This one is about eating again! Well, we do have to do it everyday! There is a very common green which can be foraged in Toledo, Belize. Wild Purslane has a sour bite to it when eaten raw in a salad. When cooked, it maintains some slight sourness and still keeps its hard texture. It is full of vitamins and minerals and the best thing is that you can find it in the wild…so, it’s free! Yeah, hooray for foraging fresh greens!
One very interesting thing about this plant is that it concentrates its acidity over-night so that if you pick it in the morning, it tends to be more sour. By the evening time, the acidity goes down so that if you prefer it to be less sour, it can be best picked at this time.
Wild Purslane of Belize.
I like Wild Purslane so much I have two recipes for it!
Here in Belize, finding your normal ubiquitous button mushroom is quite an endeavour! If you are lucky, there may be a meagre two punnets of mushrooms found in the whole of Toledo. And, you won’t like the price when you see it! The reason why button mushrooms (Agaricus sp.) are so scarce is because there is no mushroom industry within this country and so we end up with imported goods from Mexico. Once they reach the country, they end up fetching such exorbitant prices and as a consequence of this, they cannot be eaten as normal everyday produce.
I really like mushrooms but I also do not agree with paying for over-priced goods so I have found a great alternative which is the Shiitake Mushroom. Chinese people love their own foods and will find any way to get their own familiar food into Belize. Lucky for us, many Oriental people own supermarkets here where they take the opportunity to sell some of these imported Chinese foods. You will not believe it: shiitake mushrooms are found everywhere in Toledo! So much so, you can stuff yourself with them!
It is always interesting when you talk about tobacco. Our present society frowns quite heavily upon this poor plant. It is even worse when you are a doctor…I think you are supposed to be very strongly opposed to anything to do with it, unless you happen to be using it to spray on your plants (which we also do). Unfortunately, I seem to have missed this collective meeting of humanity and continue to forge a relationship with this beautiful plant even though everybody seems to disapprove.
Tobacco Harvest.
Munchkin was kind enough to collect the harvest for me on a previous post and started the initial browning of it. Our particular style of browning involves sticking all the leaves in a cardboard box and letting everything ferment (ie. start to rot) and turn from green to yellow to brown. Everyday the leaves have to be turned and aerated so they don’t frankly rot. As the leaves yellow and brown, they are removed from the rest and laid out to dry, like so…
Tobacco leaves that have lost enough green to be air-dried.
The weather has been quite cold and damp and the drying probably isn’t going to go that well (which means that we might be using it as plant spray) but I’m going to give it a go anyway and see what happens. If I get lucky and it works out I’ll tell you what happens next…
I am not a Texan Munchkin so I like to show my cheeky nature by embellishing Chili Con Carne. It sounds like when it comes to the truly authentic Chili Con Carne, people have many different ideas about it. The only idea that I have in mind is to “spice” it up “Munchkin Style” which basically means looking for anything growing on the farm and chucking it into the pot with Chili and Carne.
These are things I found to throw into the Chili Con Carne:
Split Gill Growing on a Log of Cashew.
Green Peppercorns.
Wild Split Gill Mushrooms are found growing everywhere in the Toledo region of Belize and like to grow on old logs. They are actually an esteemed Mayan mushroom which is traditionally cooked in the “Caldo” or Chicken Soup. These mushrooms are chewy in texture so they need a longer cooking time (about 30 to 60 minutes) in a stew or soup. Today, I deep-fried these mushrooms as an addition to the chili dish. My Chili Con Carne had lots of green peppercorns (as well as chili) to add to the overall spiciness.
Other spices I added to the Chili Con Carne Munchkin Style were: cinnamon, allspice, clove and cumin. My version had kidney beans and I served it with pasta twirls. How is that for total lack of authenticity?! I am sure some people would shudder at the thought of my gross deviation!
Chili Con Carne with Pasta Twirls and Wild Split Gill Mushrooms.
Needless to say it was very, very spicy and very flavoursome. The deep-fried split gill mushrooms added a crunchy texture to the dish.
This time, I will not furnish you with my recipe as I am aware that there is a plethora of authentic chili con carne recipes out there for everyone to choose from.
Gnome has written about Split Gill Mushrooms, click on the link if you want to read more!
Our pet Gander has, over the past year, been growing a pedunculated polyp from the side of its face, just above its beak. It looks like so…
Our Gander Growing a Wart of Evil.
Over this period, we have found him to have become more bossy, angry and violent, pecking and honking at the dogs, the cat, the ducks, stray children…everybody actually! As a result, we affectionately called his growing protrusion the “Wart of Evil,” and invented a little ritual where we would rub the wart three times with our left thumb and then with our right thumb whenever we had one of those days that didn’t seem to go right (you know, those crappy days when no matter what you try and do everything goes to pot!).
