Hi Everyone!! I am writing to let you know that Annette Vernon of Placencia Pop-Up Art will be selling our Casa Mascia Apothecary products at the Placencia Sidewalk Festival next weekend. She will have all the following goodies: Copal Medicinal Oil Vials, Copal Medicinal Ointment, Copal Medicinal Soap, Itch Done Gone, Lemongrass Insect Repellent Balm, Jackass Bitters and Neem Soap and White Pitahaya soap. Look out for all these products…
Sorry we won’t be there this year!! If there is anybody that wants something that is not on the list please email me. Cheers and have fun at the festival this year!!
The Paradise Piggies are totally hogging the Blog space with their adamant requests to re-locate to the Monastery. Mayor Gnome is building a Zen Garden to house the Zazen Duckies that have a genuine desire to meditate on the meaning of life. In the last post the Piggies were trying to convince Mayor Gnome of their noble lofty values in a bid to move to the Monastery. But somehow their message lost momentum when Treshawn requested having a baby first and Bob requested growing organic tomatoes and Barbie gave a mixed message about love, light and Jedi Piggies. Mayor Gnome told them to come back when they could decide on a clear and coherent philosophy.
Now this is what the Paradise Piggies have come up with. They would like to start up a School:
School Sign.
They want to call it The School of Life and the purpose of this place is to teach the “dance of life.” In order to convince Mayor Gnome of their spiritual desires, they did a public demonstration with their best dance piggie. This is Johnnie Daybreeze, dance piggie extraordinaire:
The Dance of Life.Dance of Life 2.Strike The Pose!!
They even had a tune to go with the dance…you need to listen to this and imagine this dance piggie prancing in front of you:
Any comments from Mayor Gnome?
“Hmmmmmm…I need to think about this.”
Anything else Piggies?
“Yes, Mayor Gnome just one more request. Can we change our name to Jedi Piggies by deed poll?”
Another gift from our missionary friend which we have coined Novelty Jesus Packets. On one hand, we are always grateful for the gifts bestowed on behalf of Jesus. On the other hand, we are aghast at this type of processed food in a packet. Each pack is supposed to hold one meal of pasta or rice. We found out that you can buy these rinky-dink things for $5.00 Belize Dollars. Do you know you can buy 5lbs of rice with that money? Or, five packets of pasta? Scary!!
Novelty Packets.
We tried the Chicken rice one…apparently you have to add your own half chicken and 1/2 lb slab of Monterey cheese to complete the meal. Am I missing something then? What is the point in buying the packet when you have to buy all the ingredients for it? Might as-well just buy rice, right?
We did attempt to cook it as a meal. However, I did not have the chicken and cheese to go with it:
Packeted Meal.
The original meal was supposed to be the rice portion on the upper left side. I had to add the rest because it looked rather pale, anaemic and sorry-looking. I added the greens to the rice to give it a bit of colour. The eggs and bread were a “last minute” make-over because the rice meal lacked ooomph!! Our verdict of the packeted rice: very, very salty and no interesting or pleasing flavour. Rather mundane. Nonetheless, the gift still provided an experience that we would otherwise not have and so I can now be certain that we are not missing out!
Mayor Gnome called an emergency meeting with the Paradise Piggies earlier in the day. If you have been following the events, you will know that Mayor Gnome is in the process of building a Zen garden to house the Zazen Duckies. The Paradise Piggies have made a special request to move to the Monastery.
Zazen Duckies Inspecting Zen Monastery.
Today Mayor Gnome explained to the piggies that the moving of their gated community of Paradise Pastures would be no mean feat as their home weighs a whopping 100kg (200lb). This would entail the movement of their home across a distance of 100 yards! He explained to the piggies:
A Very Serious Mayor Gnome.
“Piggies, you need to convince me that you are serious about your spiritual goals because moving your house to the monastery will be a lot of hard work…”
Are the piggies ready for the next move? These are a few answers from members of the Paradise Pastures community.
Treshawn Piggie:
Treshawn Piggie.
“I’m ready…just need to have a baby first…”
Bob Piggie:
Bob Piggie.
“I’m ready…spirituality is the most important thing in my life but I need to grow some mmm…organic tomatoes first.”
Barbie Piggie:
Barbie Piggie.
“Yes I know I am ready and it is time to take the next step. Yay…I want to be a Zazen Piggie! It is all about being Jedi, right? With the way of the Piggie, I will find the way…love and light. The force is strong in this one…WEEEEEEEEE!”
In amongst the general piggie noise of squealing and squawking, these were the most intelligible answers that Mayor Gnome managed to get. This was his reply:
“Piggies, you don’t seem know what you want. Come back to me when you can all agree on a spiritual goal!”
This is an easy snack made from very simple ingredients. Use your favourite bread recipe to make about 1 to 2 cups of dough (depending on how much fried yum yums you desire) and roll it out on a flat surface.
Mixing Dough.
