We always have something new on our farm to eat. This week it is the “flying potato.”
Flying Potato.
The latin name for this type of yam is Dioscorea bulbifera. This grows as a large vine and produces a generous crop within four to five months of planting. The yam can be picked and stored in a cool, dry place for a good couple of months without spoiling. And the best thing about them is that you don’t need to go digging about in the dirt for them…you just pluck them off the vine…providing that you are tall enough to do so! This is definitely a great food source for the Tropics.
Three Air Potatoes.Sliced Air Potato.
To eat, simply peel and wash. Then cook it like a potato: boiled, mashed, baked. roasted or what-ever takes your fancy.
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!!
People sometimes ask us what kind of green vegetables we grow on the farm to eat. This is mainly because, as doctors, we are always advising people to eat green, leafy vegetables for their high vitamin and mineral content which helps maintain healthy growth of cells and promotes healing. These people in turn, go to Punta Gorda market to look for them, only to find one common type of leafy vegetable to eat which is calalloo (Amaranth sp.).
Wild Calaloo.
This is fine to eat (though they still complain about the lack of variety) but also they are not found in such great abundance that they can be eaten in substantial proportions everyday. We eat about 100 to 200 grams (1/4 to 1/2 lb) of dried leafy green vegetable a day and this is the amount that we recommend to other people to eat.
Here in Belize, there is a plethora of greens that can be easily grown with the minimum of fuss and maintenance. You just need to regularly harvest (cut back) to stimulate growth and you will have them mostly all year round. The only time there might be a problem is the 2 months of dry season but this can be overcome with daily irrigation which should be possible for a small garden.
We Collect Fresh Greens Everyday.
Malabar spinach is a climbing vine. It grows really well in wet areas. You eat the leafy parts and discard most of the fibrous stem. It can be eaten raw in salads, steamed or stir-fried.
Malabar Spinach.
Chaya plants, also known as tree spinach, needs little maintenance and even survive through drought without much irrigation. They are best chopped finely and boiled for about 20 to 30 minutes.
Chaya.
A more familiar green for people from temperate countries is kale. They need a little bit more care and raised bedding; nonetheless, they can still be cultivated in the Tropics.
Kale.
This one is called Avuvo, apparently a well-known Nigerian green. The seed was given to us by somebody who had plans to grow Nigerian vegetables in Belize for an export market in the States. It grows prolifically.
Avuvo.
Ok, guys go forth and start your own garden of fresh green leafy vegetables! You will find that they taste so much better than the bought stuff! As well as providing ingredients for a healthy diet, maintaining a garden will keep you fit (c’mon …don’t hire a gardener!) and you can save money on your grocery bill.
Hello everyone!! It has been raining all day today so thankfully, our rain water shortage has been temporarily solved. The rainwater tank is almost half full and we have another full tank as back-up. Phew!! We are so pleased!!
Anyway, onto the subject of chili peppers…yesterday, was town day and it was a hectic run-around of seeing patients for the whole morning, meeting up with people for lunch and the usual in-between hailing of passerbys and acquaintances. Not to mention, the rushing around for supplies in between a packed day. By the time I got home at 4pm, I was exhausted. At this point, I started feeling lethargic and then it got worse because I started feeling sorry for myself. One thing led to another and I developed a headache, sore throat and a low-grade fever. I immediately recognised it as the beginnings of the ‘flu (or some sort of viral infection). Gnome knew there was a problem when I reached over to the computer to write a Blog post and I simply couldn’t even muster up the energy to type out the WordPress address. Gnome admonished me gently for being such an awful patient and told me to have a teaspoon of chili sauce, in a drink immediately.
Munchkin Sick and Feeling Sorry for Herself!
I happened to have a glass of beer in front of me (therapeutic dosage to warm myself up of course…honest) so I stirred in a teaspoon of chili sauce and downed it. As soon as I drunk it, it really hit the spot and the I felt an immediate release in my sinuses and head. I felt so much better.
Gnome’s Medical Prescription: Beer
Beer.
And one teaspoon of Chili sauce:
Red Bird Chili.
