Toucans and Making Miso.

March 21, 2015 Munchkin

I’ve been banned from doing any real work today (using heavy machinery to clear brush) since I’ve been afflicted with horrible sinus headaches and a substantial load of snot and mucus (probably from smoking too many cigars…naughty, naughty!). I’ve tried to cooperate with my doctor’s prescription but being an obsessive compulsive git makes this sort of thing difficult…

Anyway, the results of my “light duties” include the following:

I finally managed to take a couple of shots of one of the toucans that come every morning around 0530-0600 and hang about on our Cotton Tree (Ceiba Tree) while we have our morning hot beverage. Check it out, I actually succeeded in taking not one but yes, two reasonable photographs!!

See, I can take photographs!! Two in less than a minute. Eat your heart out!!

Getting excited about miso, koji and fermentation again. With the help of Munchkin, we took out our three jars of experimental miso and bucket of soy sauce for a quick look-see:

This is what real (commercial) miso looks like.

You can see that our miso needs another six months at least before getting that smooth even texture. Our miso was made with rice koji and the ubiquitous Belizean Red Kidney Bean. It is still young but has a lovely floral, fruitiness that imparts a wonderful umami-ness to food.

The next jar we tried was our Chocolate miso: Rice koji and cacao nibs. Definitely needs another year to do its thing. We’re hoping it will turn out like a vintage hacho miso.

Noni miso is the next lot. I have to say this technically didn’t start off to be miso. It was an attempt to use rice koji to “malt” some rice to then ferment into a rice wine/beer; I didn’t like the way it was going though so, I mixed it all up with some noni fruit and seeds instead. Again, this would benefit from at least another year. Great umami-ness in this one as well that marries very well with the noni-ness. I predict that it will be a favourite.

Finally, the soy sauce…which doesn’t have any soy beans in it but rather black beans, fully fermented craboo (you can tell we are becoming Belizean), peach palm fruit and balam (and the necessary koji, of course). Yup, you guessed, needs another year and more frequent stirring. Came up with the idea to use a paint stirrer to really get everything agitated:

And here is the bucket:

Non-soy sauce after paint stirring accomplished. You can see the orange bits of craboo and balam in it.

We really need that Mallard reaction (no ducks are to be harmed in the process, I promise!!) to start happening in order to be taken seriously as a real non-soy sauce.

Oh yes, I also wrote a post after a long hiatus from the keyboard.

Anybody out there want a photograph of what is coming out of my sinuses?!?!?Munchkin not happy with that last statement.

PS: I didn’t take the miso photographs!! ;-P

Belize, Elixirs, Our Products

Elixir Time Again!

March 19, 2015 Munchkin

We had another Elixir Tasting at Cotton Tree Lodge last night. This time round, it was concentrated around individual flavours of Elixirs.

We started off with a Limecello…an elixir made from lime zest. This is a very interesting one to point out because I have noticed that in the last three tastings, somebody has consistently noted on its anise-like flavour. This is an amazing example of how a liqueur can capture and encapsulate such fine layers of taste and with time, the expressions of particular flavours become more accentuated to give such unpredictable and complex tastes so that the final result isn’t just one flavour. Wonderful!

And somebody always, in jest, compares the Lemongrass Elixir to a type of house-hold cleaner or “Pledge”. This time, Gnome shouted it out first so that no-one could get the chance!

The Lemongrass Elixir is always a winner with its unique spicy and citrus notes. If you are a beer drinker, one shot of this in beer gives it an extra twist…similar to a Shandy which is beer and lemonade. We like to call this concoction Atomic Shandy!

I brought out the sapodilla liqueur since this is the season for this fruit (you must realise that by now because I have taking about it for weeks) and passed pieces of the dry fruit around so that people could compare tastes. Everyone found the sapodilla liqueur warming with tastes of caramel and cinnamon…definitely a unique experience!

We had a thoroughly enjoyable tasting with this group of ten. Two of the group were repeat attendees from two years ago and so it was a pleasure to have their company again. Everyone was very lively and engaging and we found the enthusiasm very inspiring. Thanks to all who participated!!

