Category Archives: Saving Money

Pasta Colours in Belize.

November 29, 2020 Munchkin

If you happen to have a pasta maker lying around in the kitchen during this new COVID 5am to 9pm curfew and you are stuck indoors with bad weather, you might want try your hand at making colourful pasta with the ingredients in Belize. I thought we could have a lively discussion about pasta colours today since were just talking about pasta yesterday…if you can think of anything better…I am all ears!! Yes, this is another Bored in Belize project!

The green colour in pasta is originally made with spinach greens. Here in Belize, there is a popular green called calaloo which is from the amaranth family. On our farm, it comes up everywhere as a voluntary vegetable.

I collected a whole bunch of calaloo and boiled it until it turned to mush…then I added this to flour to make the dough for pasta. The resulting colour was very nice and Gnome said that it looked like authentic spinach pasta…if you look carefully, there is a mottled green colour.

I was very pleased with this colour as we had previously tried spirulina, a high protein algae that Gnome grows for the animals. When it is freshly harvested, it is a very intense green colour:

Splat!! Spirulina looks like a big green glob and we thought it would be perfect as a colour additive in pasta. This is what we got:

It doesn’t look so bad but as it ages, it actually acquires a blue tinge to it which looks less appetizing. I don’t have a picture of the aged pasta but I have one of spirulina ice-cream; it is a funny cyan colour:

Anyway, the calaloo experiment was so much better. Another colourful ingredient that you can use is cacao powder which imparts a rich colour and chocolatey taste:

To get a vibrant yellow colour in pasta, turmeric works very well:

Alas, we have not finished our colour experiment yet because if you read our last post, you will know that our pasta machine has stopped working. We still need to find a nice red colour…I don’t want to use tomatoes because that would be too straight forward…what about ground annatto? Hopefully this will be a later blog if we ever find another pasta machine!!

Belize, Food, Saving Money

Another One Bites the Dust!

November 28, 2020 Munchkin

I am, of course, referring to the demise of our third pasta maker. These pasta makers…you know one of those ubiquitous $50.00 to $100.00 ones that claim they are Italian-made…can’t withstand the rigours of a Gnome pasta marathon. We got twenty-five hours out of then it started groaning and creaking and before we knew it, it carked it good and proper. We reckon that these pasta machine only have a 20 to 25 hour working life…

Aawwh…we were only on day 3 of 7 and had just done the lasagna sheets and linguini…we were just about to start the angel hair…

Gnome took the machine apart to try to fix it. He noted that the gears were made of a soft alloy and had completely worn out and lost shape. He has seen this problem with all our former machines and it seems that no matter what brand of pasta machine (this third one was a slightly more expensive, top of the range) they are designed with a short length of usage in mind.

Hmmm…these pasta makers should just be labelled with: Ornamental Pasta Maker: For Countertop Presentation Only with a special message for Gnomes: Warning: On no account should you be fooled into thinking that this is a fully operational pasta maker!

Anyway, we are mourning the loss and feeling a bit put out. Between Hurricane Eta, Iota and the usual high rainfall here in Toledo, we have been stuck indoors for over a month. It is either flooded or very wet outside so no farm work can be done. We were hoping to get our 2020 Pasta run accomplished. Here are some pictures of what Gnome managed to crank up:

This is a ‘cheese roll’ that Gnome made; there is a central length of cheese which is then rolled in layers of thin dough (made with the pasta maker). Before the dough is rolled, grated cheese and chilli flakes are sprinkled onto the flat sheet. In all, this cheese roll was made with about 6 feet of flattened sheet dough. You get a nice patterned effect like this:

Ohhh and Ahhh…it is crunchy in texture and tastes delicious!!

Gnome also made pastry for beef pie:

We made this food in between pasta runs so that when we had a break, we could eat something yummy. We did also make pasta:

Oh, and this time, we made green pasta from calaloo greens; more about colouring pasta in a later post. The colour turned out very well:

Do you like the picture?? This was my attempt at a fancy ‘coffee table’ picture!!

