Hello!! We sorted out the casamascia.com website and it is back on-line. Having said all of that, we had a good think about the website (whilst it was lost in the ethers of Internet space) and admitted that it is a real pain to manipulate. I think that superficially, the site is okay. However, I haven’t been updating or adding anything new because the logistics behind the site are unwieldy and painstakingly tedious. It isn’t so straight-forward and it takes about thirty pages (clicks) to change one single thing on the site. Our Internet is slow so about thirty clicks between page changes takes about 2 to 3 hours. We have decided to change-over (it will take some time) to a simpler website; Gnome has embarked upon learning web-design (in amongst his already busy schedule of mowing, planting, doctoring and general gnoming). We think that if we have a simpler website, we will take more opportunity to expand and spend more time on it.
Anyway, onto other things since I have not written for a while. What have we been eating lately? The geese have started laying and we have been eating goose eggs!! We have got so used to the size (they about the size of three chicken eggs) that we think that they are normal sized. We feel blessed that we can indulge in a luxury that simply cannot be bought: fresh goose eggs with lovely yellow, runny yolks cooked in our home-pressed vegetable oils.
Look at that lovely yolk:
What else? February and March is pigeon pea time again. We have been collecting them green, shelling them together in a romantic Munchkin-Gnome sort of way and cooking them in stews. When they are green, the peas just need to be boiled for about 5 to 8 minutes and they are ready to eat. They retain the green colour with cooking so make a great pea substitute.
Pigeon pea (Cajanus cajun) is also known as Ganga Bean in Belize. It is a long forgotten plant and many older people remember picking the pods as young children for their mothers to cook. I don’t see much of it in Belize but it is a high protein bean that is very nutritious. It is a good animal forage food for fowl, cattle and horses. They grow easily from seed, require no maintenance and are very productive. I definitely recommend this crop for anyone who wants to grow their own food.
Pigeon Peas:
We have been eating a fair bit of this too:
Oh yum!! These are all the reasons for growing your own food!!
Wait, there is more…
We have Gnome-made sorrel (roselle) wine. Check out the colour. With all this food and drink, we don’t want to leave the farm:
Okay that is it for now. I am off to search for goosie eggs for lunch…
Officially we are now crepuscular; up at 5am, doing our stuff until it gets too hot to move!! I just wanted to share with you a funny story that happened about two weeks ago. This was when we had no idea what to do with our goose eggs; the incubator was unreliable, all the female geese were insisting on nesting in the middle of the bush, there was a lot of pushing and shoving resulting in broken eggs and there were no reliable broody poultry. Our first solution was to get Muscovy ducks as they are known to be become broody at the drop of a hat. These silly little ducks have proven to be duds. As Gnome says,
More harvests from the farm…the ducks have been laying so we have been eating lovely eggs. Here in Belize, the shop bought eggs are really, really bad…they are runny and the yolks are anaemic. You can’t even make a proper custard with them…believe me, I have tried and I ended up with a yellow snot that won’t thicken. Thanks to our Zazen duckies for their contribution to the farm!
If you ever look through my Belize Wild Recipes section, you will know that I like “mixing it up” and revel in being non-traditional in my invention of meals. I am indeed a Rebel Cook!! ;). Anyway, I’ve cooked an Italian Style meal to eat with fry jacks. Just in case you don’t know, fry jacks are puffed up dough traditionally eaten in Belize with refried beans or eggs for breakfast. Well, I am being twice the rebel because I have modified it into Italian and Brunch!
