Sonia Tastes Hawaii

The Fruiting Hedge

HELE MAI `AHA `AINA!
(Come Join the Feast!)
By Sonia Martinez
(April 13, 2004 - The Hawaii Tribune-Herald of Hilo)

THE FRUITING HEDGE

Surinam cherries (Eugenia uniflora) commonly grow almost everywhere I've ever lived and you see them mostly planted in rows along a fence line and trimmed to be used as a hedge.

They are also known as Pitanga cherries. The plant is known throughout the tropics and sub-tropics and I have encountered it as far north as the South Carolina Low Country where the temperatures do not reach freezing too often.

The attractive cherries it produces are mostly ignored, except for children who like to eat them right off the bush and the crops have never, to my knowledge been grown commercially.

The brightly colored berries or cherries are loaded with vitamin C and have a very distinctive taste and smell. The shape is almost like a little round Oriental lantern with vertical ridges on the little globes, and the seeds or pits, are large and round. When they start to ripen, the fruit starts turning a beautiful orange color, further resembling little lit lanterns.

Of the two varieties known, the most common is bright red when fully ripe and has a slight resinous taste. The second variety reaches a very dark red to almost purple-black when ripe and it is much sweeter.

We have two large shrubs in our yard of the latter, almost purple, sweeter variety. They have been trimmed in the past, but not as a uniform shaped hedge. At the moment they are about 10' tall and about the same size in span. They usually fruit about twice a year, in spring and fall, and have been covered in fruit for about three
weeks now. The birds don't seem to bother them and though in Florida they seem to attract fruit flies, I have not seen any pests around them here.

The taste is sweet with a slightly tart undertone. The bushes had been previously largely ignored, except to pick the occasional cherries off and eat them right then and there, but with the bumper crop this year I decided to see how I could use them and preserve them.

If the fall crop is as generous as this one, I will probably make some vinegar and jams for holiday gifts this year.

If there are any readers who have recipes using the cherries, I would love to hear from you.

SURINAM CHERRIES VINAIGRETTE

I like making flavored vinegar and I love collecting pretty glass bottles with the clamp type stoppers to use for my homemade vinegar. The vinegar from these cherries is a beautiful ruby red in color. Yields about 2 cups.

3 cups cherries, washed and hulled – not pitted
3/4 cup white distilled vinegar
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup water

Cook in a non-reactive saucepan until cherries are soft and mushy, about 20 minutes or so, stirring once in a while with a wooden or plastic utensil. Pass through a fine sieve, pushing as much of the pulp as you can through it.

Wonderful in mixed fresh green salads, with some crumbled goat cheese
feta and chopped toasted macadamia nuts.

Photo: Chicken, Papaya & Strawberry Salad with Toasted Macadamia Nuts & Surinam Cherry Vinaigrette (in bottle)

SURINAM CHERRY JAM

I decided to make syrup with the cherries to use with pancakes, waffles, over ice cream and also as a coulis with meats or fish. I guess the cherries have so much natural pectin in them that the result was more of a jam than syrup. Since I make small batches, to
be used within a couple of weeks, there is no need to use a water bath to preserve the jam for long storage. Yields about 3 cups.

4 cups cherries, washed and hulled – not pitted
3 cups sugar

Cook at medium-high heat in a large saucepan, stirring quite often in the beginning to prevent sugar from caramelizing in the bottom of the saucepan while it dissolves.

The cherries will release their juice as they soften. You won't have to stir so often after the fruit yields up most of the juices. Cook until very soft and mushy, about half an hour.

Pass through a fine sieve, pushing as much of the pulp as you can through it. Store in clean, open mouthed, glass preserve jars. Store in refrigerator and use within 2 weeks.

I think the jam would also be wonderful as a filling between layers of plain cake before icing.

Next time though, I will probably add some water to this batch and see if I get the syrup or coulis I was trying for this time around.

Photo: Surinam Cherry Jam - Delicious with Chévre (soft goat cheese)

EASY SURINAM CHERRY JAM TRIFLE

I love making trifles for dessert. They are so easy to make and very elegant and the combination of flavors and textures are pleasing to my taste.

1 Angel food cake – I used lemon-flavored – cubed
Surinam Cherry Jam
2 boxes of Vanilla pudding

Make the pudding according to package directions, but don't let it sit for long before using.

In a large glass bowl or trifle dish, start layering with 1/3 of the cubed pieces of cake. Drop little globs of the jam, dotting over the cubed cake pieces and let it dribble down into the open spaces.

Ladle 1/3 of the pudding over the cake and jam, letting it cover and dribble between the cubed cake pieces.

Repeat layering with the cake, jam and vanilla until you have three layers of each. Refrigerate for at least an hour before serving.

The Home Farming Project - Share the Harvest

 

From April through September 2011 I participated as a blogger in a Home Farming Project sponsored by Nabisco / Triscuit Company at the Gather.com site.  Some of my gardening articles survived the cut when Gather was sold, some did not.  I am trying to save all the ones that did survive so will be sharing through this blog.