Belize, Farming, Saving Money

Gnome’s Garbage Stove.

April 7, 2018 Munchkin

What have we been up to: boiling potatoes with garbage!! Gnome’s Garbage Stove (TM 🙂 ) is a stove that runs on garbage including twigs, plastic, leaf litter, organic material and generally all your bits of rubbish that you throw out. Oh you can also use charcoal. Anyway, this is Gnome’s copy of a gasifier stove; Gnome says,

“…a gasifier stove takes solid fuel made up of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and turns it into natural gas which you can burn for heat and energy.”

Gnome says that if you need more information: just look up gasifiers on your favourite search engine. Okay, Gnome!! But not every-one can make something out of reading just a Wiki entry…

(Munchkin: here, try woodgasifierplans.com)

…the advantages of this is that it is a smokeless stove and it doesn’t produce soot. And of course, the fuel is completely free because it runs on garbage.

How does it work, Gnome?

“…the heat vaporises the solids and the gas produced is ignited by the metal of the hot stove which keeps the tin hot which then creates more gas…and runs the stove.”

So we did a run with the stove yesterday. We did something simple: boiled potatoes.

Here are the pictures with some running commentary:

Gasifier stove with inside tin which has to be filled up with garbage to burn:

Garbage:

Oh, and bits of plastic too; can get rid of bottle tops and plastic bottles. Don’t use too much of this, needs to be balanced with other organic material.

This is the filled stove: twigs, plastic, bit of corn cob. Panda’s fire-starter in the middle.

After you light stove, you can supplement with charcoal if you want:

See: the flame is clean and the whitish vapour is the gas which is produced by the gasifier which is being burned as fuel.

Eventually the stove gets hot and more flames spill through the holes from the inside tin:

Heating up potatoes:

The potatoes took 15 minutes to get to a rolling boil and then 8 minutes to cook. Once cooked, most of the garbage turned to charcoal and a little bit of heat was left ie. not enough to cook anything else or boil water.

Overall, I told Gnome that I was pleased with his innovation and that I was willing to try “steamboat” with the stove for dinner. We had a lovely dinner last night: dipping slivers of beef with Chinese veggies and finally eating the soup with rice noodles. The stove stayed warm enough for the whole dinner event which took about an hour. Gnome says that he will continue modifying and he is now looking for larger tins/ metal pots and vessels to make larger size models. That’s because I promised him another steamboat dinner tonight! 😉

Belize, Energy Saving, Farming, Saving Money

Tin Smithing with Gnome.

December 29, 2017 Munchkin

Hello!! Despite designating this time as “rest period” to get ready for the new year’s major work on the farm, Gnome is still tinkering around. Right now, we are renovating (actually, we are always in this state and will remain in this state for a long time) and we are back to cold water showering awaiting the re-location of the hot water shower. Because it has been so cold (20C/68F), we have resorted to bucket washes with hot water. Water requires energy to heat up so we were burning through a butane tank like there was no tomorrow (we bathe a lot). So, Gnome put his “Saving Money” cap on and decided to try making a home-made charcoal burner made out of an old milk tin. This is a prequel to Panda’s last entry about the Gnome Mk1 Charcoal burner. We thought that Panda was in a similar situation with hot water requirements, so Gnome also gave him one of these to try out.

Pictures of Tin Smithing with Gnome:

Make holes in tin with hand drill:

Then make air holes, at the bottom of the tin, with a jig saw:

The square air holes are not completely cut out and are bent into the tin to form a shelf for mesh wire. This is Panda’s picture which shows the air holes:

Charcoal (filled right up to the top) is then placed on the mesh wire and a fire is started:

It is important to place a piece of metal on top of the tin to allow partial elevation of the cooking pot; we used an old hob ring.

