Category Archives: Belize

Belize, Elixirs, Fermentation, Food, Our Products

It’s Cacao Picking Time!

May 7, 2015 Munchkin

April and May are the months for collecting mature cacao pods here in Belize. Today, we harvested a whole lot of pods; they come in all shapes and sizes and colours:

Here is a picture of an opened cacao pod:

The white pulp around the seeds is edible and has a sweet aromatic, acidic taste to it. For the actual chocolate making process, the seeds/beans are fermented with the pulp and dried out in the sun (for up to 7 days). Fermented cacao beans at this stage are shipped by container loads overseas to be processed into chocolate.

We use cacao in many of our products; one of the main ones is Cacao Absolute which we are know selling as a product in The Apothecary. We use this essential oil in our soaps, body oils, massage oils and body sprays; for more information on how we make this check out Making Chocolate Essential Oil.

We are collecting the fresh cacao beans to make Elixirs (or liqueurs). This is a favourite with the chocolate connoisseurs. This is what it looks like initially:

This is on Day 7; look at the spectacular burgundy hues!

The Cacao Fruit elixir requires time to mellow out and develop the complex layers of taste of cacao fruit and bean. The beans will be removed soon and thereafter it is left to sit to allow natural sediment to sink down to the bottom. Every two weeks, the liquid is siphoned into another glass jar so that the sediment can be discarded. There is a lot of work required in creating clarity in this product. We will probably make a batch of about 5 gallons of this which will be ready in about 12 months time. The best things come to those who wait!

Amusing, Belize, Our Products

Munchkin at the Post Office.

May 6, 2015 Munchkin

A visit to the Post Office in Belize is always full of surprises. First of all, I opened up my post box to find that a Christmas Card had just arrived, 6 months late. Inside, was written, “Hope your Christmas is full of wonderful surprises!” dated the 4th of December 2014. Wow, that was certainly a belated surprise. I wonder where this card has travelled, in all this time from Australia to its final destination in Belize? Mind-boggling, isn’t it?

Anyway, today I had to send a package overseas. I need to tell you about what all this entails so that you know what it means when I send something by post. I had been in the post office the week before with the same package to have it weighed and priced for delivery. At this point it important to mention that there is seldom a queue in the post office but as soon as you walk into the tiny Government building, you feel time suddenly stops and everything moves at an infinitely slower pace. Getting a package price means getting a weight done and a bizarre and mind-boggling calculation (which seems to change from week to week and is dependent on the pricing schedule whims of the clerk, the conjunction of the stars and blind luck). You are talking about a 15 minute wait to get this information.

Upon delivery approval, I brought the package into the post office today…open..to be inspected by the postal staff. The post clerk has to approve of all the contents and the packaging. I am so careful to pack well because I have been sent home a few times with “inadequate packaging” and it was also a very hot Friday afternoon and they were just about to close. I also have to go in armed with brown paper wrap, scissors and sellotape so that I can wrap up the box and have it sent on the same day. I have learned to speed wrap within 60 seconds…not that it actually matters because the rest of the post office world is going at a snail pace. Otherwise, after inspection, you can actually take it back home to wrap up to then return to the post office for final posting! This time, I got another surprise…the price of delivery was less than what was quoted the week before. I wasn’t really that surprised…sometimes it is hit and miss…and most times, I actually lose out with delivery cost and have to pay extra. Nevertheless, this time it was a positive surprise and I will have to get in touch with the recipient to tell them the good news.

The postal service is one of the challenges of Belize. It is not even something that you can complain or get upset about. I have to like or lump it and try to work with the system. I do still want to earn a little bit more money by sending our Apothecary items overseas so I persist with it and hopefully on each occasion, I can find something to be pleasantly surprised about.

Belize, Blog, Farming, Food, Pets, Plants

Far From The Madding Crowd.

