Anyone for Pumpkin Bhaji? Whilst living in Scotland, I used to really enjoy Indian food especially the onion bhaji. Since we are still having a marathon run of pumpkins, I decided to make these Indian-style fritters. Check out my recipe for Pumpkin Bhaji in Belize Wild Recipes.
Pumpkin Bhaji.Pumpkins From the Farm.
In this recipe, I used pumpkin, onions and red jalapeños.
Chopped Vegetables.
The batter is made with rice flour so it is completely gluten-free. And of course, the most important flavouring is turmeric (yellow ginger, as they call it here in Belize).
We spent the day processing cassava since we had received a big burlap sack of this “ground food” as a gift. We also added our own cassava to this…our type is the esteemed yellow variety which has the hearty taste of wholesome potatoes. Altogether we probably had about 10kgs (22lbs) of fresh vegetable.
Cassava Roots.
As soon as you harvest cassava, it should really be eaten or processed within 24 hours. Otherwise, they start going bad quickly and become discoloured. When freshly dug up from the ground, the outer part peels off easily.
Peeled Cassava.
After peeling and washing, we cut the root into inch size pieces and steamed them in bamboo steamers placed in our mega-sized pressure cooker.
Steaming Cassava.
Next, we put these cooked cassava pieces through the meat grinder to get them into a soft pellet-like consistency. We put this out to sun-dry this afternoon and will probably continue this for about three days until they get bone dry. We will end up with about 1kg (2lbs) of dried material. After that, we are going to experiment with the dried ingredient. We are hoping that the dried cassava can be re-hydrated instantly with hot water to give an instant “cuppa cassava” meal (like instant ramen noodles)! Great for packed lunches and On-The-Go!! Wow…it takes three days to make an instant meal…too funny!!
The Mayan Cacao Fruit Balam is now in season. We have a few trees on the farm and this year they have been very generous.
Balam Fruit.
This is Theobroma bicolor which is different from the Theobroma cacao in appearance and taste.
Theobroma cacao.
The Mayan cacao is also called “Balam” and it produces white beans as opposed to black/purplish beans of the normal variety of cacao. The pulp around the beans taste of sweet musk melon.
Opened Balam Fruit.
We have had such an abundant crop that we have been eating the fruit everyday; it is really nice chilled in the refrigerator for a couple of hours…it really brings out the strong fruity flavour.
Balam Fruit.
We also make a Balam Elixir with the pulp of this fruit. The maturation process brings out the muskiness of the fruit and the end product tastes like a fragrant whisky.
Hello Everyone!! For our dedicated followers out there, you may remember that about a week a ago, Gnome gave me two banana blossoms (flowers) to give to the guinea pigs. I promptly refused because I was determined to make yum-yums out of them.
Banana Blossoms.
Well, I did some research on preparation of the banana blossom for cooking and this is what I did.
I took off the outer petals (bracts) of the banana flower, layer after layer, until I got to the inner piece which looked like a little cabbage.
Outer Parts of Banana Flower.
While taking off each petal, there was a layer of florets in between the bracts, which are pictured below.
Cleaning Banana Flower.
According to my research, you can eat these florets by painstakingly going through each one of these to remove the outer calyx and the pistil. I did one for the picture and then thought to myself that it was extremely tedious and I wasn’t bored and hungry enough to do the rest.
I finally got to the heart of the flower.
Cleaning Banana Flower.
I cut it into pieces, as instructed, and placed them in vinegar water to remove the tannic properties.
Soaking Banana Flower.
After, a couple of hours, the tannin was partially removed to leave edible parts that tasted like cabbage. They didn’t taste that great and I didn’t think that it was worth all the trouble of preparation and soaking time to get something so bland and uninteresting.
I decided to give the rest to the piggies after-all.
Piggies Like Banana Blossom.
In conclusion, I am glad that I tried to prepare the banana blossom so that I could make up my own mind as to whether it was worth it or not. Outside the cultural context of eating banana flowers in India and South East Asia, I can only view this as a poor cabbage substitute. For the amount of energy, time and effort required in preparation, I would rather give these flowers to the piggies to enjoy.