Well, today we decided to start the process of removal for this evil emanation and with one of us holding the gander, the other used some dental floss to tie it off so that it will dry up and drop off in a few days. We used the same technique which is used to castrate animals with a strong rubber band. It is much nicer and less painful than trying to snip it off with scissors or a knife as once the circulation is cut off it goes numb and starts to drop off.
In a few days the “Wart of Evil” should be in such a condition that we should be able to cut it off without hurting the goose. Our plan is to pickle it in rum and turn it into the well known protective charm called “The Wart Against Evil (TM)!” It will be available for purchase in the Talismonger section of our shop once it has been tested and we are sure of its effectiveness.
We put chocolate waste products around our plants and trees, on the farm, as organic fertiliser.
Chocolate “Trash” in Wheel Barrow.
There is a small, but thriving, chocolate-making place in Punta Gorda which supplies us with all their waste products from making chocolate. The waste is highly nutritious and has a high nitrogen content. It takes about 2 to 3 months for the trash to break down to release the fertiliser. The chocolate is so potent that it kills all the weeds around our plants so it also helps with weed control.
So, Chocolate All Around For Our Plants; Nothing but the best!
Today has been a day to work on some products. I had already started by extracting chocolate essence from cacao solids a few weeks ago but then the falling apart of the piggie cages necessitated sorting out our furry friends (is everybody sick of hearing about Guinea Pigs yet??) and making essential oil had to be put on hold. However, now that the piggies are sorted we can get back to more serious considerations…
The initial extraction is a post for another time (when I do it again) but it basically involves taking cacao solids (preferably after the cacao butter has been removed from the fermented, roasted beans) with a solvent using an extractor. The result is a dark brown liquid which while plenty aromatic does not qualify as an essential oil, it is more like a tincture. This is what I started with today.
The next step involves the removal of all of the solvent using the apparatus shown below…
Removal of Solvent from the Simple Cacao Extract to Get Chocolate Essential Oil.
The solvent is carried over the apparatus and is collected (not shown) to be re-used for future extractions. The pay dirt is what is left in the flask at the end…for a litre of original extract this takes about twenty-four hours and leaves a very dark brown, thick and syrupy liquid. This product is the essential oil; it is a very, very concentrated broad spectrum natural chocolate flavour and yields what is called an Absolute. As a little aside, essential oils are usually produced by steam distillation while the Absolute is produced by solvent extraction.
As promised, this is a picture of lunch. I cooked the Paddy Straw Mushrooms with Spicy Pork Ginger Cakes. This was served with Chaya Fritters and Grapefruit.
Spicy Pork Ginger Cakes with Paddy Straw Mushrooms. Served with Chaya Fritters and Grapefruit.
Chaya (Cnidoscolus aconitifolius) is also called Tree Spinach and is a great source of vitamins and minerals. It is easy to grow and does not require much maintenance. It tastes great too…like a spinach!
It has been forty-eight hours since the piggies took up residence in their new home and it doesn’t seem like any of them have figured out how to get to the delicious food that is growing just under their feet! I had promised myself that I would give them a week before doing anything more but I just was not able to resist…
So, this morning, I started by making the hole to the ramp bigger…like so…
Ramp With Enlarged Hole.
Next, I tried to tempt the piggies with a bit of juicy produce to give them some incentive…
Tempting Piggies to Go Down the Ramp.
And here is one of them almost getting the idea…
Almost there…you can do it!
That particular piggie managed to get all the way down and is now chomping away in paradise. Unfortunately, none of the others managed to figure it out. Both Munchkin and I have decided that I will have to make more ramps, say like five more…
Today, started off bright and sunny so I took the opportunity to do a routine weeding of our vegetable beds. However, I was very pleasantly surprised to find some edible, delectable wild mushrooms (trying not to over-use the Y-word when describing tasty food!). These are Paddy Straw Mushrooms which are more commonly seen in Asian cuisine; they are best harvested when they resemble round eggs. They can still be eaten once they have opened out but they are not so flavoursome.
Opened out Paddy Straw Mushroom.
Paddy Straw Mushrooms.
It is quite a surprise to find this type of mushroom growing wild at this time of the year since it tends to come out at higher temperatures of about 38C. Right now, the temperature is getting as low as 20C so this is definitely an auspicious find!
Anyway, the important question is: how will I cook it? Let’s see, I will of course furnish you with a picture of the meal of the day at some point!
Gnome likes mushrooms a lot; if you are interested, see his article on Paddy Straw Mushrooms.