May 5, 2015 Munchkin

Hello Everyone!! Goosie is recovering very well from his traumatic doggy attack and was released from Farm-ICU today. He made some quiet honks through-out the day and then sounded a loud HONK in the afternoon and drew me his usual dastardly-look to tell me that he was back in action. To top it all off, our missing duckie suddenly reappeared, as if by magic, tonight for feeding time. We had no idea where she had been for the last 24 hours…we tried doing doggy sniffing and patrol all round the farm perimeter today looking for signs of her…and then she just pitched up for food tonight! No questions asked, we quickly ushered her into the coup. Wow…we are so pleased that everything has ended well and all our duckies and goosie are safe.

New things on our farm:

Gnome only uttered one word, “melomel.”

The Kun Batz (Ketchi Mayan name for Belize wild passionfruit) has ripened to an edible fruit and tastes like a cross between a lemon and water-melon…very good!

An unusual wild green pod growing, which we had been watching for 9 months, suddenly exploded. The dried pod looks like a nice ornamental for displaying (soap, maybe?!).

We are going to germinate the seeds because the vessel looks really pretty; it is boat-shaped and could be lacquered to make it last.

We are glad that we can share the highs and lows of our farm life in this Blog!

Belize, Farming, Pets

Wild Goosie Chase Saves Duckies!!

May 4, 2015 Munchkin

In the heat of the lazy afternoon fowl-play was afoot as we heard the sudden beating of wings and then a HONK that sounded like a shreek and then then the crash of mad chasing under the house. I ran out and caught a glimpse of a dog pouncing on my poor goosie as it fought back valiantly with its wings and beak. As soon as the stray dog caught a whiff of me, it scarpered quick smart off the property. Goosie was left in a state with blood on his neck and a severe hurt look on his face; he refused to look at me in the eye and beat a hasty retreat towards the shade of the coconuts.

After all this pandemonium, we suddenly realised that the goosie’s duckie buddies (white duck and two brown girls) were missing.

Gnome heard distant quacking coming from the pond where the fowl go to swim during the day. We walked the 150 yards, in silence and fear, to the pond and noted a trail of goose feathers as we went along. When we finally got there, the dog was there drowning one of our poor ducks in the pond. As soon as the dog saw Gnome, it sprang out and bounded away. We stayed for a while in the pond area with the poor, bedraggled half-drowned duckie swimming around dizzily in circles. There was no trace of any other ducks and we scoured the pond area to no avail. Eventually, the half-dead duckie got so distressed that Gnome said that it was best to leave her alone until routine feeding time.
We headed back to the house in a forlorn state wondering about our duckies. I checked up on Goosie and he seemed okay sitting under the coconuts. All of a sudden, Gnome and I heard WakWakWak (White Duckie Male Quack) and goosie perked up and hastily bobbed his head from side to side, frantically looking for the source of the noise. As soon as white duck came into sight, Goosie gave a mild honk of relief, ruffled his feathers and slyly sidled up to his best buddy. Gnome and I felt much encouraged by this re-union.

And so we waited the long hour until feeding time. During this time, we tried to put together the events of the afternoon and realised the brave actions of our goosie. Since the goose feathers traced back from the pond to the house, it looked like the goosie took flight back to the house, luring the dog with him. Meanwhile, this gave the rest of the ducks a chance to run off to safety while goosie ran “interference” to save his buddies. Awwwhhh…what a Champ our Goosie is!!

When it was feeding time, we went back to the pond and, to our dismay, found no trace of our distressed damsel. We felt so terrible for leaving our duckie behind earlier and walked back to the house, desperately unhappy, feeling the weight of the world on our shoulders. We fed the rest of our animals and performed the rest of our evening routine. Just as the sun was coming down…it was a deep red tonight like blood spilling across the sky…we heard an insistent QuackQuackQuack outside the duck coup. Our duckie (the dizzy, swimming one) had returned and was trying to get into the coup. Oh, we were so pleased to see that she had recovered and did not look half-drowned anymore!
So far. So good. Only one duckie missing and most probably taken out by the stray dog. Goosie is alive and recuperating. Sleep tight duckies and goosie…don’t let the bad dogs bite!!

Belize, Farming, Fermentation

Flood Flies, Full Moon and Roasting Rice.