Hello Everyone!! All of a sudden, it is very, very wet. The air feels really damp and muggy. Still no need to complain; we are getting bountiful water to wash clothes to my heart’s content and I can have plentiful hot showers through-out the day!
The farm continues to give generously and there is always stuff to harvest everyday. The carambola (or starfruit) are bearing; I have to pick them partially green before the birds and the bees get to them.
StarFruit.
These are the rogue pumpkins that were missed in “The Hidden Pumpkin Technique” which I described a few weeks ago. The pumpkin patch is still going strong and with these new rains, we are getting a second round of flowering.
Rogue Mature Pumpkins.
In this technique, the pumpkins grow and sink into the tall grass; whilst hidden from the hungry eyes of critters and bugs, they can be left to grow flawlessly without a single burrowed hole or bite-mark.
Pumpkin Patch.
Oh, and last but not least…banana flowers…
Banana Flowers.
This morning, Gnome cut these down and instructed me to give them to the guinea pigs. I gave him a funny look and said,
“I heard that humans can eat them too!”
Gnome said that he had heard about people eating them in India but he wasn’t convinced about the potential tastiness of the banana flower.
Not Convinced!
Well, I looked at them and convinced myself that they looked a bit like artichokes and therefore there could be some potential for yumminess. Well, let’s see…tomorrow, I am going to try cooking them. Watch this space for the results!!
Hi Everyone!! If you are a regular reader, you may remember that our well pump broke about 6 months ago and we have been relying on rain-water since then. Thankfully we have had rain water without much of a hitch since we live in the district of Belize with the highest rainfall. Coupled with hope, prayers and chorusing with the frogs, water has not been an issue….well, until recently. It has been so dry for 14 days now (this dryness is sooooo rare for this region and we are not in dry season) we are down to about half of a 550 gallon tank only so we are on Red Alert!! Bucket Washes and no showers.
The saga continues…
Early yesterday morning, Gnome noticed water dripping out of a hole in our water tank (our rainwater tank). Remember, there is no water in the well-pump tank. He went over to have a better look and discovered that a nail from the water tower had punctured through the base of the tank and we were fast losing our precious water. With Gnome swiftness, he used a hose-pipe to transfer the water into the empty well tank. Phew!! Thank-you Gnome for noticing…because if he had not noticed the dripping water, we would have no water left by the end of the day.
Rotting Water Tower With Exposed Nails.
Rain Water Tank Dripping Water.Transferring Water To Empty Tank.
Okay, so we need rain. And we are looking at the weather report and there are no indications of rain. We are now looking further afield for hopeful signs through frog ribbitting, rain hawks, the man in the shop down the road and whatever takes our fancy.
Still no signs. Arrrrghhhh!!!
We still hope. The man in the shop said,
“It no look like it rain but sometime it come from nowhere!”
In anticipation, Gnome has patched up the water tank to receive rainwater.
Hole in Water Tank.Preparing to Patch Tank.
Anyone know a good Rain Dance? Munchkin and Gnome are prepared to Boogey On Down!!
We have only written three posts in the last month so I am using this post as an opportunity to catch up. We have actually had very hot and dry weather for about 10 days with no rains until today actually. In the last 3 to 4 days we had to go on “red alert” as the water supplies were going down fast. This meant bucket washes (no long showers) and hand-washing clothes. The well-pump still has not been fixed yet but Gnome has a plan to use compressed air to pump the water up to the surface…all we need is a compressor.
I have heard the frogs ribbitting on for rain and we have even joined them in their gloriously orchestrated croaking. The grey clouds are gathering above our house as we speak! Let us continue Ribbitting!! We are down to half a 550 gallon tank of water and we need two 550 gallon tanks totally filled up. When we are on “red alert” a lot of activities are postponed including soap-making…this requires a lot of water for washing up and cleaning of big pots, buckets and utensils.
I will leave you with some pictures from The Spice Farms which is situated in Golden Stream in Toledo, on the Southern Highway of Belize. The place is owned by another fellow medical doctor (anaesthetist) from the United States, formerly from Kerala, India. Being Doctors/ Wannabee Farmers together, Dr. Mathew was nice enough to give us a guided tour of his establishment last week. Lots of vanilla, black-pepper, cinnamon and other spice plants to see.
