All posts by Munchkin

Belize, Farming, Food, Plants

Spicy Tiny Potatoes.

Munchkin.Face.Dark

Today I harvested 4kg (8lbs) of a little known ground root in Belize called Koorka.  They are little tubers about 2.5cm (1 inch) in size.  You eat them like you would potatoes.

Bumper Crop of Koorka: Spicy Tiny Potatoes.
Bumper Crop of Koorka: Spicy Tiny Potatoes.

This year we did an experiment to figure out how best to grow them.  We started the vegetable from cuttings and put some in clay, furrowed earth and 2 foot high beds filled with decomposed rice hulls.  We got the best crop from the beds and the largest size of tuber.  The ones in clay were tiny and took the longest to harvest; it was back-breaking!

Koorka in the Ground.
Koorka in the Ground.

This plant is actually from the Mint Family (the leaves resemble mint a lot) and it grows prolifically.

Piectranthus rotundifolius.
Piectranthus rotundifolius.

It is an easy crop which requires very little maintenance.  It is usually planted as soon as the first rains start (May) and then harvested when the plant dies back (usually December to February).  They have the same consistency as potatoes and when cooked, emit a slightly spicy aroma.  They are high in Vitamin A and Calcium.  Another great thing about these little ‘potatoes’ are that they can contain twice ( 5-13%) the amount of protein compared to a normal potato.

Every-one in Belize should have some of this in their own back yard.

All the animals on the farm love to eat the tuber raw.  We give the little bite size ones to the piggies and they gurgle with delight when-ever they spot one of these tasty treats.  And goosie…he was in top form today…circling around me menacingly hoping to steal my koorka from my bucket.  He was really mean and bossy!

 

Bees, Belize, Construction, Farming

I’m Going to Keep Stingless Bees!

Gnome.SmilingI think our local stingless bees are really cute, the species I have nesting in one of my old tool boxes is Tetragonisca angustula…

Tetragonista angustula in one of my old toolboxes.
Tetragonista angustula in one of my old toolboxes.

They are nice and friendly and you don’t need any fancy beekeeping equipment since they don’t sting.  It seems like a better start to beekeeping to me than going for Africanized Bees.

They don’t make much honey apparently, only about 1kg a year but what they do make is supposed to be very medicinal…which is right up my alley.  They are also good pollinators for assorted crops.

Anyway, the point of all of this is that I made a couple of beehives in order to get this project underway…

Finished Hive.
Finished Hive.

Yeah, I know, it doesn’t look like much and I suck at taking photographs (but I am better at stitching up your face with some 7/0 prolene, thankfully…sorry doctor joke!).

If you are interested, there is more detail in constructing the hives in Bored-In-Belize…Making a Stingless-bee Bee Hive.

With the amount of honey these little darlings make, I’ll probably have to make about 100 hives…one day at a time…

Thank you to Leanne and Craig Knox for giving me the idea.

Cheers and have a good day!

Amusing, Belize, Food

Two Baking Disasters in 1 day!!

Full.Face.Munchkin.DarkThis was a foolish and cavalier attempt to ‘fast-track’ my baking skills to an appreciative level.

Disaster No.1: Sesame Cookie Mess!
Disaster No.1: Sesame Cookie Mess!
Disaster No.2: Big Hole in Spice Cake! How embarrassing!
Disaster No.2: Big Hole in Spice Cake! How embarrassing!

Firstly, the sesame cookie thing all coalesced into one big cookie in the oven.  Furthermore, it got stuck in the baking tray and I had to scrape it off (with a paint scraper of all things!).  Then I concentrated all my efforts into making a spice cake and it rose beautifully in the oven with the yummy whiff of baked cinnamon, all-spice and clove.  But, then when I tried to bang it out of the tin disaster struck and the centre flopped out of the tin leaving a crater in my cake!

I have never been much of a baker especially of cakes and biscuits and now I have two very important tasks to fulfill!

Firstly, as a follow-up from yesterday’s post on cassava, we did finally get 4 cups of farm fresh home-made tapioca flour from 10lbs of fresh cassava.

Our Very Own Blessed Tapioca Flour! We are so proud!
Our Very Own Blessed Tapioca Flour! We are so proud!

I want to bake a tapioca bread(Argentinean or Korean!) made from this but I have only one chance since I only have 4 cups.  I really don’t want to mess it up since we went through such a labourious process to get it.  Hence the reason why I was trying to bake other things to get a bit more experience.