May 3, 2015 Munchkin

Last night, the first of the “flood flies” came. These are termite queens and fertile male termites on their “nuptial flight,” triggered by the first rains after the dry season. The purpose of this flight is to mate and form more termite colonies; these critters digest cellulose…in order words, they like to eat wooden structures including buildings and decaying wooden matter. So, you could consider them a pest or just part of the eco-system.

These flood flies start swarming in the evening, mostly around houses. They are attracted to light and will get into every nook and cranny of your house, shedding their wings as they come in. They do no bite but have a habit of crawling all over everything, including people and they just get really annoying. Before we sealed up our bedroom, we would have the flood flies crawling on us all night in bed. In the morning, the inside of the house would always be a scene of devastation with literally thousands of wings everywhere. It is a huge cleaning job; in earlier years when I was armed with only a mere broom, it would take me at least 2 weeks to clean up the whole mess. But now, I have my Eureka…thank God for that!

Anyway, I referred to them as the “First” flood flies; usually there is a test run with the first May rains before they come out en masse. Gnome says there should be a lottery for guessing the Flood Fly Day because it can happen anywhere from the the 1st of May to the 31st of May, but always in May! I am waiting with great trepidation, armed and dangerous with my trusty yellow vacuum cleaner! Gnome does not feel so negatively towards these blighters and in fact views them as a potential source of food. He says that one of these days (this means NEXT year…he does not procrastinate) he will make special nets to catch the flood flies, pack them all in a bucket and make miso out of them.

Today we were anticipating another rainy day which meant staying indoors. Gnome had already warned me to keep out of trouble since it was also the full moon and from our experience as medical doctors, the full moon was always a day for complete and utter chaos in hospital. So, Gnome urged me to keep busy and I tried…it was touch and go a few times with mood swings and chaos but we managed to get through it. By the way…we try to avoid making soap on the full moon because it never turns out right. One time, the soap over-heated and exploded into a foaming mess over the counter-top! What a clean-up…never again!

Today, in an effort to keep busy, I roasted brown rice in the oven for 3 hours….every 15 to 20 minutes I had to bring out the rice to stir it around. The brown rice was roasted to a “chocolate malt” and will be used in the flavouring of beer. This will give a chocolatey, maltiness and caramel-like taste to beer…Mmmm…yum!

So far, so good. The internet just went down for 4 hours this afternoon which isn’t too wildly chaotic! We are going to bed early!!

Belize, Food

Pork and Cassava Hotpot (Not Lancashire).

May 2, 2015 Munchkin

Today, it has been raining all day non-stop. It is a cool 28 C (or 82 F) so I am still continuing along the theme of hotpots. If you haven’t read the last post, Gnome had asked me to cook a Lancashire Hotpot for him. Those people who are not familiar with this dish, it is a meal made with lamb (sometimes beef), onions and carrots with a layer of sliced potatoes on top. This traditional stew is cooked slowly in the oven at a low heat to make the meat and vegetables tender and succulent.

Well, anyway, the running joke is that I keep on intending to cook a Lancashire Hotpot but instead of using the traditional ingredients, I substitute alternatives so that the resulting dish isn’t really Lancashire.

So, the Pork and Cassava Hotpot was another attempt at being Lancashire…honestly!! This time, there are carrots included and I had to use pork because I could not find beef or lamb! Also, I can’t bring myself to buy potatoes when I have a huge plethora of exotic roots on the farm. The cassava does make a lovely hotpot; it is warming and comforting and is great for these cooler spells in Belize.

I have to admit though, that I am a bit of a rebel cook at heart and I love to tweek and change recipes. Only once in my life, I actually made a serious whole-hearted attempt to follow a recipe to the letter. This was for Duck a l’orange and it took three days to prepare…it was excellent! It was solely tempted to change it to Duck a le pampelmousse but made a deliberate effort to follow instructions!

Have a good day everyone…may we all revel in being rebel cooks!

Amusing, Belize, Food

Belizean Shepherd’s Hotpot (Not Lancashire).

