Tag Archives: Black Beans

Belize, Farming, Fermentation, Food, Our Products, Soap

Munchkin and Gnome are Still Here!

Together.Dark.TalkingYes we are still here!!  A few people have been wondering what has happened to us so I would to reassure everyone that we are absolutely fine.  It is transition time from dry to wet season at the moment and with this change, brings early morning rains.  As a few of you will know from our previous posts, this has really messed up our farm routine.  So, instead of staying at home and feeling sorry for ourselves, we have rearranged our whole farm routine to fit with the weather change.  Changing things around a bit isn’t so bad actually as it makes life a bit less predictable.

From our observation, the rains start around 7am and then by 11am, the sun starts coming out…this is horrible because the atmosphere is heavy with humidity and you can’t sweat to cool down.  Anyway, by about 3pm, the ground has nicely dried up again and so we have moved our farm work to late afternoon.  Gnome is still able to clean up and continue with the brush-mowing while I keep up with maintenance.  This work then runs into animal feeding time and so by the time I get into the house, I don’t feel like writing a chronicle of the day.  Just to change the routine a bit, we have been  going to bed even earlier…about 7pm because we have both been in the mood for reading before sleeping.  I am reading Mark Twain and Gnome is reading C.S. Lewis (the lesser known science fiction novels).  We both like to read the Classics though I have caught Gnome on occasion reading trashy novels…he just laughs and calls me a literary snob!

Munchkin and Gnome are still doing their stuff…

We made another batch of Chocolate Artisan Soap:

Mixing Chocolate Soap.
Mixing Chocolate Soap.

We also prepared Chinese Fermented Black Beans; Needs to get more smelly and fermented…we will give it 12 months to do its thing:

Fermenting Black Beans.
Fermenting Black Beans.

Gnome is making brown rice koji for brewing and miso-making:

Mixing Brown Rice Koji.
Mixing Brown Rice Koji.

And here is a Toledo Firefly…you usually just see a mass of green lights in the dark:

Toledo Firefly.
Toledo Firefly.

And the cat is up to his usual tricks again, running after lizards in the house.  The is a savvy lizard hiding on Gnome’s foot…this one got away:

Slinky on Gnome's Foot.
Slinky on Gnome’s Foot.

Ok everyone, have a good night and hopefully I can be more organised with writing the daily posts!

Belize, Fermentation, Our Products, Saving Money, Soap

Hatcho Miso Belize Style.

Gnome.Straight.SmileMiso Madness is almost over as the Munchkin is starting to feel twitchy over our dwindling supply of soap…Together.Munchking.Pointing

…which means that our run of frenzied fermentation is coming to an end and the previously, prematurely terminated Soap Marathon is going to have to resume (yeah, our soaps are really popular and people just can’t get enough of them; this is A Good Thing, she tells me ;-P).

After the frenzy of rice koji making and the resulting shinshu and shiro misos, we are ending our run with a couple of pig tail buckets of hatcho miso.  The first bucket was made two days ago, however, it turned out to be about a gallon short because I held back some of the black bean koji to reinoculate the next batch of beans.  There was a slight set-back with that particular batch (yes, yes, I’m sure you’ve heard about the Great Bean Bungle…let’s move on…) and to make a long story short, another batch had to be introduced into the equation.  Anyway, back to the short bucket:  I just “happened” to have a gallon batch of miso from last year which was made with cacao beans and while very aromatic, the chocolate taste was just too overpowering (yes, chocolate-lovers, this is actually possible!).  So, we emptied all of the containers, mixed them together again with the addition of bird peppers (Korean-style??) and a generous handful of black peppercorns.

Mixing Black Beans, Last Year's Chocolate Miso, Chilli Peppers and Black Peppercorns.
Mixing Black Beans, Last Year’s Chocolate Miso, Chilli Peppers and Black Peppercorns.

And voila’, the first full bucket of Belizean Style Chocolate (Cacao Bean) Hatcho Miso (with chilli and black pepper) was born:

Super Hatcho Miso.
Super Hatcho Miso.

Time to start thinking about soap…

Belize, Food

Glutinous Rice Balls: Belizean-Style.

Food.MunchkinIt was really cold today…30C which is a drop from the usual 40C so we were both seeking some warming, comforting food.  So, today I made steamed glutinous rice balls…I have deliberately not called them mochi balls because they are made Chinese-style ie. the way I watched my mum make them and she is Chinese.  I note that mochi balls are made from steamed dough which is cut into rounds, filled and then ready to eat.  My recipe uses uncooked glutinous rice flour dough, which is filled and then steamed.  Instead of the typical red bean paste, I made sweetened black bean paste and because black beans are eaten here in Belize, I have called the recipe Belizean-style!

Black Beans.
Black Beans.

Munchkin serving suggestion:

Photo Shoot.
Photo Shoot.

This is how we really ate them:

Glutinous Rice Balls and Custard.
Glutinous Rice Balls and Custard.

If you want the full recipe, please click on the link for Glutinous Rice Balls with Black Beans.