Hello Everyone!! We are getting such wonderful harvests on our farm, we feel blessed everyday. We are still chomping through the jackfruit and we now it is bamboo shoot season, so I have made a dish with all these goodies.
Sausage with Exotic Fruits and Fresh Bamboo Shoots.
This recipe incorporates pork sausage, fresh pineapple, ripe jackfruit and fresh bamboo shoots.
Cassava cake is a local sweet made in Belize which is made from grated cassava, sugar and spices which may include cinnamon and nutmeg. It is mostly made in the Garifuna households in Belize and everyone has their own special recipe. Fortunately for people like me, who don’t have a secret recipe, I have found a wonderful shop-bought version of the cassava cake in Belize. This cake is baked at the cassava factory in Dangriga. I don’t tend to buy much shop-bought food but I actually find this cake very palatable and the smooth, non-grainy texture of this cooked root is very pleasant. I can not taste any spices in this cake but nevertheless, I think it is still very tasty.
I always like to convert sweet things into savoury and this recipe is a fine example of this:
These kebabs are made from fried cassava cake pieces, fried pieces of spicy sausage and bits of fresh pineapple. They are so yummy; the sweetness of the cake contrasts with the spicy sausage and compliments the pineapple.
Today we planned a day out to a plant nursery in Stann Creek and set out about 9am for our two hour leisurely cruise. Gnome laughed at me when I packed our “food bag” which consisted of a thermos flask of milky tea and some digestive biscuits. I just shrugged and said that there was simply no place to stop for refreshments (except for supermarkets and bars) on the way to Stann Creek. I didn’t want a beer, I wanted a cuppa tea!
Anyway, as we trundled along in our pick-up truck, we couldn’t help but notice that it kept on making a screechy, high pitched noise every-time he went over 100kph. So, Gnome spent the whole drive trying to keep the noise at bay. The sound was aggravating and we spent the entire drive worrying about ball joints and universal joints and God-knows-what-joints! Gnome is not skilled in fixing mechanised vehicles so if the truck happened to break down, we would be stuck in the middle of nowhere!
After an hour’s drive up the Southern Highway, we finally reached the first civilisation stop: “Tommy’s Superstore” in Bella Vista. This Chinese supermarket is the size of a K-mart and looks like a regular supermarket (this is a big deal in Belize because most of them don’t…not that I care).
Tommy’s Superstore, Bella Vista, Toledo.
We stopped at the car-park and I suggested having a cup of tea with a biscuit. If in doubt…bring out the hot beverage to calm the nerves! We romantically sipped our tea in front of the Chinese supermarket laughing and making light of our harrowing journey. We both agreed that it was best to turn back home in case anything happened. Before we left the car-park, a local farmer on a bike laden with pineapples approached us. You should have seen him…he strung the pineapples in lots of three and hung them from the handle-bars of the bike. He must have had at least thirty of them hanging like Christmas bobble decoration. We bought 15 pineapples just because we were so impressed by his superior co-ordination with the bike-load! And, they looked so sweet and tasty. Gnome was thinking about fermentation whilst I was thinking about dessert!
Pineapples on Strings.
On the way back home, we saw a fridge on a pick-up…1000 points!! Here are two views of our auspicious find.
Munchkin: Slam on the breaks Gnome. I think we got us one here!
Fridge on Pick-up Truck. Back View.
Munchkin: Slowly…slowly….
Gnome: Hurry, hurry before you miss it!
Fridge on a Pick-up. Side View.
For anyone out there who has the vaguest interest in this crazy game that we play, we like to spot “white goods” and various paraphernalia on the back of trucks and we award a points system according to the item. This is our idea of fun (I like to write about it in the vain hope that other people would consider playing the game with us…but alas, nobody seems to get the “fun” part). Anyway, a fridge is awarded the highest score hence the reason why I make Gnome sloooowww down to get a drive-by picture for the blog. Very auspicious!
We got home in one piece, thankfully…
Most of the pineapples have been pared, cut into pieces and frozen. Weather permitting, I will try to dehydrate the rest. I made pineapple cobbler today..I am going to pour some of our wonderful elixir (liqueur) onto it before serving!
I am writing early today because it is thundery and blustery outside and I don’t know how long the Internet will hold up today (touch wood). Today I am posting a recipe for a warming and exotic vegetarian dish made with fresh pineapple and ginger.
Fresh Pineapple.Fresh Ginger.
This slow cook casserole allows the spiciness of the ginger to complement the sweet taste of the pineapple and the brown rice absorbs all the flavours really well. A dish recommended for stormy days like this one…feels like the Flood Flies might be coming out tonight!
Hello There!! I will try to catch-up with this post and bring you up to date. On Tuesday night we had a scary, gusty storm that resulted in a power-cut for most of the night and of course, the Internet went down with it. The storm has brought cooler weather with grey clouds and it even rained heavily this morning. The Internet started up again today…yay…it is so insidious how we feel that “we need Internet” and life just isn’t the same without it. When I down-loaded my bunch of late emails, they weren’t all that exciting and most of them were spam, anyway!
Well, since it was a Rainy Day, we made Pineapple Melomel (mead with fruit). Yesterday, I had bought 20 ripe pineapples from the market for BZD 30.00 (USD 15.00) in an attempt to excite Gnome into making some more booze (nice, sparkling, champagne-like stuff) for me. After I got the pineapples loaded onto the truck, he gave me a whiny look and said that he was hoping that I had bought the plantains instead of the pineapples. That remark got him a “Chinese Woman Look” and stopped the complaints quick smart.
This is what we did.
We removed the heads and scrubbed them in the sink:
Washing Pineapples.
I then started chopping up the pineapples. Whilst I was doing this, I kindly asked Gnome to take some pictures of this process. All the pictures were soooo baaaad!! They were out of focus and made my hands look stumpy and small…or, are they really like that? I had to re-take some photos:
Chopping Pineapples…Look No Hands!!Pineapple, Chopped.
Gnome put the pineapple chunks through the juicer to get the juice and the pulp:
Juicing Pineapple.
We ended up processing 10 pineapples in all because it was actually a lot of work and the juicer was over-heating and complaining with the work-load. So, we managed to get about 6 litres (1 and 1/2 gallons) of juice from it all.
Frothy Pineapple Juice.
We got an extra 2 litres (2 quarts) of juice from the squeezing of the pulp:
Squeezed Pineapple Fibre.
We waste nothing!! We gave this and some pineapple peel to the duckies this morning. It was a Pineapple Feast…look closely at silly white duck…he even has a bit of pineapple stuck to his head.
Pineapple Fest For Duckies!
We have noticed that our duckies are totally neophobic with food unless it is yellow in colour. So, I was received by joyful and frenzied quackings today when I brought out the basin of pineapple waste.
Duckie Eating Pineapple.
While I was out playing with the duckies, Gnome proceeded with the making of his pineapple melomel; honey and fresh Toledo rainwater (very fresh!) was added to make the batch up to 5 gallons. Gnome will be posting up the recipe in Bored-in-Belize over the next few days.
Heating Melomel:
Heating Melomel.
Yes, I know…it all looks very yellow (just like all the other pictures) but believe me, this will taste great! Tomorrow, we will be processing the rest of the pineapples and adding honey and fresh ginger. In the words of Gnome, “Make it a Metheglin.”
Hello Everyone!! We are getting such wonderful harvests on our farm, we feel blessed everyday. We are still chomping through the jackfruit and we now it is bamboo shoot season, so I have made a dish with all these goodies.