Secondly, Gnome has made a special request for home-baked Panettone(traditional Italian Christmas cake).  I have looked at the recipe and it involves a long drawn and complicated procedure with yeasting, letting it rise 4 times through-out the day over about 8 hours and the kneading of tacky, gloopy dough.  This is a real challenge and I have 7 days to make the perfect Christmas cake for him which will hopefully remind him of cold winter nights in Italy by the fire hearth waiting for Santa! Aaaarghhh!!! I hope I can do this!

 

Belize, Fermentation, Saving Money

Let’s Make Some Maize Beer…Part I, Malting.

Gnome.SmilingLike most foreigners that have come to Belize, we wasted a lot of money buying (really crappy, cheap, screw-top wine priced like fine, premium) wine in an attempt to have a taste of home and feel sophisticated.   In addition to the price, the heat and humidity, the higher alcohol content of wine was sure to make us uncomfortable for the whole night, the fuzziness continuing to the next day and making work difficult.  Now, after having lived here a while and given up all pretense at being sophisticated, we just want some good, honest-to-God, alcohol that doesn’t burn a hole in our pocket or our stomachs.

Having had some experience while at University with brewing, the obvious answer is to brew some beer.  How to do this, though?  There is no friendly brew-shop down the road to get all the essential ingredients…no barley, no hops, no nothing!

Well, we do have plenty of maize, grown by the bushel by our friendly Mayan neighbours (I’ve tried growing corn and I just haven’t managed yet…go figure!), GMO free and cheap.  What do you do with it, though?

The first step is this…

Sprouting Maize for Malting.
Sprouting Maize for Malting.

After the maize has sprouted it needs to be dried before it can be turned into the different types of malt we are all familiar with…like, pale malt, chocolate malt, Munich malt, crystal malt, etc.  Here it is dried…

Dried Malted Maize.
Dried Malted Maize.

And this is the basis for my maize, gluten-free beer.

For a more detailed discussion on the malting process have a look in our Bored-in-Belize section for Malting Maize.

Tune in next time for Part II, Brewing with Maize.

 

Belize

Hooray for Linux!!

Avatar.GnomeThis is a quick one for all you Linux fans:

All my computers are running Linux now…thank God…and I don’t have to use any of the other operating systems out there, especially the ones that cost money!!

Hooray for Open Source Programming!

Cheers.

Belize, Farming, Food, Plants

Farm Fresh Cassava Hash Browns.

Munchkin.Eating.Bun.SmileThis one is truly farm fresh from digging in the dirt to the dining room table!  This morning, Gnome dug up 5kgs (10lbs) of cassava on our farm (about 3 plants only) and afterwards we both set about to wash and peel our freshly acquired roots.

Washed Cassava.
Washed Cassava.
Cleaned and Peeled Cassava.
Cleaned and Peeled Cassava.

Next, we grated the cassava.  This was done by hand and this part took the longest length of time (about 2 hours).

Grated Cassava.
Grated Cassava.

We then washed the grated cassava once with water to remove some of the starch.  The washed water was retained so that the starch (tapioca) could be obtained from it.

We reserved some washed cassava to make Cassava Hash Browns Topped with Mozzarella which was a lovely treat after all the digging, washing and grating!

Cassava Hash Browns topped with Mozzarella.
Cassava Hash Browns topped with Mozzarella.

Next, we took the remaining grated root and reserved cassava water and laid them all out in the sun to dry.  This is to make dehydrated fufu which is an African/ Caribbean preparation of cassava in which the vegetable is boiled and then pounded with a large wooden mortar and pestle to make a dough-like food.  Traditionally fufu is eaten with soups.

So, out of our harvest of 10lbs of cassava, we obtained: 2lbs of sun-dried fufu and 2lbs of tapioca flour.  Not to mention a snack of Cassava Hash Browns!

Jar of FuFu. The Finished Product!
Jar of FuFu. The Finished Product!

Gnome said that today was a good lesson on realising the time and energy required in processing food from harvest to finished produce.

