Platanos & Homemade Salsa

A close relative to bananas, though larger, starchier, and generally less sweet, plantains are a staple of Nicaraguan cuisine. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner platanos are served in one form or another. If you don't like them at first, you will!
Most farms and quintas grow at least a few plantain trees, their gigantic green leaves and spectacular flowers making sure you don't forget this is the tropics. Plantain and banana trees flourish during our rainy season, and continue to produce fruit throughout the dry times. Every year new trees are planted amongst our coffee bushes to provide shade, guaranteeing me a constant supply of plantains in the kitchen.
Platanos require cooking in order to be palatable, and their form and flavor vary greatly depending on when and how they are cooked. Green unripe platanos are frequently fried up as a side dish, sliced in rounds or in the case of tajadas, in long thin strips. In the latter, plantains serve kind of as nachos, topped with meat or cheese or anything you want. As I inherited a local mandoline slicer over a year ago and have never used it, I decided it was time:

Tajada Time!

Slicing plantains so thin was time-consuming, not to mention a bit dangerous; bare hands near a wide blade required careful attention. I wish I had taken a picture of the uncooked strips to demonstrate how delicate they were.

Here I am frying them up in a generous pool of sunflower oil.

The ideal tajada is thin and crispy like a potato chip. After a few batches, I got the hang of it!

All the hard work paid off when the tajadas were served! We topped them with refried beans, soy "meat," shredded cabbage, and my new homemade hot sauce--see below for recipe. On the side I served cooked chayote squash.

I am always experimenting with new salsa recipes, this one is a favorite. and very easy! The recipe I found calls for jalapeños, for which I substituted our local chile pepper, congo. Congos are tiny so I used a whole handful--use your own discretion when choosing spiciness level. Hot peppers, along with several tomatoes and a few cloves of garlic are tossed with olive oil and then broiled.Once the tomatoes are blackened, remove from oven and cool. Peel off tomato skins, then blend it all up. Add cilantro, salt, and a squeeze of fresh lemon. that's it: roasty, flavorful, spicy sauce!

¡Buen provecho!

PASSIONFLOWERS

At long last, I am so proud to brag that I am growing my all-time favorite flower!!! After many years of oohing and ahhing over its dramatic colors and showy displays, envying other gardens cascading with its tropical vine, even obsessing over its tangy fruit juice, I GREW IT! it is mine. and not just one, but TWO thriving plants!

Without further ado, allow me to introduce my garden's latest showstopper:
The family Passiflora is large and varied, so identifying specific species is a bit out of my league. Passionflowers stand out with their dazzling bold blossoms, typically pollinated by large bees and hummingbirds (both of which I have seen buzzing by this very flower).
Passionflower of course produces passionfruit, a baseball-sized fruit that Nicas call calala, which is popular in juice. In the market they are sold a ripe yellow color, so as of yet, the calala in the photo is not mature.

I can take a pretty good stab at this, my second vine, being the largest of all passionflower varieties, Passiflora quadrangularis.

Granadilla is a gigantic fruit, also containing a tart flesh used for refreshing drinks. It is especially large for growing on a vine, but sorry--I do not actually have any fruit on this guy yet.
isn't this blossom enough???!

The granadilla vine is part of my vision of a natural shade patio; an edible, ornamental, and also functional plant!

the flowers dangle straight down, as will the fruit

For now I am perfecting the art of passionfruit juice so that I'll be ready when my own crop is ripe ;)

Calalas contain dark colored seeds encased in a slimy pulp, which I know, does not look super tasty. but stay with me...

In Nica it is common practice to serve fruit juices with their pulp and/or seeds, leaving you with gulps of chunky beverage to enjoy, or if you're like me, with a tricky "straining of your own glass without looking too gross" technique. Therefore, in making my own batch, I press the pulp through a strainer, extracting as much of the tangy flavor without the actual globs.

Add water in the straining process, about 1 cup per fruit, and sugar to taste.

PASSION in a glass: ¡Deliciosa!

Homeopathy in the Garden

I had heard of homeopathy for treating people, as an alternative form of health care. I don't pretend to fully understand the how, but I used to take a homeopathic remedy for poison oak, which typically gives me a horrendous rash, when hiking in California. The preventative results were remarkable!
Only recently did I learn that using the same logic, homeopathy can be used to treat plant plagues and diseases. Through a fortunate meeting in the Houston airport, our farm became a part of a homeopathic experiment. Presenting my debut in the homeopathy video world.....

La Gata Gorda on Homeopathy from Tamara Montenegro on Vimeo.

To learn more about homeopathy, check http://www.homeopathyworldcommunity.com/

Insectos: from creepy to copacetic

Rainy season brings out all the best (and worst?) critters. Typically when I discover an uninvited guest of the creepy crawly variety in the house, it is quickly and carefully relegated outdoors (notable exceptions are cucarachas and scorpians, both killed on the spot).

I was prompted to do a bit more research recently in order to identify the following many-legged ones found in my bedroom. I had a strong suspicion one or both might be poisonous.

The first,

most likely a millipede though I didn't get a leg count before ushering it outside. Millipedes feed primarily on decaying plant matter, so no big threat there. They can, however, produce an "irritating fluid" when disturbed. gross.

Next, less leggy though slightly more menacing,

some kind of centipede, a carnivorous insect with a set of sharp claws that contain venom and can inflict a painful bite! The very large varieties can harm humans; I think this guy is small enough to be considered inoffensive; nonetheless he was removed to the outdoors as well.

A safer distance from my bed, on the exterior door of the house, I happened upon this gorgeous and unusual spider and her web.

