This is an easy and delicious cooling dessert and it’s made from the bit that you usually throw away when you cut a musk melon.
Musk Melon.
This is what you do:
Scoop out the seeds of the musk melon and rub it through a sieve with a plastic spoon. You will end up with some thick sweet-tasting musk melon pulp.
Musk Melon Seeds.
Meanwhile boil 10gm of Agar in 900mls (1 quart) of water. You can buy agar from Chinese Super-markets or Health Food Shops.
Packet of Agar.Dissolving Agar.
Once the agar has dissolved, mix in the melon pulp. I also added passion fruit pulp with seeds. I used the wild Mayan Passion Fruit, Kun Batz…how’s that for something special!
Kun Batz.
Refrigerate for about an hour and enjoy! This is a healthy alternative to a cream bun. 😉
Happy Sunday to you all!! We have some more fruit on our farm; luckily this time, there is an abundance so we can share with the birdies, pacas, dogs and guinea-pigs.
The mulberries are giving plenty of fruit. There is one particular tree which is half hidden in the shade of a huge African oil palm so the birdies have not spotted this one. This year, we will be able to make mulberry Elixir (liqueur).
Mulberries.
This is wax-apple; we are into the second year of fruiting and it is producing so much. They are related to the Molly (Malay) apple but these fruits are crunchy in texture like apples. The guinea-pigs really love these ones!
Wax Apple.
The passionfruit are just starting to bear. I like to combine the pulp of this with the Mayan passionfruit (Kun Batz) to make juice. I find the Mayan variety is sweeter so that it helps to balance the acidity of this type.
Passionfruit.Ripe Kun Batz.
With all the passionfruit juice making, I have ended up with a whole lot of seeds. As an experiment, I tried toasting them on a skillet in a similar manner to pumpkin seeds. They actually turned out to be a very tasty snack/condiment; as you toast them, the residual passionfruit pulp around the seeds caramelises to add a unique sweetness. I used the toasted seeds as a condiment on soup which worked a treat. The crunchy texture gives an extra bite to a meal:
Toasted Passionfruit Seeds with Soup.
Also, we had some as an accompaniment to cassava hash browns and steamed young pumpkin. They added an extra “sweet and sour” flavour to the dish.
Toasted Passiflora Seeds with Cassava Hash Browns.
I would definitely recommend the toasting of passionfruit seeds. It just requires 10 to 15 minutes on medium heat on a skillet. Make sure to stir it around to stop it from initially sticking. You will know when it is done when the pulp caramelises around the seeds. It is so versatile that you can choose to eat it with sweet or savoury foods.
The Mayan Passion Fruit (Ketchi name is Kun Batz) is still in season. It is a vine which voluntarily grows around cultivated trees and it can also exist in the rainforest of Belize.
Kun Batz Green Fruit.
They have beautiful flowers so can they also be grown as an ornamental:
Kun Batz Flowers.
The fruit can be eaten green like a vegetable (like cho-cho or zucchini).
Green Kun Batz Steamed.Kun Batz in Miso Soup.
If you let it ripen, you can eat the fruit pulp like a passion fruit.
Ripe Kun Batz.
The seeds and the pulp are edible and can be eaten alone or mixed with yoghurt or ice-cream. Today, I sifted out the seeds to get the pulp and the juice:
Kun Batz Seeds and Pulp.
I used a total of eight fruit and towards the end, added a cup of water to the remaining seeds to try to extract the last of the pulp. I was able to make a quart of juice from this method. When I tasted it I felt that it was sweet enough that no sugar was required. Compare this with normal passion fruit which is quite acidic which requires sweetening in order to enhance the taste. This is Kun Batz juice with a sprig of mint:
Kun Batz Juice.
The Kun Batz juice is divine!! The taste of the juice is a combination of pineapple, banana and canteloupe melon with mild exotic hints of passion fruit. It is unique in that it has a mildly sour taste but it is sweet enough that no sugar is needed.
I have a whole lot of fresh seeds to sell so check out The Apothecary. To my knowledge, nobody is cultivating this bush fruit so if you are into rare and exotic plants, then this a definitely one to add to the list!
Planting Instructions:
Passiflora seeds have a hard shell so pr-treat the seeds before planting; Soak the seeds for 24-48 hours in warm to the touch water, just prior to planting. Once pretreated, plant seeds 1/2-1″ deep in moist, sterile soil. Keep soil temperature consistent at about 70-85F. Cool soils will significantly delay seed germination time.
Estimated germination time under optimal conditions: 6 weeks to 6 months.
Plant spacing for this vine is 10 feet (3 metres) apart and can grow to about 20 feet tall. Will start fruiting in about 12 months.
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.
Missing Duckie Came Back!!
New things on our farm:
Gnome only uttered one word, “melomel.”
Cashew Fruit.
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!
Ripe Kun Batz.
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?!).
Interesting Pod with Seeds.
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.
Close-up of Pod.
We are glad that we can share the highs and lows of our farm life in this Blog!
Hello Everyone!! I am back in top form and promise that there will be no complaints today! Many thanks to the readers (namely, Erin and Adriana) who wrote back with a positive word and encouragement. Thanks to Gnome’s Mum for looking at 9 pages and the flurry of visitors after last night’s post. We indeed felt that life was worth living again. 😉
In a bid to increase our Stats, Gnome kindly wrote a post earlier on Ballistics…Hmmm…I am sure everyone stopped whatever they were doing to look at this must-read! Gnome reveals all in his mind-blowing revelations on pellets! Just out of interest, I don’t give Gnome any pocket money for his pellets and so he funds his pass-time through coconut products. So, if you have bought any coconut cream, water or flour, you have helped Gnome out.
Gnome says, “Buy more of my coconuts!!”
Because it is a lot hotter, we have not been feeling so hungry hence the reason for less recipe posts. However, I thought it would interesting to let you know what we had for lunch today. In our last trip to Belize City, we stopped by the Taiwanese store to buy some goodies…interesting that when we think of buying yummy treats we always go for Chinese or Japanese food. We found some short grain rice (the kind that you use to make sushi), nori seaweed and stinky tofu.
Today, I boiled the sticky rice in our coconut cream…yes, the one that we sell in little bags! I also added whole black peppercorns to spice it up a bit. I toasted the nori flakes in a skillet and I brought out the stinky tofu.
Rice, Nori, Kun Batz and Stinky Tofu.
The vegetable featured on the top right is Kun Batz. This is a wild passiflora vine which grows voluntarily in cleared areas. This plant produces fruit which can be eaten green like a vegetable; here I have cut it into pieces, steamed it and added soya sauce.
With plenty of vitamins and minerals from the sea-weed and B Vitamins from the stinky tofu, there was no need to include meat into the meal today. It was yummy!! Hooray for smelly (sorry, I mean fragrant) Chinese food!
Some pictures of Kun Batz (This is the Ketchi Mayan name):
Wild Passiflora Flowers (Kun Batz).Kun Batz Green Fruit.Kun Batz Halved.
Here in Belize, the Mayans prize this fruit considerably and like to eat it in its ripe form. Once ripe, the flesh turns yellow, spongy and inedible. The pulp around the seeds is eaten and has a fruity floral taste which is esteemed by the people here. It can eaten out of hand or used to flavour cool drinks. It is very similar to the giant granadilla (Passiflora quadrangularis).
Good Evening everyone!! May all our lives become so simple that Blog Stats become the most important thing!!
