I have posted up my recipe for Beef Jerky and Wild Mushroom Soup after yesterday’s fungi foraging. This is a warm, hearty meal for winter because it also contains red kidney beans, pasta shells, onions, ginger and leafy greens. If you haven’t been out mushroom foraging, the recipe can still be used with shop bought items (either Wood ear bought from Asian Supermarkets or Button Mushrooms bought from almost anywhere except for Belize).