Hello Everyone!! More fruits in season and this time it is the peach palm which is also known as pejibaye (Bactris gasipaes). These palms are an essential for anyone looking to grow lots of food for themselves. They start bearing within 3 to 5 years of planting and can produce for up to 75 years. It is a significant crop because it produces edible peach palm fruits, heart of palm and flowers. The heart of palm can be harvested from suckers so you need not lose the whole tree to procure this food (compare this to the cohune palm in Belize which is traditionally cut down for this ).
Peach Palm.
Today we harvested a single bunch of this fruit; one bunch weighed 10kgs (22lbs). We have about 20 more bunches to harvest and this is only from 2 trees. We probably have about 20 pejibaye trees on the farm so you can imagine the amount of food that we can harvest from them eventually. It will end up being a significant staple for us. Plus it will feed the rest of the animals.
Fresh Peach Palm Bunch.
To be honest, we have had problems eating peach palms and we have not been especially enamored by the texture. We find them stodgy, fibrous and difficult to digest. To prepare them, we halve the fruit, take out the seed and boil them in a vat of water for a couple of hours (I have read that they are boiled for 5 hours but if you did that, they would just turn to mush). The result is a carbohydrate which is not bad tasting (maybe at a push like sweet potato) but really heavy on the stomach. You certainly could not eat an entire plateful of them!
Anyway, today we decided to do some experimentation in order to find a way that we could eat peach palm so we took a bunch of peach palm, de-seeded them and boiled them.
Boiled Pitted Peach Palm.
To get a good homogeneous mash, we then put them through a meat grinder (blender was too small for the large quantities).
Grinding Peach Palm.
We took a third of this to sun-dry. Another third was just bagged and frozen and the last third, we made into peach palm paste (like lotus seed paste or red bean paste) for Chinese sweets like mochi balls and Moon Cakes. This was the result…we even stamped them to make them look authentic. The sweet paste actually tastes very good (yay…a success) and the added sugar seems to make it more digestible.
Sweet Peach Palm Paste.
Watch this space for more peach palm recipes and experimentation!
Wow!! It was unbelievably hot today with a temperature of 32oC (90oF) and a realfeel of 47oC (117oF). How can one get any farm work done??
Anyway, I would like to introduce you to a new fruit in season which goes by a few names including Eggfruit and Canistel (Pouteria campechiana).
Ripe Eggfruit.
This fruit is indigenous to Central America but despite this, it is not found readily in the backyards or jungles of Belize. Many people, including locals, have never seen or heard of it and the few people who actually have this tree actively made efforts to procure this particular fruit tree.
It is one of those fruits of Tropics which can never be viably exported because once it is harvested, it needs to be eaten immediately, probably within 48 hours before it starts fermenting. This fruit comes in different shapes and sizes; some are long and pointed like the picture above and some are more ovoid in shape. They can be eaten out of hand and in common literature it is described as having the texture of boiled egg yolk (hence the name). I think it tastes like cooked (mashed) sweet potato and to my palate, because of this carbohydrate taste and texture, it fits more appropriately into savoury dishes. But that’s just me!! I read that other people make ice cream and milk shakes out of this fruit.
We always look forward to canistel season which usually falls into September and October. We have four baring trees and they can be very generous hence the reason why we are eating eggfruit everyday. This of course, calls for a lot of imagination because if you eat them the same way everyday, you will naturally get bored of them. So here are a few pictures of my canistel creations. By the way, some pictures include pumpkin…
Lots of Pumpkin!
…so, to be more accurate, we are eating eggfruit and pumpkin everyday!!
Mashed Canistel (like mashed potato):
Mashed Canistel.
Canistel seared on a skillet:
Canistel in Skillet.
Avocado stuffed with young pumpkin and canistel.
Stuffed Avocado.
Seared Canistel with Pumpkin and Spicy Sausage with Steamed Callaloo.
Canistel Pumpkin Dish.
There are more pictures which I will post them as recipes over the next week or so.
Go forth and find some Eggfruit to eat…they are yummy!!