Amusing, Belize

Fridge on a Pick-em Up!

cropped-cropped-rainbow1.jpg

Fridge on a pick-em up is a game we play when we decide to take the long arduous drive to the Big City (Belize City).  Now, both Gnome and I have been very seasoned travelers in the past having travelled the length and breadth of bigger places like Australia, Europe and the UK.  But, somehow this meagre 200 mile journey from Toledo to Belize City seems to test our stamina to the limits!  It might be due to all the speed bumps on the village roads, some with no advance warning signs (until you actually go flying up in the air and then come crashing down with a loud thud-dunk!).

A while ago, we developed a Pick-em up Game on the road, just to keep things a bit more novel for us.  Basically, the majority of vehicles on the Belizean roads are pick-up trucks and as you drive, you can usually spot a whole variety of interesting things on the back of people’s trucks.  As a result of this, we developed a points game where the contents of a pick-up truck is equivalent to specific bonus points.

Our highest bonus points allocation (1000 points) goes to the Fridge on a Pick-em up!

This one was actually 2 Fridges on a Pick-em up! Double Bonus Points!
This one was actually 2 Fridges on a Pick-em up! Double Bonus Points!

The above sighting of 2 fridges was most auspicious.  A bit further up the Highway, we came across another Fridge on a Pick-em up but I couldn’t get a drive-by picture because Gnome was driving too fast.

Other high bonus points include:  Estufa (Spanish name for ‘Stove’) on a Pick-em up = 800 Bonus Points, Boca (Central American Chip Packets) on a Pick-em up = 750 Bonus Points and Pig on a Pick-em up = 500 Bonus Points.

Whenever we come across the infamous Fridge, we do a bit of a jiggle on the car seat and shout out ” Fridge on a Pick-em up!”

This game has its value in keeping us amused and also in keeping our eyes on the road!

 

Blog

Thank you to our Readers!

Full.Face.Munchkin.DarkI would like to take this opportunity to Thank all our readers.  We are completely new to the Blogging community having started only 5 weeks ago.  It has been encouraging to have “Likes” and “Followers.”  This is especially important to us because we had to really work hard to get Internet.  Firstly, getting Internet connection required logistics; after all, we do live in a very isolated area in the most rural part of Belize.  We had to get on a list and this took a year of weekly visits to the Telecommunications Company.  Then, when we got the technicians out to our farm, they had to find a signal with their antenna.  Well, that involved very tall ladders, climbing onto the roof of our house, plenty of cool drinks all around and finger food.  We finally got a vague signal at about 30 feet from the ground.  We were so thankful at that point because we were so close to giving up.

The next part was the installation; this entailed more waiting and weekly visits to the office.  Meanwhile, Gnome erected a 40 foot post next to the house single-handedly with a clever system of pulleys and lots of time and patience.  When the technicians finally arrived they took one look at the post and got scared.  They said that they would have to call the boss in to permit the use of such a big post.  The post was a 12 inch tree trunk!

Anyway, after a bit more time (weeks!!!) we did finally get the antenna and we had Internet happening!  The final height of the antenna was 60 feet.

Before all this, we had lived without Internet connection for 10 years.  We used the Internet cafe weekly to email and that was about all we could do because of the limitations of traveling into town and the slow Internet connection.  Truth be told, we were actually fine with our limited technological interaction.

However, after a lot of thinking we decided to embrace technology again so that we can reach out to more people.  We would like to show people that they can choose to live a simple way of life, down-size and live off the fruits of their own labour.  It is my hope that our regular posts reflect our enjoyment in living a simple life.  Thank you for reading our stuff!

Amusing, Belize, Farming, Pets

The Wart of Evil Part II.

Gnome.SmilingIts been a few days now since we tied off the Wart of Evil.  As we predicted, it has dried up and our Gander can see from that side of his face a lot better…

The Wart of Evil Has Been Removed!!
The Wart of Evil Has Been Removed!!

We think that he is a lot happier because he cooperated fully without honking or biting while we cut it off…

The Wart of Evil.
The Wart of Evil.

It is all supposed to be a bit of a joke but I swear to you that our goosie has had a personality transformation and has turned into a happy-go-lucky, loveble sort of fellow.  He now hangs out with our duckies and acts as a body guard to them, there is no more pecking and bossing around.

I’ve put the Wart of Evil into a vial and am in the process of pickling it in alcohol.  The transformation into the Wart Against Evil (TM) has begun.  I will update you once it is ready and make it available for your personal use (probably in the New Year, once I get the Shop finally going)!

In the mean time, be safe from Evil!!