Tag Archives: Mango

The Usual…

July 19, 2017 Munchkin

So, what’s the usual for us? Gnome put it quite succinctly today,

“I spend most of my time just fixing things and nothing gets done!”

So, the freezer is on its last legs and we are systematically going through all the food to preserve them. So far, we have canned the fruit and we have made miso out of the canistel (it’s bright orange, by the way). Next are the chicken feet (I know, you are probably wondering what I am doing with 50lbs of chicken feet…I’m not quite sure either). No, that was a joke…I know exactly what to use chicken feet for…they actually make the best soup.

Gnome is still working on his construction and yesterday it nearly all ground to a standstill again. The circular saw stopped working! Luckily it started working again once the brushes were cleaned out.

Oh, and the washing machine…that stopped too last week and I had to hand wash a whole load. I was really annoyed because I had chucked in a load of towels and sheets! Anyway, Gnome had a good look at it and it appears that the water sensor for medium wash is broken. Well that’s actually okay because I just need to set it to a small wash instead and it works. So, we managed to bypass that problem. Gnome says that washing machines should last forever…you just need all the replacement parts for the sensors and the capacitor. We are going to keep our washing machine going no matter what!!

Just as an aside, Gnome took the outer cover:

and gave it to a goose as cover around a nest (a while back). The goose actually snubbed the gift and moved all her eggs to a different area. Talk about being difficult!!

“No I don’t want the washing machine cover around my nest!!”

I want to end with something nice. So here it is: this is a huge 4 lb (2kg) mango given to us by the Taiwanese. The seed is really thin and tiny so most of the weight is the flesh. Oh, and the best thing about it is that it tastes so sweet and divine. We are definitely planting the seed!

Amusing, Belize, Food, Plants

A Few Small Things…

June 30, 2017 Munchkin

Oh it’s a horrible, grey muggy day today!!

Gnome admonishes me and says, “Stop complaining, Babes…”

And I reply, “It’s not a complaint! It’s a description!!”

It is really grey. It is really muggy. 🙂 Ha-Ha, one must keep up the humour especially during these times and use emoticons to show that everything is really in the greatest humour possible!! 🙂

Well anyway(s), here are a few small things to show you what’s happening.

Since my Mabe cooker done broke and I don’t have an oven, we are resorting to our old “tried and tested” methods again. Back to the Dutch oven and cooking over coals. We had a stash of Fray Bento meat pies from British Foods Belize so we decided to cook them traditional style. They puffed up very nicely (a lot better than the conventional oven) and they are a little burnt since we haven’t cooked like this for a while. These were a nice Sunday afternoon treat. Also, the fire kept the bugs away for a while which was a welcome break.

This is a vegetable that grows on a vine which we have planted up the side fencing of the Duckie Zen coop. The best way to describe them is that they taste like firm, little cucumbers but they have to be cooked. They are growing prolifically with all the duckie fertilising so we are harvesting a basket of these each day. I’ve mostly been steaming or putting them into soups and stews. This vegetable is called tindali (a vegetable of Indian origin)and was obtained from the Spice Farms in Toledo (courtesy of Dr Mathew).

Oh, and it’s Mango Season again! This is the chance to stuff yourself with Mango everyday…it’s great. There should be a Mango Festival down here at this time of the year; it is definitely worth celebrating!

A while back I tried to make some home-made senbei (Japanese rice crackers). I used ordinary glutinous rice flour because that was all I could find. The final result was that they were chewy (still tasted good) but not the usual crunchiness that you would expect from these type of crackers. After discussing with Gnome (and reading Wiki entries) we realised that the Mochiko flour that is traditionally used is cooked (not raw) rice that has been dehydrated and then ground into a fine flour which then gives the crunchy quality to the food. So you can’t get Mochiko flour for love nor money in Belize (!) so Gnome says that when we get really bored (ie. during the rainy days when we can’t get out) he will help me make the flour. Watch this space…it will probably take about 72 hours to make the flour by hand!

Keep well everyone and keep on going despite the weather!! Well, we’ll keep on going because we like to think that we are cool and tough…Ha-Ha!!

Belize, Farming, Our Products, Soap

Why We Started Making Coconut Soap.

October 22, 2016 Munchkin 2 Comments

walking-in-town-together

We started making soap because we were both fed up with the quality of shop-bought soap. The bars that we bought were a funny pink colour with an artificial rose scent. We didn’t think much of the well-known brands either because they all smelled of unnatural fragrances and dried out the skin. And so we decided to embark on the making of our own soap…at that time we did not have Internet on the farm and had to conduct our research at the Internet Cafe in town.

Our purpose was to make a good soap for us to use instead of having the buy the poor quality supermarket stuff. The properties that we sought for in our home-made soap was a good lather and a moisturising bar with natural scent.

Generally speaking, soap is made from oil/fat and lye. The oil/fat lends the qualities and properties to a soap bar and so we started off by experimenting with anything that we could find off the supermarket shelf. We tried everything from shortening, to lard and a whole plethora of vegetable oils.

These attempts were a great learning experience: shortening was actually okay but the lard soap actually smelled quite piggy!! We came out of the shower smelling like we had smothered ourselves in bacon!! The vegetable oil made a soft moisturising bar but disintegrated very quickly into bits.

At the time, we were also making coconut oil and selling it to the lady at Punta Gorda market. It was a slow, laborious process of grating, boiling and stirring. We spent many full days setting up a fire (with coconut husks) and stirring our pot of coconut oil together under the shade of the coconut palms. It was a very significant time, when we tried to seek meaning in our lives, after extricating ourselves from the rushing urgency and pressures of our previous lives as medical doctors.