April 30, 2015 Munchkin

This is an actual conversation which took place between Munchkin and Gnome which typically exemplifies the many talks that they have together.

Gnome: I fancy a nice Lancashire Hotpot!

Munchkin: Okay, Darling, I will make it for you.

Gnome: Ooooh, is it going to have lamb in it?

Munchkin: No.

Gnome: Ooooh, are there going to be carrots and potatoes, then?

Munchkin: No.

Gnome: What are you putting in it, my dear?

Munchkin: Pork.

Gnome: In what way is that a Lancashire Hotpot?

Munchkin: It’s slow-cooked in the oven like a Lancashire Hotpot. Mmmm…maybe it isn’t a Lancacshire Hotpot…it’s more like a Shepherd’s Pie.

Gnome: Ooooh, so its going to have mashed potatoes?

Munchkin: No. Mashed taro.

Gnome: In what way is that a Shepherd’s Pie, my dear?

Munchkin: Mmmm…maybe it isn’t a Shepherd’s Pie. I have a great idea…let’s call it Belizean Shepherd’s Hotpot!

Gnome: But Dearest, I asked for a Lancashire Hotpot!

And so this recipe was borne from this loving banter. It is slow cooked like a hotpot in the oven and it has mashed taro (like mashed potatoes) so you could say that it was a very distant cousin, thrice removed, from the Lancashire Hotpot and Shepherd’s Pie. Or, you could argue that there is absolutely no relation to these dishes at all! Nonetheless, it makes a hearty, tasty meal and Gnome did indeed enjoy it, even although it wasn’t what he had asked for!

Baked Meat and Onions in Casserole Dish.

It kinda looks like a purple Shepherd’s Pie from this picture:

Check out the hybridised recipe: Belizean Shepherd’s Hotpot in Belize Wild Recipes!

Amusing, Belize, Farming, Fermentation, Food, Pets, Saving Money

Tuesday Night Storm, Internet Down and Pineapple Melomel.

April 30, 2015 Munchkin

Hello There!! I will try to catch-up with this post and bring you up to date. On Tuesday night we had a scary, gusty storm that resulted in a power-cut for most of the night and of course, the Internet went down with it. The storm has brought cooler weather with grey clouds and it even rained heavily this morning. The Internet started up again today…yay…it is so insidious how we feel that “we need Internet” and life just isn’t the same without it. When I down-loaded my bunch of late emails, they weren’t all that exciting and most of them were spam, anyway!

Well, since it was a Rainy Day, we made Pineapple Melomel (mead with fruit). Yesterday, I had bought 20 ripe pineapples from the market for BZD 30.00 (USD 15.00) in an attempt to excite Gnome into making some more booze (nice, sparkling, champagne-like stuff) for me. After I got the pineapples loaded onto the truck, he gave me a whiny look and said that he was hoping that I had bought the plantains instead of the pineapples. That remark got him a “Chinese Woman Look” and stopped the complaints quick smart.

This is what we did.

We removed the heads and scrubbed them in the sink:

I then started chopping up the pineapples. Whilst I was doing this, I kindly asked Gnome to take some pictures of this process. All the pictures were soooo baaaad!! They were out of focus and made my hands look stumpy and small…or, are they really like that? I had to re-take some photos:

Chopping Pineapples...Look No Hands!! — Chopping Pineapples…Look No Hands!!

Gnome put the pineapple chunks through the juicer to get the juice and the pulp:

We ended up processing 10 pineapples in all because it was actually a lot of work and the juicer was over-heating and complaining with the work-load. So, we managed to get about 6 litres (1 and 1/2 gallons) of juice from it all.

We got an extra 2 litres (2 quarts) of juice from the squeezing of the pulp:

We waste nothing!! We gave this and some pineapple peel to the duckies this morning. It was a Pineapple Feast…look closely at silly white duck…he even has a bit of pineapple stuck to his head.

We have noticed that our duckies are totally neophobic with food unless it is yellow in colour. So, I was received by joyful and frenzied quackings today when I brought out the basin of pineapple waste.

