Yes, it was a town day with the usual madness of rushing about, delivering stuff, paying bills in between seeing patients and hailing passerbys. After all that, we sat by the sea with our Duckie Bag sipping coffee together.
Who needs a coffee shop when you can sit out here?
Always remember to take time to relax!!
A Big Thank-you to everyone for all the Birthday Greetings!! It is really nice to receive such warm wishes!
And Life Continues so here is the post of the day:
We have got tonnes of Malabar spinach (Basella alba) on the farm and so this means we are eating this mostly everyday! You quickly have to learn different ways of eating it or else it can get very boring.
Here are a couple of ways in which we have been eating this green with imagination and innovation!
It is great uncooked as a salad accompaniment to home-cooked Pan-Fried Chicken!
Easy Fried Rice with Malabar Spinach. Simply fry the rice and towards the end of cooking (last 2 minutes) add shredded malabar spinach and mix well.
It is wonderful growing, harvesting and cooking our food here on the farm!! And people ask us why we never go out for dinner…well, it’s because of this.
Malabar spinach (Basella alba) grows really well in Belize especially in wet places. Our patch is growing prolifically:
It is eaten as a leafy green; can be eaten uncooked in a salad or cooked lightly. This is a mucilaginous type of green which should not be over-cooked. When cooked with care (ie. very short cooking times of about 1 to 2 minutes) it adds taste, freshness and a soft crunch to a dish.
This is a recipe with pork, pumpkin and malabar spinach.
Served with Guatemalan imported linguini…but used in a noodle context since we are doing Chinese cuisine today:
Pork, Pumpkin and Malabar Spinach with Noodles:
Enjoy…I know I did!!
We have been buying unmarked plastic bags of these things for years from the local Chinese (Chiney) shop. We coined them “Fried Yum Yums” because we had no idea what they were called. Even if you are not familiar with the dried product, you may have seen street vendors selling this fried snack in plastic bags in Punta Gorda.
They look like dried pasta, either brown or white and come in all shapes and sizes including wagon wheels and twists. They are made from wheat flour, cornstarch and baking soda.
I can not find any documentation on the difference in ingredients between the two different colours. However, I think that the white variety has a “potato taste” compared to the “maize taste” of the brown kind.
They are deep-fried in oil and puff up when cooked.
Traditionally, this is actually a Mexican snack food called Duros. Apparently they are sold in plastic bags with salsa/ lime salt or hot sauce. We like to eat ours as an accompaniment to a bean stew and use the wagon wheels to scoop up the beans. Also, they make great mini baskets for hors d’oeuvre…just a little bit of imagination is needed to make a bite-size yum yum!!
Occasionally, we stumble across some good stuff to buy in Belize. Usually we don’t so that is why we make/grow and cook most of our food on the farm. Here are a few things:
Can you believe it…you can actually get some Italian Christmas Food at Save-U in Belize. Panettone is a treat because I haven’t summoned up enough courage to bake one of these yet…I keep on making the excuse that I don’t have a proper cake tin! Oh, and Torrone is Italian nougat which is typically eaten during the festive season. Gnome keeps on hinting that I should try making some…this one might be a project at some point. We both like the hard nougat as opposed to the soft type.
This is 20lbs of Basmati rice from Brodies. Normally, this rice is sold in tiny ridiculous amounts of about 200g (1/2lb) for stupid prices. This bag will last us a whole year.
This one is a surprise…Guatemalan pasta (linguini) has got the thumbs up from the Italian Gnome (he is Italian when it suits him). He says not to waste money on US imported brands because they usually contain more than just flour, water and salt and do not have the al dente texture. This stuff is really cheap and sold at every Chinese Superstore in Belize. One packet of 200g (1/2lb) costs BZ$1 and if you have a hoarding instinct (like Munchkins) you can buy a case of 24 for BZ$18. What a bargain.
Last but not least…something for the Duckie Bag. Vanilla and hazelnut coffee sachets for impromptu coffee stops by the side of the road with our trusty thermos flask.
Hello Everyone!! Thank-you to the people who responded to my question Who is/was Jonas? Where they any good? It appears that I have not missed anything on our 10 year Internet hiatus in the jungles of Belize. For all those people who did not respond, I don’t think that you actually realised that it was a real question!
It appears that our cat has taken a special interest in our Jonas bags…or is it the black bin liner? Isn’t it funny that we post pictures of our cat much like the way people post pictures of their babies?
Awwwhhhh…cute!! Have a Good Night!!
Hello Everyone!! Happy Cyber Monday to you all!! To commemorate this day of spectacular e-commerce shopping, I am offering 10% off ALL Apothecary items today. Sale ends Midnight tonight. Every buyer also gets a Free Collectors’ Edition Vintage Jonas Gift Bag!!
Check out The Apothecary for the new stuff including:
Enjoy Shopping!!
Can anybody tell us Who Jonas Are? Have we missed out on anything good? Somehow the last 10 years of Belize has acted as a time warp and we have no knowledge of current trends and popular fads. We have no idea.. are these guys old or new? Are they a Christian Pop Band? We have ended up with hundreds of Jonas Gift Bags and this is how it happened…
Just last week, our old missionary friend phoned me up and asked if I had ordered gift bags to be sent to his States address. I recalled that a long time ago (2 years to be exact) I had ordered some golden organza bags via Amazon, from China, to be sent to his address. They never appeared and so I had given them up for being lost in the post somewhere out there! So, when he mentioned Gift Bags, I immediately thought that they had at long last arrived. When our friend came to deliver the stuff he literally chucked a huge bin bag liner over the gate, a few token papayas and scurried quick smart back into his truck. He made a hurried excuse about needing a hair-cut, pushed the gas pedal down and was gone before I could even utter a word of thanks.
I opened up the bag and this is what I got. Hundreds of these in all shapes and sizes.
I have the sneaky suspicion that my missionary friend has happily off-loaded these bags onto me regardless of whether I have true ownership. I think they probably came from some church bazaar along with woolly jumpers and coffee mugs. Anyway, since I continue to receive gifts under the auspices of Jesus, I would like to extend this gesture by giving away a free Jonas bag with every International order from our website. Yay!! Start Shopping!!
We have made Moon Cakes, off season!! Well, as far as we are concerned, Moon Cakes should be happily enjoyed all year round!!
This time we used a yam paste which consists of lotus seed and the vegetable taro.
This is fresh taro…maybe we can make our own paste sometime.
We have stashed them in our Moon Cake Treasure Chest…
And, of course, a couple for the Duckie Bag. The Duckie Bag is our manual coffee/tea making facility (ie. thermos flask and teabags, coffee,sugar and milk) that we take with us everytime we go out.
Yum!!