Culpeper describes this experience very nicely:
“…will so pierce the brain by flying up into the head through the nostrils, as to produce violent sneezings, and draw down abundance of thin rheum, forcing tears from the eyes…”
I went to bed soon after this, feeling nice and toasty. And so today, I still feel tired from fighting off the ‘flu and my energy levels are considerably lower. However, I have managed to keep the other symptoms at bay (fever, headache and cough) with a teaspoon of chili sauce in miso soup three times a day. By no means is this an instant cure-all but it does cut short the length of an ailment and lessons the symptoms so it is worth doing. I will probably continue this regime for the next 3 days at least. I have noticed that with natural remedies, it is not usually a once off dosage but rather a course.
Miso Soup with Chili.
Also, Chilis have nutritional value which can aid in mounting a proper immune response: vitamin A, C, E, B6, Potassium and Manganese and Riboflavin.
It is still raining here in Toledo…yay!! Have a Good Night everyone!!
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!
Hi Everyone!! The heavy night time rains have stopped for a few days and there are less puddles around the farm. The grass is long (again) and we are gearing up for another big clean up. Didn’t we just do that already?? Here are some pictures which I took whilst trudging about in my rubber boots…I try not to walk in deep puddles because I have a hole in one of my boots!
We have lovely purple basil growing which will be processed into pesto:
Purple Basil.
The last of the cashew fruit for the season…we have really enjoyed cooking with them this year in savoury dishes. Note also the funny looking bug on the green fruit.
Sideways Picture of Cashew Fruit.
These are bilimbi fruit which are really, really sour. So, far I haven’t found anything too exciting to do with these except for stir frys and soups. Any ideas?? Here in Belize, some people like to make a juice out of them but I personally find them a tad too tart.
Bilimbi Fruit.
This flower is of the Aristolochia sp.; they are start off looking like this and at this stage we call them alien pods:
Aristolochia gigantea.
When they open up they look like this and they exude an odious carrion-like smell to attract flies for pollination.
Open Aristolochia.
Beautiful baby woodrose flowers. Once the flowers mature, they produce a wood-like pod which looks like a wooden rose.
Baby Woodrose.
Sometimes I have to remind myself to stop and admire the beauty on our farm rather than running around like mad trying to achieve agendas. Have a good night everyone!! We are staying in tonight and I have made another one of these Chaos Cinnamon Cakes which I will lavishly drizzle with icing:
Monster Cinnamon Goo Cake!!
Ooooh yum!! We are going through a sweet phase right now!!
Oh, and for the rest of you 93.75% of readers who haven’t voted yet for the Favourite Candidate for the Mayoral Election 2015…Hint Hint!!
We have found a great way of growing pumpkins without the headache of caterpillars boring holes into them and all manner of insects laying their eggs in the growing fruit. Previously, we grew our pumpkins “high and dry” on beds so that we would be able to spot them for harvest. Unfortunately, this also meant that that all the other critters could see them too and we had all sorts of problems with infestations.
Rather fortuitously, a pumpkin patch grew out of a voluntary plant on the ground and it has grown into a monster.
Pumpkin Patch.
The surrounding perennial peanut and grass render the vegetables virtually undetectable to all. This is why we have called it the Hidden Pumpkin Technique. The pumpkins are deeply embedded in the grass and when picked, they are beautiful and pristine with no signs of insect damage.
All you need to do is to find a Munchkin to walk through the patch every day to try to spot any harvestable pumpkin. It can be a lot of fun because they are actually very hard to find and requires the keen eye of a forager.
We have been picking young pumpkins…at this stage, they taste just like courgettes (or zucchini).
Fresh Young Pumpkin.
I rarely allow the pumpkins to fully mature because I distinctly dislike hacking into the tough shell…it is so much work! They are so much sweeter when they are green and can be steamed like a vegetable.
Steamed Pumpkin with Miso Pasta.
We have been mostly eating pumpkin!!
Remember…you can still vote for your Favourite Candidate for the Mayoral Election 2015 for Paradise Piggies!!
We always have something new on our farm to eat. This week it is the “flying potato.”
