Beside cooking, baking and sewing, I love gardening too. Gardening is considered to be a relaxing activity for many people. Beside that it help to reduce your risk of stroke, burns calories, reducing the risk of heart disease, weight maintenance, decrease the likelihood of osteoporosis, stress buster, mood boosting, lower risk of dementia, strengthens your immune system.
When you got nothing better to do and weather is good, enjoy your breakfast or tea in the garden help to relax your mind.
Baked tapioca cake
Ingredients
1 kg tapioca
250 gm sugar
2 eggs - lightly beaten
2 tbsp butter - melted
80 gm grated coconut
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp salt
Tapioca / cassava from our garden
Peel of the tapioca skin and chopped the tapioca.
Use a manual or electric grater to grate the tapioca. Then use a muslin cloth to squeeze out the tapioca juice. Discard the tapioca juice.
Mix the tapioca, sugar, vanilla, beaten egg, grated coconut, salt and melted butter. Stir till well mixed. Pour the batter in a greased cake pan.
Bake the tapioca cake in a preheat oven for 45 minutes. Then grill for few minutes till the surface slightly charred.
Steamed tapioca coat with fresh grated coconut.
Ingredients
500 gm tapioca - grated
120 gm sugar
90 mls water
1 tsp pandan paste or 1 tbsp concentrated pandan juice
50mls thick coconut milk
250 gm grated coconut - for topping.
1/ Grease an 7 inch cake pan.
2/ Mix all the ingredients and steam for 40 minutes.
3/ Cool completely before cutting.
4/ Steam the 250 gm grated coconut with pinch of salt. Coat the steamed tapioca with coconut.
Note: If you want a firmer steamed tapioca cake, can add 1 to 2 tbsp of flour. I did not add flour so the tapioca is fairly soft.
Black glutinous rice with coconut milk.
Wash and soak the glutinous rice for 2 hours, add enough water to boil until soft.
When the rice is soft add the 2nd squeeze coconut milk, sugar, pandan leave and bring to boil. Add in the thick coconut milk and give a quick stir and remove from stove.
Let's tour our little haven, my playground.....some pictures are taken 2 to 3 weeks ago. We don't use any fancy landscape, we just leave it natural.
To harvest the tapioca, it require 8 to 10 months. We now replanting about 20 tapioca plants.
Avocado flowers. Picture taken yesterday afternoon in the rain.
Avocado fruit from our garden, harvested 2 days ago.
Avocado tree. The squirrels love to attack the avocado.
That's our maid help to pluck the coconuts.
Last week plucked 4 huge coconuts and one old coconut.
Our maid is good at cutting the coconut. Gardening credit goes to our maid, she planted most of the vegetables, clearing the dried leaves and branches.
Remove the coconut husk and hard shell. We collect the coconut husks and hard shells for our orchid plants.
Chopped the coconut meat into smaller piece
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| Soft and fluffy grated coconut |
I used my electric grater to grate the coconut and tapioca.
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| Coconut candy |
Ingredients
3 large coconuts
1 kg sugar
1 tin evaporated milk ( 390mls)
220 mls condensed milk
2.5 tbsp butter
1.5 tsp vanilla extract
2 egg white - lightly beaten
few drop of colouring
1/ Mix grated coconut, sugar, evaporated milk, condensed milk, butter, salt in a heavy bottom saucepan.
2/ Cook over low flame until sugar dissolve and the mixture boiling.
3/ Turn the heat to medium and cook until slightly thicken.
4/ Add the beaten egg white, vanilla, colouring and cook until form a lump. Keep on stirring to prevent burn at the bottom.
5/ Grease a 22cm square tray, spread mixture onto the tray and level it out evenly.
6/ Smooth the mixture and press down hard with a piece of plastic sheet.
7/ Flatten with a rolling pin or base of a glass to get it compact.
8/ When mixture slightly cooled, cut into square but don't separate the pieces.
9/ Let the candy cool completely and hardened. Use a knife to go through the cut lines and separate the candy pieces.
10/ Keep in airtight container, it can last for 2 to 3 weeks.
Continue the tour of our garden.
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| Star fruit tree |
Sweet and juicy star fruits.
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| Green custard apple |
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| Passion fruit |
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Red custard apple
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The side of our garden.
To harvest the banana require 40 days.
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| Papaya tree |
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| Pineapple flower |
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| Pineapple |
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| Mulberry |
Soursop flowers, the black ants love to attack this fruit.
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| Soursop fruit |
Rambutan season just over during March, the next season will be somewhere end of the year.
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| Rambutan fruits |
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| Watermelon flowers |
Small and cute watermelon.
Dragon fruit tree is like cactus, its heavy thus need a strong pillar to support the plant.
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| Purple snow pea |
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Peanuts plants
Peanuts |
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| Jack fruit |
This chili is nice and not very explosive. This type we have about 20 plants in our garden.
Our bountiful harvest of the day.
Our chili and sweet potato leaves.
We have different varieties of chili plants.
Japanese pegaga, its a type of salad vegetables.
Vietnamese coriander leaves aka laksa leaves.
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| Calamansi |
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| Grapes from our garden |
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Green grapes
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| Pandan leaves |
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| Bay tree |
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| Lettuce |
Roselle flower, can make roselle juice or jam.
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| Water spinach |
Oyster plant, for making herbal drink.
Take a bunch of oyster leaves, wash and cut into 2 inch length. Boil the oyster leaves and a handful of barley in a medium pot. Boil in low medium heat until barley soften, add sugar to taste. Serve hot or cold.
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| Mint leaves |
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| Pumpkin vines |
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| Pumpkin |
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| Lady finger |
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| Lemon grass |
Lemon grass from our garden.
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| Long beans |
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| Moringa tree |
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| Fennel plant, the fern can be stir fry or make salad. |
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| Fennel flowers. After the flowers fade dry the fennel seeds. |
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| Ginger torch plant, only the ginger torch flower is edible. We use it for cooking shrimp curry or salad. |
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| Kafir lime leaves |
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| Blue pea flower |
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| We use the blue pea flowers as food dye or flower tea. After harvest the flowers, dry it under the sun and keep in air tight container. |
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| Spinach |
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| Bitter gourd |
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| Bitter gourd |
Flowers are a natural and healthful moderator of moods and have an immediate impact on happiness and a long term positive effects on mood.
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| One armed bandit picture cos other hand was holding umbrella. |
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| White anthurium |
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| Anthurium flower |
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| Purple daisies |
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| Chrysanthemum bubs |
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| We don't use metal grill for fencing, just fencing plants with little care. |
We collect the dried leaves, branches, fruit skins, coconut husk and burn it in our backyard to get the black soil.
Spotted the cuckoo bird fooling around.
Looking for food.
Two cuckoo birds sunbathing
Too hot, I'm taking a break.
Honey, where are you?
Darling, I'm here.......
Yesterday afternoon (24/04), the sudden bad storm destroyed some of our plants.
The tapioca plant was uprooted during the storm.
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| Tapioca / cassava root |
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| Roselle plant |
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| Fennel plants |
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| Cat's whiskers |
Hope you all enjoy the garden tour. Have a great week ahead.