Viola! Water boiling in a kettle:

Note: use manky camp-fire kettles and pots. Do not use your fine cookware on these stoves or you will be scrubbing a lot!! The tin full of charcoal lasts for about 1 or 2 hours so you can boil quite a lot water and then cook a meal afterwards. Basic food can be made like toasting bread and cooking thinly sliced sweet potato:

Cooking with the charcoal burner:

This design is not perfect (yet!) and Gnome is working on a new model with air flow control and a handle. Watch this space…

Energy Saving, Fermentation, Saving Money

Downsizing Again!

July 29, 2017 Munchkin

Hello Everyone. It’s a lovely sunny day and we’ve decided to take it easy today. The freezer marathon is nearly over and I have learnt a lot about proper conservation from this experience. I am down-sizing from a 30 cubic feet freezer to a 10 cubic feet (partly because the big old freezer is not working well and is sucking up electricity like there is no tomorrow). It was a tremendous feat and quite an eye-opener. Firstly, I realised that I got into a really bad habit of throwing anything I could find into the freezer because I had the luxury of space. This led to chaos and dis-organisation reigning supreme and I could never remember where anything was located let alone know what I actually had.

I feel a tad embarrassed to tell you that about a quarter of the freezer was taken up by fruit (which I was saving to make wine or ice-cream…whenever…at some point in the dim and distant future). I had about 400 sapodilla fruit packed in the freezer amongst a medley of other tropical fruit purees. When we did our canning marathon, this fruit amounted to only 30 quart sized jars that take up very little space on my shelf (certainly not 7.5 cubic feet!).

Another quarter of the big freezer was taken up by about 50 packets of pre-cooked cassava. We managed to convert this into a 5 gallon bucket of cassava miso which is sitting in the corner of the kitchen (inconspicuously taking up a lot less space that 7.5 cubic feet!).

Converted to miso:

We also canned a 20lb bag of black beans:

I am amazed that I have freed up so much space by simply changing the preservation methods. Plus, I am saving on electricity.

We have 84 quart jars of preserved food including fruit purees, chicken feet(!) and beans. That’s it…it took up soooo much space in the freezer!!

The rest of my food (which I would prefer to keep frozen) fits very neatly into a 10 cubic feet freezer. Phew…small is indeed the way to go…makes my life a lot simpler. Yes, I can actually find food now without my usual crazy chaos! And, Gnome has urged me to to keep an inventory and has made up a simple program on the computer for me to use. Everything is neatly packed in the freezer with clear labelling. What a difference it makes to be able to find food quickly….Ha-Ha, I have to laugh at myself sometimes!

Belize, Saving Money

Shoppin’ in Punta Gorda.

June 10, 2017 Munchkin

Hello Every-one!! Hope y’all having a great Saturday. I ran out of photographs for the Blog posts yesterday and pondered upon what fun farm pictures to take. It then suddenly dawned on me that I haven’t taken any recent pictures of Punta Gorda. PG is the main town in Toledo District, Belize and we live about 16 miles outside this town. This is where we go for our shopping supplies. For all of our readers who haven’t been to PG before, you’ll be amazed at how “little” it is and the complete lack of shopping malls or centres (ie. there are none). The population of Punta Gorda is about 5021 (census 2010).

When I was walking through Punta Gorda yesterday thinking of what pictures to take, I realised that I was just “used to the place.” To many of you out there, you’ll just shudder at the “lack of facilities” and “lack of services” but these are some of the reasons why we are here. The place certainly does not over-burden you with a sense of consumerism! You can only buy necessities here. I think the place is conducive to adopting a healthier approach to living and there is a less of a feeling to “shop just because you want to buy something.”

It saves you a lot of money because there are no “nice things” to buy!! Gnome describes the items that you don’t need which end up gathering dust and occupying space in your house “kipple.”

Anyway, here is the centre of the town with the clock-tower.