Click on the image to get a closer look--it's worth it ;)

Undeniably elegant and cheery, the butterflies emerge in full force after a heavy rain, dipping in water droplets and nibbling on fruit.

Here they feast on a juicy opening in a mango still on the tree.

Below, they converge upon the mango pit I am sun-drying before planting.

Mamey Fruit

I've discovered a new fruit, delicious for you and your goat!

Admittedly, it doesn't necessarily look so scrumptious from the outside...

This strange globe-shaped fruit with a surprising sweet flesh is known as "mamey" here in Nicaragua, and in more official circles as Mammea americana. When ripened, these huge, heavy fruits come crashing to the ground with a distinctive thud. Needless to say, loitering under the mamey trees would be foolish.
Last year at this time I was loitering under the mamey trees, scratching my head in wonder at the pumpkin-orange mess splattered and rotting in fermenting puddles around the farm. No one had mentioned that the magnolia-like trees lining the coffee rows produces an edible fruit. and they don't exactly have that fruit tree sort of look, do you think?
Even if I did notice the brown dinosaur eggs growing in the branches above, they closely resemble another "fruit" in the area, inedible, nicknamed "donkey balls" which secretes a white sticky milk that I was told can be used to repel flies. So fair enough, I managed to miss a whole season's mamey crop despite it growing, literally, in my own backyard.

NOT donkey balls

This year, as a more informed fruit eater, I was ready for mamey season (keeping a safe distance from the drop zone) and easily collected a wheelbarrow full of ripe specimens to sample.

Peeling a mamey is not easy, and once you get inside there is a bitter white membrane, like an orange, to pick through before reaching a thin layer of flesh surrounding a gigantic round seed. However it only took one taste to make it all worth it.

The flavor is tough to describe, much like mamey's fragrance: a deep, sweet, peachy perfume. Try it, you'll like it!

when the cat's away....

Finally we are home!!! An extra long visit to the USA was fun-filled and relaxing, but now i am so ready to get my hands dirty again!
From the looks of things around here, a lot has been going on. In a word: OVERGROWTH, of both flora and fauna. I expected the long spiraling vines, extreme weed invasion, bolting basil, and even the moldy film layer on all clothing and textiles in the house. this is tropical living in all its glory.
Rainy season came early this year, so the 4-6 months of photosynthetic bliss began without me. Most days, the air is thick with impending rain, not a stifling humidity though; it is like a warm haze, the sun glowing dimly somewhere in the sky, making the air almost visibly green. Then suddenly, a wonderfully refreshing breeze heralds RAIN, RAIN, and more RAIN, drenching everybody and everything in tropical wetness. So the plant profusion I anticipated. the barrage of animal life is another story. more than one actually.

You leave a house with only screened windows and doors for 2.5 months, what do you expect, right? And it is fly season after all. However, it was still startling (to say the least) when I interupted the very settled-in ANT COLONY that had moved in to my PAJAMA DRAWER! Big gross ants with eggs and all. Escaping the heavy rains, my bedroom window must have offered ideal access into my closet, i.e. the perfect nesting space.
I had no problem eradicating the ant community. Ants and i go way back, this was only one more skirmish in our ongoing conflict of interests.

The situation in the coat rack is entirely different. here's an initial glance.
Hmm. sticks and junk inside a hanging baseball cap? How strange.
Closer inspection reveals oh-so-much more:

BABY BIRDS!!!

Yes, real live wild baby birds. Did i mention the coat rack is IN the house?!? Her beak stuffed with tasty morsels, Mama Bird slips under the crack of our front door several times a day. Three little chirpers wait patiently in their baseball cap nest. Life was certainly less perilous for this birdy family before Chia the cat moved back inside. There's only so long I can carefully moniter the cat's actions. Twice now I've found Chia face to face with a baby bird; by some miracle the tiny winged-ones seem fully intact. Hopefully they will be fast learners and fly out of here soon!

The animals I was most happy to see are thankfully alive and well, if a tad on the skinny side.

Chia

Stella & Daisy

farm-away-from-farm

Faithful readers! Sorry for my absence. Even though I am away from my sweet little farm, I should and will document farmy stuff around me here in suburbia. Admittedly, it has felt a little painful to consider blogging when I am so removed from all of my beloved plants and animals. We are coming up on one month away, and I experience a stab in the chest whenever anyone mentions my pups. or my goats. or just chickens.
Enough!
Within the confines of your typical Californian suburban neighborhood, I am proud and inspired by the amazing and industrious projects of my favorite aspiring-farmer niece!

Paige's passion for animals led her to summer camps at Hidden Villa, an educational farm, and on to 4-H with whom she has undertaken an awesome and ambitious agricultural enterprise.

A surprise awaited me in the family garage,,,BABY CHICKENS!

The fluffy chicks were delivered into Paige's care in early April--she is a loving mother hen, refilling food and water and cleaning out their bedding with care and attention. The garage flock is growing fast! In even the few weeks since I met them, their fuzz has turned feathery.

Paige is responsible for rearing the market chickens to about 8 lbs, when they will be plump enough to be auctioned off at the 4-H fair. Chickens who weigh in at over 8 lbs do not qualify, so feeding and monitoring is a serious job. Generous donors have been known to pay HUNDREDS of dollars for a chicken (and to support 4-H of course)!

Luckily, Paige has chicken experience! In the backyard the family's very own egg-laying flock free ranges in the grass amongst bicycles, skateboards, and gardening tools. Here I find my antidote to farmsickness :)Pufflegeorge and her 2 hen-friends sleep soundly in a funky garden shed turned coop, safe from urban raccoons and possums. Like our hens on the farm, they contribute about 3 eggs a day to the human family's diet.

Good luck to Paige at the fair,

and Thank you for the farm fix!!