With all the rains from the last two weeks or so, everything is bushy again!! The grass is growing…needs another mow…oh no, more work!
Here are some pictures;
This one was shot with a “fishbowl effect” just for fun!
We are getting lemons again this year and it looks like it will be a bumper crop…
Lots of fresh callaloo to pick…
African oil palm seeds…the piggies love these:
And this one is lemongrass; great for tea and to flavour food.
Hello Everyone!! For our dedicated followers out there, you may remember that about a week a ago, Gnome gave me two banana blossoms (flowers) to give to the guinea pigs. I promptly refused because I was determined to make yum-yums out of them.
Well, I did some research on preparation of the banana blossom for cooking and this is what I did.
I took off the outer petals (bracts) of the banana flower, layer after layer, until I got to the inner piece which looked like a little cabbage.
While taking off each petal, there was a layer of florets in between the bracts, which are pictured below.
According to my research, you can eat these florets by painstakingly going through each one of these to remove the outer calyx and the pistil. I did one for the picture and then thought to myself that it was extremely tedious and I wasn’t bored and hungry enough to do the rest.
I finally got to the heart of the flower.
I cut it into pieces, as instructed, and placed them in vinegar water to remove the tannic properties.
After, a couple of hours, the tannin was partially removed to leave edible parts that tasted like cabbage. They didn’t taste that great and I didn’t think that it was worth all the trouble of preparation and soaking time to get something so bland and uninteresting.
I decided to give the rest to the piggies after-all.
In conclusion, I am glad that I tried to prepare the banana blossom so that I could make up my own mind as to whether it was worth it or not. Outside the cultural context of eating banana flowers in India and South East Asia, I can only view this as a poor cabbage substitute. For the amount of energy, time and effort required in preparation, I would rather give these flowers to the piggies to enjoy.
Hello Everyone!! All of a sudden, it is very, very wet. The air feels really damp and muggy. Still no need to complain; we are getting bountiful water to wash clothes to my heart’s content and I can have plentiful hot showers through-out the day!
The farm continues to give generously and there is always stuff to harvest everyday. The carambola (or starfruit) are bearing; I have to pick them partially green before the birds and the bees get to them.
These are the rogue pumpkins that were missed in “The Hidden Pumpkin Technique” which I described a few weeks ago. The pumpkin patch is still going strong and with these new rains, we are getting a second round of flowering.
In this technique, the pumpkins grow and sink into the tall grass; whilst hidden from the hungry eyes of critters and bugs, they can be left to grow flawlessly without a single burrowed hole or bite-mark.
Oh, and last but not least…banana flowers…
This morning, Gnome cut these down and instructed me to give them to the guinea pigs. I gave him a funny look and said,
“I heard that humans can eat them too!”
Gnome said that he had heard about people eating them in India but he wasn’t convinced about the potential tastiness of the banana flower.
Well, I looked at them and convinced myself that they looked a bit like artichokes and therefore there could be some potential for yumminess. Well, let’s see…tomorrow, I am going to try cooking them. Watch this space for the results!!