Belize, Farming, Food, Saving Money

Dry Season…Time to Dry Fruit.

March 18, 2015 Munchkin

The days are becoming hotter and drier, with rains becoming fewer and far between. This is the time to harvest anything that you can get your hands on and dry it.

Sapodillas are still in season:

We have gathered quite a bit to sun-dry.

When dried, they make a very good substitute for dates; they are intensely sweet and would be good for baking. Gnome will be making mead with dried sapodilla…watch this space!

We have also been drying orange peel:

Dried orange peel can be added to savouries like stews, curries and soups to impart a warm, orange flavour. It can also be ground up and used in cakes and breads. It is extremely versatile and uses up something that you would normally throw away. I hate to waste anything, especially when it involves something edible! Look out for my recipes which use orange peel:

You will find this recipe in Belize Wild Recipes; this one is an orange peel curry.

Okay everyone, start sun-drying all your fruits now!!

Amusing, Belize, Fiction, Pets

Paradise Piggies: What New Beauties!!

March 16, 2015 Munchkin

Everything is pretty peachy at Paradise Pastures presently. Last night, our first mother was admitted into the brand new maternity ward with cervical dilatation and contractions. Later on this afternoon, the proud first time mother gave birth to two beautiful female babes:

Dehlia-Piggie Frolicking. Moving all four limbs!!

All Piggies are happy and making their happy noises; their hearts sing out to Mayor Gnome for providing the Maternity Ward.

The Susan B Anthony Maternity Ward comes fully equipped with water, biscuits (Cachorros) on tap, plenty of leafy greens, cabbage and a Midwife!! Mayor Gnome has certainly pulled out all the stops for this spacious facility.

Mayor Gnome:

Back on Track…Mayor Gnome Does it Again!!

Belize, Farming, Food, Plants

Unusual Exotic Fruits: Barbados Gooseberry.

March 14, 2015 Munchkin

This is a beautiful cactus, with spiny stems and fragrant smelling flowers. I propagated it originally from one single seed about two years ago and now it is producing globular, orange fruit which are edible.

The fruit are acidic tasting like gooseberries and I imagine they would be good for jam making or fruit tarts.

I am really, really excited about this plant because I have just found out, on an Internet search that the green leaves can be cooked and eaten. Apparently, there is a particular place in Brazil where this vegetable is prized and it is called Ora-Pro-Nobis meaning “Pray For Us.”

I can’t wait to try this as a vegetable. It has been growing crazy and out of control so it will be a good excuse to cut it back. I will definitely post a blog up about cooking with this new, exotic vegetable.

For those interested, this plant can be grown from seed or cutting and apparently, even from a fallen leaf.

Belize, Food

48 Hour Venison Curry.

March 13, 2015 Munchkin

This is Part II from yesterday when I spoke about how I cooked up 20lbs of venison meat. Twelve pounds of the meat was cooked up as Cantonese BBQ Venison (yesterday’s post) and the rest was made into a slow cook curry.

The trick is to use plenty of onions to make up the base of the curry sauce (15 medium onions in this case) and to cook it in a slow cooker for 48 hours. After this time, the meat is sooo tender and falls off the bone and the curry sauce is so aromatic. The kitchen smells great!!

Lots of Onions with Other Fresh Ingredients.

I learned to cook curries when I was a medical student at university; many of my friends were second generation Indians (mostly Bengali) and they taught me how to make this wonderful dish. Besides, in Scotland, everyone eats curries…it’s the 2nd national dish after Fish and Chips!!

If you want to see the full recipe, check out Slow Cook Venison Curry.

Belize, Food

Cantonese BBQ Venison (Like Char Sui).

March 12, 2015 Munchkin

A few days ago, I sequestered myself in the kitchen for the whole day (I know…I do that a lot). This is my usual “go-to” response when I can’t face the ongoing pressures of maintaining the farm and I just want “time-out.” I had bought about 50lbs of venison and I set about trying to process about 20lbs of it.