I remember making a test batch of coconut oil soaps and eagerly waiting for the results. When soap is made in this way ie. not commercially, the soap needs time to “cure” and this can take anything from 3 months or longer. The longer you wait, the better…it is like a fine wine. Anyway, after waiting 3 months, we tried this soap and discovered that it had all the properties that we were looking far. It lathered well, did not dry out the skin and the natural scent was lovely. The skin felt so clean and smooth.

This was the perfect recipe and we were using our own coconuts from the farm!

Our soaps are still made from this original coconut oil recipe. In addition to this, we have created Medicinal Soaps and Chocolate Soaps.

Our Medicinal Soaps include Copal, Jackass Bitters and Neem and White Pitahaya.

Our Chocolate Soaps include Chocolate Artisan, Cacao Butter Soap and Chocolate scented soaps in four delicious scents: Chocolate-Mint, Chocolate-Orange, Chocolate-Mango and Chocolate-Vanilla.

To see all our soaps and apothecary items please go to casamascia.com.

Belize, Food

Mango Chicken Curry.

August 17, 2016 Munchkin

Munchkin.More.Eating A good old authentic curry is made from onions and Indian spices…slowly, slowly cooked…trust me, I should know this since I am Scottish! This recipe uses the same cooking process but instead of just onions, mangoes are also used to make the curry sauce.

This curry recipe does not take so long (compare with 48 hour Venison Curry!). This one is relatively fast and can be enjoyed after 2 hours cooking…yum!! Check out the link Mango Chicken Curry for the recipe. The mangoes add a fruitiness to the delectable taste experience…with the Indian spices tumeric (yellow ginger), cinnamon, cumin and clove you simply can’t go wrong!

Lovely, Lovely….can’t beat a good curry!!

Amusing, Belize, Food

Funny Mango Story!!

July 21, 2016 Munchkin 1 Comment

Together.Pointing

A couple of weeks ago, when we were in the height of mango season, we chanced across somebody on the street selling huge bags of these black mangoes. They are hairy, very juicy and loved by Belizeans. When you eat these, you are expected to eat about 10 to 20 in one sitting because they are so delicious and very messy to eat; no point in dribbling mango juice down your front and elbows for less.

Anyway, a while later, we met a friend and hailed him down. We grabbed a couple of these mangoes, that we had bought, and presented them to him as a gift.

Unexpectedly, he gave us a sideways suspicious look and he said cautiously,

“Where did you get these from?”

Before we had time to answer he said,

“Did you get them for a drunk Spanish guy?”

We nodded our heads in unison…in our heads we were thinking…yeah the guy kinda couldn’t walk in a straight line and had slurred speech!

Together.Talking.Horses

The friend picked a mango and scrutinized it,

“These are my mangoes!! That guy is selling my mangoes!!”

Then he suddenly stopped and laughed, realised the humour of the whole situation and said,

“Ha-Ha!! You guys are giving me back my own mangoes!! No, no take them!! I have plenty at home!!”

We all had a good laugh about it and then we drove back home to feast on the black mangoes…guilt-free!!

Belize, Food, Plants

Thank-you Mango Tree!

July 17, 2016 Munchkin

We had the pleasure of our first bearing mango tree this year and it was wonderful! We ate mangoes non-stop for 4 weeks!! This type of mango, that we have on our farm is the smooth, hairless (sans fibre) kind with a taste reminiscent of syrupy canned peaches.

We enjoyed our last big bowl of mangoes today. For a treat, we drizzled Lemongrass Elixir to give it extra oomph!!

Boozy Mangoes:

A Big Thank you to our Mango Tree!!

Amusing, Belize, Farming, Food

Blowing Hot And Cold!

June 13, 2016 Munchkin

Munchkin.Another.Funny.Shot

What a weird day for weather…one minute it was dull and grey and then the next minute it was hot and sunny. And it was so blustery. Make up your mind!! To add to all this, the power was going on and off. As soon as it switched on, I would get up to try to get something done and when it went off, I had to sit down again. It was like musical chairs!! Arrrghhhh!!!

Gnome had a better attitude; well, at least he was in a better mood by the end of day even although we both had an unproductive day.

“I am going to sit here and not move.”

Glowing.Gnome

Well, I guess we are not all as spiritually enlightened as the Gnome!! Despite the ups and downs, the farm is our constancy…still producing lots of lovely stuff;

Hope the weather makes up its mind tomorrow!!

Belize, Farming, Food

Summer Fruits.

May 31, 2016 Munchkin

Together.Eating Here is a gallery of fruits in season. We are so fortunate that even with the extended dry season, the fruit trees still continue to bear. Mangoes are my definite favourite; I remember buying them in the supermarket in Scotland and they were as hard as rocks. Sometimes they wouldn’t even ripen at all! It’s wonderful that I don’t need to buy these from the supermarket anymore…I have them in my own backyard.

This is the season for mamey sapote; when you cut them in half, the flesh is orange-brown with a thick consistency like avocado. They have a very intense caramel flavour and are best eaten chilled.

The wax apples are starting on our trees; however with the drought, they look very small. The upside of this is that due to the reduced water content in them, they are very sweet.

Belize, Farming, Food, Plants

Not So Dry!

May 5, 2016 Munchkin

Munchkin.Back.View

Yippee!! We had a good rain last night which filled up half of the tank. And now it’s raining again so we should have the tank completely filled. Good thing Gnome sorted this out:

We were so worried because the dry days seemed never-ending (it always feels like that every year). At least now our poor shriveled tobacco plants will start growing again:

And the pond might start filling up…look…it has been reduced to a single puddle!

Hopefully with this extra bit of rain, our mangoes will get fat and juicy.

All the fruit trees on the farm will benefit from this splendid rain…what a relief!

Belize, Farming, Food, Plants

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!

Casa Mascia Apothecary