While I was out playing with the duckies, Gnome proceeded with the making of his pineapple melomel; honey and fresh Toledo rainwater (very fresh!) was added to make the batch up to 5 gallons. Gnome will be posting up the recipe in Bored-in-Belize over the next few days.

Heating Melomel:

Yes, I know…it all looks very yellow (just like all the other pictures) but believe me, this will taste great! Tomorrow, we will be processing the rest of the pineapples and adding honey and fresh ginger. In the words of Gnome, “Make it a Metheglin.”

Amusing, Belize, Farming

Home is Where the Heart Is!!

April 26, 2015 Munchkin

This whole week we have been running back and forth to another farm because we were asked to do tests on the grapes. It has been a real organisational week trying to fit in the tight schedule on our farm with driving out at designated times and days. I have learned more about grapes in one week than I have ever in my entire life; the tests that we did were Brix or Specific Gravity which is sugar level, pH which is a measurement of acidity or alkalinity and TA (Titratable Acidity) which is a measurement of all acid, even in the bound form. All these tests are helpful in determining an ideal picking time for grapes in order to make wine.

We had to conduct the tests all week so that we could determine a trend and then consider the perfect harvest day, the last test date was Friday morning…what a day!!

We got up early in the morning to brush-mow, do coconuts and all our usual stuff. The heat was on…by 9am we were in the car zooming off to collect grapes and then back to our farm to do the tests. After that, we were on the road again…to Placencia this time for a Birthday party. Phew…it was just non-stop!! We gave our friend a gift of Gnome’s Home-made Mead with Happy Birthday Commemorative labels!

After the Birthday party, it was another two hour drive back to Toledo. By that time it was getting dark so we had to get back to the thinking about the grape picking again. From our results we had determined Sunday as the harvest date and so we wrote a schedule up en-route back to Toledo. We were so tired, on the road, and did not feel up to it but nonetheless we organised a run down of events. Gnome said that it was important to make a schedule because it involved so many different jobs which had to be co-ordinated at the same time. To Gnome, it was about efficiency of time and so he didn’t want all of us sloppily trudging about with buckets of grapes in an aimless, meandering sort of way.

Anyway after a whole week of running around and testing grapes, the harvest was cancelled. We kind of felt a bit of an anti-climax after all the energy we channelled into it. Partly because of that, we lost our momentum and fell crashing into a heap of exhausted tiredness today. We slept all day…I was so tired, I was blowing bubbles!!

We feel a bit more human now and have recovered some of our energy. Glad to have spent the whole day on the farm without needing to leave.

“Home is where the Heart is” …this was affirmed by the birth of two new piggies in the maternity ward; this morning we were greeted by mother-piggy licking and cleaning up her brand new babies! Mayor Gnome gave the mother and new piggies his blessings and then promptly fell asleep…with a smile on his face!

Sunday Harvest, Ripe New Piggies:

Brix level 24 = super sweet!! (wine joke).

Mayor Gnome gave a gift of grass; triple grass like “triple salad.” All Paradise Piggies were rejoicing and weeweeing in unison. Mayor Gnome is well on his way to another term.

Mayor Gnome. Harvest Time. Reaping the Rewards of his Hard Work!

Belize, Food, Our Products

Coconut and Rice Flour Pizza with Sausage Topping.

April 25, 2015 Munchkin

Hi Everyone, since we are selling our farm-fresh Coconut Flour and Rice Flour in The Apothecary, I thought I would post up a recipe for pizza made with these ingredients. There is no wheat flour added so it can be eaten as part of a gluten-free diet. The eggs and the xanthan gum act to bind the flours giving elasticity to the dough. You will find this pizza slightly more crusty and biscuit-like in texture…which gives a delicious nutty “bite” to the eating experience. For the topping, I have put sliced sausage, onions, fresh tomatoes and mozzarella cheese. Oh, and some rosemary and thyme too.

Enjoy…this is what we had for lunch today.

For the full recipe, check out this link for Coconut and Rice Flour Pizza.

Casa Mascia Apothecary