Corn soup with corn and cassava dumplings

Recipes for the vegetables we can grow easily in our semi tropical/warm temperate climate are always useful.  Corn is so cheap to buy if you haven't a patch growing this year.

Click on the link for the recipe.

Trinidad Corn Soup with corn/cassava dumplings

Trinidad corn soup is sold as a street food/restorative, after fetes and events, especially at Carnival time. In my not too distant younger days I  had my share in the wee hours of the morning. Vendors sell portions in Styrofoam cups out of big silver vats. Quality is not consistent, the best is sold at a premium price from vendors with long lines and wait. Somehow the plump middle-aged ladies tend to make the best tasting street foods in the Caribbean. This one tastes like the best Trini cornsoup I’ve had.

Cooking Taro and Jicama (Yam Bean) Rolls & other Asian recipes

Taro plant

Yam Bean dip sticks

There are many vegetarian recipes on 'Nyonya Food' blog. This is an interesting recipe because it demonstrates how to use both Taro and Jicama(Yam Bean) in an interesting dish.











 Try also

Jiu Hu Char (Fried Jicama/Yambean with Shredded Cuttlefish)

Here is another blog recipe using Jicama sticks: The Skinny Confidential

Cassava

The same blog, Nyonya Food, also has a recipe for a Cassava Cake, another of our easily grown foods.

Delicieux's Asian Noodle Soup

This Asian Noodle soup (at Delicieux) blog uses many ingredients we grow, lime, ginger, coriander, lemongrass and chili.

January Fruiting in the Bellingen Area

Here are a few of the plants fruiting in this area at this time.

 This White Sapote has yielded a few fruit and as you can see there are more on the way as they seem to ripen over a few months. Bagging against fruit fly is necessary.

The cucumbers are at their most productive.

 Black Kale (Dino Kale, Cavallo Nero) are still producing fresh leaves although the older leaves are well nibbled by the white cabbage moth.

Keeping the birds away from the ripening grapes can be a chore.

 These Perennial Capsicums are small but prolific at a time when capsicums can be quite costly.

Rhubarb does not like much heat but the weather has been more wet and humid than hot and sunny.

It is time to dig the Cassava.

 The bush Butter Beans are adding to the climbing beans and Snake Beans which have been producing since Christmas.

 This Cranberry Hibiscus was a surprise seedling. A few young leaves added to the salad bowl taste like sorrel, contributing a slight lemony flavour.

At present this Mountain Paw Paw drops its fruit before they reach a useful size.

This Wax Jambu is producing loads of crisp, crunchy, moist fruit. These are great to eat fresh but not to everyones taste. Wax Jambu would really contribute to an asian salad with a lime juice dressing.

 This tamarillo has been fruiting for a month. If grilled, like a tomato,  a Tamarillo will add flavour to the breakfast plate.

The first of the Wing Beans are ready to pick before they become too big and full of fibre. These plants have regrown from the 2010, 2011 tubers.

This is a moth eaten leaf but the tiny sprouts of Purple Sprouting Broccoli are still being produced.

 The sweet basil loves the humid warm weather.

 The New Guinean Mushroom plant also likes some rain, heat and shade.

 The ginger has been shooting for six weeks now. It loves this weather and is growing in shade beneath the Tiger Grass.

 The unblanched celery is tough but softens when cooked.

The Snake Beans love the heat. Why do they attract so many ants? Picking each bean with a twist, so the growing point will fruit again, has contributed to the yield.  What is fruiting in your garden at this time?