Cut the dough into strips and then leave uncovered for about 2 hours if you are in the tropics. If you are in a temperate country, leave it out for about 4 to 6 hours.
When you are ready to fry, brush the surface of the strips with egg. Now, this is the inventive and exciting part and it is up to you how you flavour your breadsticks! You could try sesame seeds, anise, basil, garlic powder, Italian herbs, etc, etc. Just use your imagination!
This is what I did:
I separated the dough strips into three batches and with batch 1, I sprinkled rosemary and salt. Batch 2 had sprinkled paprika and salt and Batch 3 had brushed egg only; once fried and drained, sifted icing sugar was added.
Heat the vegetable oil to about 400F. Fry the bread sticks in the three batches. They should puff up nicely and cook within about 2 to 3 minutes. Drain well.
Fried Bread Sticks.
These are great as a snack or as an accompaniment to a meal. Our favourite was the batch sprinkled with icing sugar…savoury sweet!
If you recall in a previous article, there is a certain ground root that we coined “The Brain” because well, we thought it looked like a big brain!
Elephant Foot Yam.
Kind of…you really have to be a doctor to appreciate the brain thing. Other names are Amorphophallus paeoniifolis or elephant foot yam.
This is what the plant looks like:
The Brain.
It has a characteristic spotting on the stem and it also produces a beautiful flower. Ours hasn’t flowered yet so sorry, no picture as yet.
The good thing about this yam is that it can be harvested and stored for about 3 months. This is great for the tropics because most ground vegetables have to be processed soon after harvest or else they go bad…take for example cassava. Anyway, I left this brain out on the veranda for months before I found the time to sort it out. This is how you prepare elephant foot yam:
Wear a pair of gloves whilst processing as the uncooked root contains oxalic crystals which can cause itchy dermatitis. Firstly pare the root with a sharp knife and then cut into uniform cubes about an inch in size. Wash thoroughly with water.
Pare and Wash Elephant Foot Yam.
Next, place in a cooking pot with a teaspoon of salt. Bring to boil and cook for about 30 to 40 minutes. After this, add about 100g (3oz) of cream cheese to the pot and boil for another 10 minutes. Traditionally, in Indian cuisine, curds or tamarind paste are added at this point to further remove the itchy sensation caused by the oxalic acid. I had neither ingredient in my kitchen, so I opted to use Philadelphia Cream Cheese which seemed to work in the same way.
Processing The Brain.
Once tender, drain off the water. You can eat it at this point or bag it into smaller portions to store in the freezer. The yam can be eaten as a substitute in any potato dish and there are numerous traditional recipes on the Internet; usually in the form of wet and dry curries.
Cooked Elephant Foot Yam.
This yam grows prolifically in the Tropics and so I recommend that every self-sufficient person should have a patch of this growing somewhere on their land. This is great survival food because there is so much of it!
There is always something new to harvest on the farm. Right now, the mulberries have just started.
Mulberry Tree.
I will be collecting this fruit to make our very popular Mulberry Elixir. The final product is a beautiful dark purple colour and it has a lovely, rich berry taste.
This one is a local fruit called monkey cap. It has the consistency of peanut butter and is much-loved by the birds. For all bird-lovers out there, this is one to plant if want to attract all the birdies with pretty colours. The toucans like this one.
Monkey Caps.
The monkey cap tree also makes a nice ornamental for those into landscaping.
Monkey Cap Tree.
Oh, and last but not least…we got our first soursop of the year. Everyone in Belize loves this fruit. I can’t give it justice by describing it but it has a kind of wet cotton-like consistency with a unique tropical fruit taste. I asked Gnome to help me describe the flavour and this is what he said:
“Well…it tastes like a soursop!”
Well, Thank-you Gnome…that was extremely helpful!!
This post is especially for two special ladies who were the previous owners of the doggies that we have on our farm…yes, you know who you are!!
Overweight Doggie.
We will start off with our Fat Doggie who can’t stop stuffing her face.. she likes to forage around the farm and eat copious amounts of fallen fruit and coconuts. She is a whopping 88lbs in weight now!! In an attempt to get her weight down, I have been feeding her a low calorie diet of rice, beans and green vegetables once daily only. I have also been restricting the meal to half the usual amount. She has been coping well with the new diet although, I do have to confess that she does whine and complain a fair bit. No doggie treats allowed right now!
Oh, and this is Mad Doggie…
Mad Doggie.
She is the one that used to eat walls and so her owner was forced to find a new home (our farm) for her. After a whole string of mad and frenzied farm animal killings, she has calmed down considerably over the years. We attribute some of these changes to self-therapeutic toad-licking and the judicious use of a training collar. Now, she can run around on the farm without attacking a single animal and she responds to commands. Phew…we nearly gave up on her at one point but fortunately we have managed to train here. Sit…good doggie!!
Hi Everyone…Gnome here…I’ve updated the 
