Tag Archives: Bored-in-Belize

Belize, Fermentation, Food, Saving Money

Gnome and Miso Madness!

Gnome.Angry.LookIt is day three of the enforced ban on heavy work.  Very bad headache yesterday (Tumulkin Day) but fortunately today there have been no problems…just a gnawing inner feeling that the brush really, really does need to be cleared since it is perfect dry season weather for it.  Munchkin won’t budge and won’t even allow an elixir tasting to happen (The irony of life:  when I want to sit around and do F-all, she can’t wait for me to work…when I’m dying to get off my butt and do something, I’m not allowed…).

So, I’ve permitted myself to be overwhelmed by Miso Madness:  I just realized that the test gallon we made is only going to last 28 days!!!  That means we have to make at least three pig-tail buckets a year in order to eat miso every day.  The frenzy that this knowledge engendered inside my gnomish heart (the Munchkin’s too but she won’t admit it!) got us into town at 0800 on a non-town day to purchase 50 pounds of rice and 50 pounds of black beans…to find out that the Chinese wholesaler was still closed!!  We ended up going to Quality Chicken instead and thankfully they were open…BZ$72.50 for 50 pounds of black beans and BZ$44.00 for 50 pounds of rice later, our happy humanoids were rushing home (BTW no diesel in town today)…

We’re going to start with some shinshu miso first and that means making rice koji.  Time to wash some rice:

Washing.Rice
Washing all the dirt and starch from the rice (Can you see the gnome foot?).

Have to get all the starch off of the rice so it doesn’t get gummy and sticky at steaming time tomorrow when we enter day 2 of making rice koji…

Belize, Fermentation

Toucans and Making Miso.

Gnome.at.DeskI’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!!

Toucan on the Ceiba Tree.
Toucan on the Ceiba Tree.
See, I can take photographs!! Two in less than a minute. Eat your heart out!!
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.
This is what real (commercial) miso looks like.
This is our miso.
This is our miso.

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.

Chocolate Nib Miso.
Chocolate Nib 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.

Noni Miso.
Noni Miso.

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:

Paint stirrer to mix up the soy sauce.
Paint stirrer to mix up the soy sauce.

And here is the bucket:

Non-soy sauce after paint stirring accomplished.
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?!?!?Together.Munchkin.AnnoyedMunchkin not happy with that last statement.

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

 

Belize, Pets, Saving Money

Lime Sulfur Dip For Dogs and Cat.

TogetherA couple of months ago, Gnome made Lime Sulphur as a Bored-in-Belize project.  One of the many uses of it is a dip for dogs and cats.  It can be applied for mange, fleas and ringworm.  We tested our formula on the two dogs and the cat today (not the guinea pigs!!).  We poured out a quantity of the concentrated lime sulphur and diluted it with water in a bucket:

Measuring Lime Sulphur.
Measuring Lime Sulphur.
2 Gallons of Diluted Lime Sulphur.
2 Gallons of Diluted Lime Sulphur.

A rag was dipped into the bucket of solution and the dogs and cat were soaked with it.  Prior to this, they all got a wash with our sulphur soap.  There were no complaints from any any animals concerned as we sponged them copiuosly with this bright yellow fluid.  They seemed to like the smell of rotten eggs!!

Sulfuring Doggie.
Sulfuring Doggie.

Sorry, no picture of the other doggie because we both had to hold her down because she is the mad one that likes to lick toads.

Sulfuring The Cat.
Sulfuring The Cat.

The cat actually stayed still and did not seem to mind the extremely pungent smell.  After all that, we were both smelling of sulphur; Gnome said that he felt spiritually cleansed…I think he was referring to fire and brimstone and all that stuff!!

Bees, Belize, Construction, Farming

I’m Going to Keep Stingless Bees!

Gnome.SmilingI think our local stingless bees are really cute, the species I have nesting in one of my old tool boxes is Tetragonisca angustula…

Tetragonista angustula in one of my old toolboxes.
Tetragonista angustula in one of my old toolboxes.

They are nice and friendly and you don’t need any fancy beekeeping equipment since they don’t sting.  It seems like a better start to beekeeping to me than going for Africanized Bees.

They don’t make much honey apparently, only about 1kg a year but what they do make is supposed to be very medicinal…which is right up my alley.  They are also good pollinators for assorted crops.

Anyway, the point of all of this is that I made a couple of beehives in order to get this project underway…

Finished Hive.
Finished Hive.

Yeah, I know, it doesn’t look like much and I suck at taking photographs (but I am better at stitching up your face with some 7/0 prolene, thankfully…sorry doctor joke!).

If you are interested, there is more detail in constructing the hives in Bored-In-Belize…Making a Stingless-bee Bee Hive.

With the amount of honey these little darlings make, I’ll probably have to make about 100 hives…one day at a time…

Thank you to Leanne and Craig Knox for giving me the idea.

Cheers and have a good day!

Belize, Construction, Farming, Pets

Piggies Have a New Home!

Gnome.Straight.Smile

I’m playing catch-up today…the Internet connection failed for twenty-four hours (this is not that unusual where we are) but it is back again this morning (aaaah, couldn’t check Stats for a whole day…this is way too addictive!!!).

Managed to finish the Guinea Pig Cage after five days of work.  The finished cage picture is going to go under this paragraph but I couldn’t get a good picture this morning since the sun is in the way right now, so I’m going to plug it in later when I can get a better one.  It shows all the welded wire in place, the piggies themselves and the two sheets of roofing; one metal for shade and one out of plastic to let some sunlight in (so they don’t become Vitamin D deficient!).

The Famous Turtle-Blancanoux-Bel-Campo-Wild-Orchid Hotel/Spa/Resort for the Discerning Piggie in its full glory ($2000 per night!).
The Famous Turtle-Blancanoux-Bel-Campo-Wild-Orchid-Eco-Agro-Tourist-Rainforest-Canopy Hotel/Spa/Resort for the Discerning Piggie in its full glory ($2000 per night!).

The piggies seem happy but they haven’t figured out how to use the “stairway/ramp” yet, so they are staying on the second floor, and consequently eating the huge amount of grass we have to keep on collecting.  I’m going to see how long it is going to take them to figure out that they have forty square feet of delicious, high-protein perennial peanut (Arachis pintoi) twelve inches under them.

Satisfied Customers at our New Resort, enjoying the organic, farm fresh produce for dinner.
Satisfied Customers at our New Resort, enjoying the organic, farm fresh produce for dinner.

This little project that has kept me out of trouble for the best part of a week is going to go into our Bored-In-Belize-Projects under the Taj-Ma-Piggie Page.

Oh yeah, I’ve reorganized some of the pages in the Library so that they are easier to see and find:  Mushrooms have their own heading and Philosophy, About our Handmade Products and Acknowledgements are all under our Product Descriptions now.

Until later…

Belize, Farming

Challenging Routine and Boredom on a Farm.

 

Gathering Food For the Guinea Pigs.
Gathering Food For the Guinea Pigs.

Routine is difficult when you work for yourself on a farm and your responsibilties are minimised. This is when you ask yourself very important questions like:  Aside from providing food and shelter for my partner and I and keeping the animals fed and healthy, what else actually needs to be done? If my needs for survival are met and nobody is ‘on my back” administrating 8 to 24 hour shifts for me, how do I live in a practical way ensuring that I am doing life with reason.

If you are interested in reading more please go to:

Challenging Routine and Boredom on a Farm.

in Essays and Other Musings.