When we first came here about 13 years ago, there were hardly any cars about. You could actually park you car in the middle of the road, run into a shop for 5 minutes and be back in your car without any car needing to get pass you. Now the streets are totally filled up with parked cars. This is Punta Gorda on a busy Friday morning. I know…I know…all you guys out there probably think that it looks dead!

This is the new Market Place. Not sure what to say…it’s just well, there. I’m a bit of a traditionalist and rather liked the previous market place which was just the road-side. But times are changing…and even Punta Gorda is changing:

Inside PG Market:

There are also stalls along the side:

If you don’t want to sell at the market, you can always just park on the side of the road and display your wares:

Clothes shopping is a tad dicey here. There are second hand stalls with clothes from the States. At least here you can attempt to find something in cotton but finding the right size is difficult (especially when you are wee like me). Also, the clothes aren’t cheap; cotton t-shirts go for a premium at BZD10 (USD5) and men’s cotton pants can go for BZD30(USD15).

I suppose you can always go to the Guatemalan stall to buy a dress instead…ooooh…I wonder which one of these would go best with my yellow wellies on the farm…

This is the Farm Supply Centre where we get our hard-ware and farm stuff:

This is Punta Gorda Post Office.

That’s all Folks…that’s Punta Gorda for you. It grows on you and it’s full of friendly faces!!

Belize, Farming, Food, Philosophy, Plants, Saving Money

Car Stuff And Farm Stuff!

April 29, 2017 Munchkin

The last few days, we’ve been having a bit of car trouble; we were driving back home and the fuel warning light came up. Of course, we didn’t know what that meant so Gnome had to phone up the Toyota dealership to ask them about the light. This is what he was told over the phone: get a new fuel filter, get a car mechanic to install the fuel filter and then get the mechanic to re-set the warning light. This is what Gnome did: get a fuel filter, do a Google search on “how to install a fuel filter” and “how to reset a warning light.”

There was enough information on the Internet for a Gnome, without any car mechanic skills whatsoever, to install the fuel filter. We would ordinarily have just paid to get it done but this time Gnome said to me,

“…wait a minute…between the messing around with a mechanic and paying for it, maybe it’s just easier if I have a go at doing it myself.”

And so he did. His conclusion was that generally car stuff is quite simple and straight forward and if you actually take the time to read up instructions on the Internet, you can generally get it done yourself. He did say as an after thought:

“…I’m talking about car stuff…not medical stuff…there are too many people who get on the Internet to make a self diagnosis and get it wrong.”

That for true, I can vouch for that!! Too many people using Dr Google!!

Anyway, with the car thing, I am really glad that Gnome works with the philosophy of self-reliance and he’s not afraid to learn new things all the time.

Okay, so what’s happening on the farm? Well, we have some new harvests. This is suriname cherry which has a lovely resinous taste. I have taken a picture of one pristine cherry because we seem to have something that is biting holes in all of them. I can’t spot what is causing it but I think that we have a problem with ants.

Some nice cayenne chilli peppers. Gnome has strung these on a string in the kitchen to dry.

Oh, and these are canistel. They taste like sweet potato; we actually eat this with our meals as a carbohydrate substitute. Our tree is loaded this year! Yay!!

Ooooh…it is really punishingly hot right now!! Try to keep cool everyone!!

Amusing, Belize, Saving Money

Shilling Bag Fun!

February 27, 2017 Munchkin

In Belize, the ubiquitous flimsy black plastic bag is called a “shilling bag.” As-well as having its normal function as a bag to hold groceries (try to get back home before the hole at the bottom gets bigger!!), there are many novel uses which are employed in this country.

Here are a few examples:

Foot Protectors: wear on open-toed sandals to stop feet getting muddy in the wet season.

Shoe Protectors: when you are wearing pretty patent shoes and don’t want to get them mucky before the party.

A shower cap: when you can’t find a shower cap to buy in the whole of Punta Gorda.

A sleeping bag for the cat…was rather chilly the other night!! Other cats…don’t try this at home…there is danger of suffocation. We have a savvy farm cat.