So, the first thing I made was Cantonese BBQ Venison which is really Char Sui made from venison rather than the typical pork. I am not sure what to call it since I do not know the word for venison in Chinese! So, if there are any Real Chinese people out there…how do you say BBQ Venison?

12lbs of the venison turned into this:

I coloured it with a Central American spice called Recado since I did not have any Chinese food colouring:

Yummy…it turned out really well!! You would have thought you were in a Chinese restaurant in Singapore or Hong Kong!

The other 8lbs of venison became a slow-cook curry with lots of spices (cumin, mustard seeds, tumeric, chilli and lots more):

Venison Cooking In Curry. — Venison Ready To Cook in Curry.

You will get the Venison Curry Recipe tomorrow. That was delicious too!!

Belize, Farming, Fermentation, Food

Beer Tasting With Friends and Pumpkins.

March 9, 2015 Munchkin

Our friends, Erin and Jim came to visit our farm today and did an impromptu maize beer tasting. It is interesting to see other people’s perspectives and they thought that it was a pleasant tasting sour beer, much akin to “Lambic” with the taste of fermented apples. We were very pleased to hear that it was compared to a well-known traditional beer! We now wish that we didn’t gave away so many bottles of the beer earlier on when we thought that it was a failure. We live and learn…we will hoard every single drop next time…that is the Scottish coming out in me!

On another note, we are harvesting pumpkins so, we will mostly be eating pumpkins. Aaaahhhh, what a gloriously uncomplicated life we live!

Belize, Fermentation

A Maize Beer Tasting.

March 7, 2015 Munchkin

Gnome brewed a New Year’s Eve Maize Beer and tonight we have decided to do a formal tasting:

Colour is dark amber and very effervescent; small sized bubbles with excessive fizz. Clear with good head.

Smells like the first whiff when you open up a can of sweetcorn. Also, reminiscent of fermenting apples and it definitely smells sour.

With the first sip, there is an immediate sweetness then a sourness; it is foamy like champagne. It tastes like a sour beer; unusual tasting and not your typical beer-like taste.

We squeezed the juice of a fresh lemon into it to see if this would improve the taste; we found that it gave it an overall smoother and well-rounded taste. It helped to balance the sweet and sour components. More drinkable with lemon juice.

It feels like it needs a fruity taste to round off the sourness..like pineapple, peach or strawberry. Next time, Gnome will add fruit to the maize beer.

This beer was in fact tasted unofficially at Day 7 and it was a disappointment at this stage as it tasted sour and “vomit-like.” With age, it seems to have mellowed out and even although it has a sharp sourness, it has become palatable and drinkable. We can see that it would benefit from waiting a full 12 months before consuming.

Overall, we are very pleased with this tasting because we did not feel that it was up to our drinking standards at an early stage but there has been considerable improvement over time.

Belize, Fermentation

A Mead Tasting.

March 6, 2015 Munchkin

About 3 weeks ago, Gnome bottled some mead. We have had a few sneak tastes since then as part of our ongoing “studies” but here is our official tasting:

Colour is golden yellow and effervescent; medium sized bubbles with good fizz. Clear.

Smells like a lager.

The first sip is thirst-quenching when served at a cold temperature: it gives that “Aaaahhh” quality. It is mild tasting with floral and fruity under-tones. It still tastes young and would be at its optimum in 3 to 6 months time. It foams in the mouth and tastes like lager; however, the fizz tastes like champagne. The bubbles hit your belly at the same time as the alcohol-feeling rushes to your head, giving you a satisfying tingling feeling all-over. The bubbles warm up the belly very well. In short, this beer behaves like a champagne.

Bravo to Gnome!! I really, really love it!! So much so, I want them all to my self.

Just as an aside, we would like to welcome our friends Erin and Jim who have come to re-visit Toledo for a few days. It was lovely to get in touch again and catch up!

Casa Mascia Apothecary