Tag Archives: Cashew

Everything Is Blooming!

March 8, 2016 Munchkin 2 Comments

New.Munchkin.Gnome.Yellow.Boots Hello There!! More farm pictures for you all to see and the promise of wonderful exotic fruit in the next few months. The mango trees are blooming all over Toledo so it looks like it will be another wonderful “stuff-your-face-with-mango-season” this year. Our running joke on the farm is that we never started planting mango until a few years ago…which was pretty silly of us since it is our favourite fruit! Anyway, we have our first blooming mango tree!!

We have three jackfruit trees flowering this year…they should grow into giant sized monsters and we will have a bumper crop in July.

The cashews are starting too. By the way, we noticed that we have mountains to the south side which block a few hours of morning sunlight and so our trees flower about a month later than others in Toledo.

These are our cinnamon trees looking very formidable at one year. Also there is a tall ylang-ylang tree in the middle with a lemon tree to the right. I wanted to sneak this picture in to show you how good we have been at keeping the grass down this year! Ooooh…look at that!

Belize, Farming, Food, Plants

Flowers and Fruit.

September 18, 2015 Munchkin

Hi Everyone!! The heavy night time rains have stopped for a few days and there are less puddles around the farm. The grass is long (again) and we are gearing up for another big clean up. Didn’t we just do that already?? Here are some pictures which I took whilst trudging about in my rubber boots…I try not to walk in deep puddles because I have a hole in one of my boots!

We have lovely purple basil growing which will be processed into pesto:

The last of the cashew fruit for the season…we have really enjoyed cooking with them this year in savoury dishes. Note also the funny looking bug on the green fruit.

These are bilimbi fruit which are really, really sour. So, far I haven’t found anything too exciting to do with these except for stir frys and soups. Any ideas?? Here in Belize, some people like to make a juice out of them but I personally find them a tad too tart.

This flower is of the Aristolochia sp.; they are start off looking like this and at this stage we call them alien pods:

When they open up they look like this and they exude an odious carrion-like smell to attract flies for pollination.

Beautiful baby woodrose flowers. Once the flowers mature, they produce a wood-like pod which looks like a wooden rose.

Sometimes I have to remind myself to stop and admire the beauty on our farm rather than running around like mad trying to achieve agendas. Have a good night everyone!! We are staying in tonight and I have made another one of these Chaos Cinnamon Cakes which I will lavishly drizzle with icing:

Ooooh yum!! We are going through a sweet phase right now!!

Oh, and for the rest of you 93.75% of readers who haven’t voted yet for the Favourite Candidate for the Mayoral Election 2015…Hint Hint!!

Belize, Farming, Food

Cooking with Cashew Fruit.

June 21, 2015 Munchkin

I have discovered the wonders of cooking cashew fruit and Ioving it! I have managed to get most of the tannic properties out of the fruit by peeling them. At first, I thought that I would peel them llike tomatoes (boil them, take them off the heat quickly and then peel) but when I actually got down to peeling the raw fruit, it wasn’t that difficult. So, here is a picture of the peeled fruit:

Here is a picture of the chopped fruit:

For all you vegetarians out there, this fruit has the texture of chicken breast so you could use the following recipe but omit the sausage. It has a good enough texture to give a satisfying bite.

My recipe is: Pork Sausage and Cashew Fruit Casserole.

I used some curry leaf in the recipe. The Curry plant actually grows very well here in Belize:

We were both very pleased with the cooked cashew fruit! The only problem is that that every single fruit is getting gobbled up by the paca (gibnut) community and as soon as one drops from the tree, it disappears. Gnome says that this is fair exchange for eating two gibnuts a year.

Belize, Food, Plants

Glazed Cashew Fruit and Ham with Basmati Rice.

June 13, 2015 Munchkin

We have discovered the wonders of cooked cashew fruit because they absorb flavours really well and they have the texture of chicken breast. Cashew fruit can be eaten raw but tends to have tannins in them which stops you from eating too much of them. Cooking this fruit in sugar helps to off-set the tannin taste.

We had some left over roast ham so I came up with this recipe: Glazed Cashew Fruit and Ham with Basmati Rice.

After eating this, we both agreed that the cashew fruit was worth eating. In previous years, we have just let this fruit drop to the ground and rot…what a waste! The only problem is that there seems to be a health community of pacas (gibnuts) feasting on the fruit as soon as they drop to the ground. This means that we have to get up at the crack of dawn to collect the fruit before all the critters (including doggie) get them!!

Belize, Blog, Farming, Food, Pets, Plants

Far From The Madding Crowd.

May 5, 2015 Munchkin

Hello Everyone!! Goosie is recovering very well from his traumatic doggy attack and was released from Farm-ICU today. He made some quiet honks through-out the day and then sounded a loud HONK in the afternoon and drew me his usual dastardly-look to tell me that he was back in action. To top it all off, our missing duckie suddenly reappeared, as if by magic, tonight for feeding time. We had no idea where she had been for the last 24 hours…we tried doing doggy sniffing and patrol all round the farm perimeter today looking for signs of her…and then she just pitched up for food tonight! No questions asked, we quickly ushered her into the coup. Wow…we are so pleased that everything has ended well and all our duckies and goosie are safe.

New things on our farm:

Gnome only uttered one word, “melomel.”

The Kun Batz (Ketchi Mayan name for Belize wild passionfruit) has ripened to an edible fruit and tastes like a cross between a lemon and water-melon…very good!

An unusual wild green pod growing, which we had been watching for 9 months, suddenly exploded. The dried pod looks like a nice ornamental for displaying (soap, maybe?!).

We are going to germinate the seeds because the vessel looks really pretty; it is boat-shaped and could be lacquered to make it last.

We are glad that we can share the highs and lows of our farm life in this Blog!

Casa Mascia Apothecary