Next time, Wet Season fashion with Construction Plastic Ponchos…one size fits all!!

Belize, Farming, Food, Saving Money

Ten Coconuts and Security.

February 21, 2017 Munchkin

One of the main reasons why I write posts on self-sustainable farming is to encourage others to do the same. I would like people to realise that yes, it is hard work (you can’t just sit around and talk all day) but also, you can use your brains to be innovative.

Spending the time doing things on the farm cuts down the need for money to buy things. Basically you are exchanging your physical labour in order to be less of a consumer.

Oh by the way, just in case you haven’t realised, we do all our own work on the farm. We do not hire anyone to do our work, in any aspect of our lives, because part of our philosophy is independence and healthy living.

The way that we process ten coconuts at a time is a perfect example of time well spent on the farm. Ideally, we would like to this every morning but life does get in the way, as it always does, and we are thwarted by weather, other pressing farm jobs, general maintenance, machinery that needs fixing, Apothecary orders and of course, medical call-outs.

If you sell 10 coconuts at the market, you will get $10 Belize Dollars. We have chosen not to do that because you can get so much more out from each coconut.

The husks and shells can be used for mulch on the farm:

Shells can be used as vessels to hold food for poultry:

When you crack open the coconuts, there is coconut water. You still get water from oil coconuts…of course, you get more from water coconuts. This can be consumed or it can actually be used as a highly nutritional plant irrigation water (contains sodium, potassium, calcium and magnesium).

The coconuts are grated by hand by Gnome:

Coconut milk and coconut cream can be squeezed from this; Munchkin’s job:

Coconut milk has a high protein content; it can be added to stews, breads and anything really to boost protein content and flavour. In addition, coconut milk (and cream) can be used to make very nice desserts.

Coconut Haupia:

We bag the coconut cream to use in cooking; it can be used in stews, curries, desserts, anything really! At this point, the cream can be further processed into coconut oil to make our soaps and stuff. If we have excess, we sell these in Supaul’s in Punta Gorda.

Okay, still not done yet!! After squeezing out the cream and milk, you get the left over coconut meal. Once the fat has been extracted, it now becomes a very high protein product(12 to 14%…compare to corn which is between 9 to 11%). This can be sun-dried and then milled to make coconut flour:

Or, it also makes great animal feed. All manner of poultry like it and even our guinea pigs are quite partial to it too:

Go on then…plant a few coconuts in your back yard for food security…it’s great stuff!!

Amusing, Belize, Farming, Saving Money

Good-Bye Yellow Wellies!!

February 12, 2017 Munchkin

Alas, I had to scrap my pair of yellow wellies. These were a spanking pair of wellies that I picked up in Brodies a couple of years ago. I loved them so much that I wore them all the time…even with my street gear and my prim and proper doctor’s attire.

Anyway, it is soooo wet in Toledo you have to wear boots…well, that is what I think after living here for 13 years. I distinctly hate wearing open toed shoes here because I don’t like getting mud in between my toes (just a personal preference). Anyway the boots have a history and we (Gnome and I) have romantically dug dirt, planted trees and done the farm chores together with these boots. So much so that they got into a real state. They became a rather manky yellow:

Duckie even imprinted on us because we both had “yellow feet.”

Anyway, they started getting too many holes and cracks so there was no point in wearing them as they had lost their purpose of protection. Of course, Gnome got a hold of the throw-away before I cast them into the fire.

“Oh, they are made of a very good material…you can make rather good gaskets with that….I’ll take them thank-you very much!”

And so my dear yellow wellie boots will live on as gaskets…I had to ask him: What’s a Gasket??!! He demonstrated by making the first one for the blender so that the liquid would stop leaking out:

Ahhhh…that’s what a gasket is…it forms a seal between two things to stop leakage. Munchkin learned something!!

Pretty handy and it works well so I can’t complain. Long live the yellow wellies in Gnome’s transformation magic.

Casa Mascia Apothecary