Filed in Gather Home & Garden Essential by Sonia Martinez on April 28, 2011

 

A few months ago, one of my friends who, like me, is a member of the Slow Food movement in our area, was thinking aloud and wondered if there might be a way for people who had home gardens or even farms to share the excess bounty with others for items they themselves didn't grow or might be needing. 

Thus the "Share the Harvest" group was born! 

We opened an Internet group where members can post items they have to trade for items they want. 

Barter is limited to food products such as homegrown produce or crops: fruit and vegetables; dairy and dairy products; livestock products such as eggs, etc. or any other food items made at home. 

We also accept posts for food providing plants and seeds, and homemade products such as jams, jellies, preserves, breads, cheeses, butter, etc. in exchange.

 Recently one member found she had an excess of wide mouth canning jars and wondered if it would be alright to post them in exchange for some food items.  Considering that the jars are used for preserving food, we agreed to let her post them and a good trade was made.

If you would like to start a "Share the Harvest" group in your hometown or area, just let me know.  It is simple and free.  There are no fees or franchise necessary; it runs along the order of a Freecycle group and it is all above board.

To read the previous posts on this same topic, please click on the following links:

The Home Farming Project - Edible Landscapes

The Home Farming Project - Victory Gardens

The Home Farming Project - The Recycled Garden

The Home Farming Project - Lasagna Gardening

The Home Farming Project - Growing your own small garden bounty

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Home Farming Project - Lasagna Gardening

From April through September 2011 I participated as a blogger in a Home Farming Project sponsored by Nabisco / Triscuit Company at the Gather.com site.  Some of my gardening articles survived the cut when Gather was sold, some did not.  I am trying to save all the ones that did survive so will be sharing through this blog.

Lasagna Gardening

Filed in Gather Home & Garden Essential by Sonia Martinez on April 6, 2011

Sounds funny, doesn't it? What does it mean?  When I first heard the term 'lasagna gardening' I had no idea that we were already doing a version of it and didn't know what to call it.

It simply means starting an organic garden without digging or tilling the land underneath.  The layering of a barrier between the grass and weeds underneath and the planting medium; be it layers of cardboard, newspapers or any other decomposable material keeps the weeds or grass from coming through.  By wetting the layers thoroughly you start the decomposing process while at the same time breaking down the grass and weeds underneath, which in turn will start attracting worms to the new moist bed. 

Adding layers of organic matter such as organically enriched soil, clippings, garden trimmings, shredded newspapers, coffee grounds, egg shells, used tea bags, peelings and parings from your kitchen; anything you would normally put in a home composting bin can be added to the top of your lasagna bed.  Just continue adding and wetting it down to help the process along.

In areas where winter likes to linger you can start preparing your lasagna beds even when there is still frost on the ground.  If you start early enough, by the time the first crocuses show up their little green tips, and only after the last danger of frost is evident, your lasagna bed might be ripe enough to start planting. 

In the areas where the growing season is so short, you can also start planting seed trays inside the house while there is still snow on the ground and by the time all danger of frost is past you can transplant your seedlings outdoors.  This will be a big boost and shorten the days of waiting for that first tomato to show up.

 

To read the previous posts on this same topic, please click on the following links:

The Home Farming Project - Edible Landscapes

The Home Farming Project - Victory Gardens

The Home Farming Project - The Recycled Garden

The Home Farming Project - The Recycled Garden

From April through September 2011 I participated as a blogger in a Home Farming Project sponsored by Nabisco / Triscuit Company at the Gather.com site.  Some of my gardening articles survived the cut when Gather was sold, some did not.  I am trying to save all the ones that did survive so will be sharing through this blog.

Filed in Gather Home & Garden Essential by Sonia Martinez on April 6, 2011

A few years ago when we first decided to start a garden in the only 'almost flat part of the yard we also decided we were going to work with 'recycled' materials and not buy anything new except a few plants and seeds. 

We started out by mowing the grass as close to the ground as possible and then marking out one 4 x 8 bed and six 4 x 4 beds. We like using a depth of 4 feet across because you can reach into the center from all sides without too much straining.

We enclosed the beds by using some 4 x 6 cedar boards salvaged when the wooden slats in the living room windows were replaced with glass jalousies.  We joined them in the corners with brackets we already had and reinforced them with short wooden stakes to help hold them in place;  these were our edges or borders.  After the beds were all marked out, we proceeded to lay down newspapers in thick layers to cover the whole enclosure and kept wetting it thoroughly as we continued layering to about a 2 inch thickness to discourage weeds from coming through. 

Meantime, the young man who helps keep our grass mowed had gone to the town waste station and had returned with two pickup loads of free mulch / compost, which we proceeded to spread in all the beds all the way to the top of the wooden slats and continued to water it down so it would settle as much as possible before adding any more. 

 

In the middle of the longer bed we staked down three sections of a dog fence from when we had dogs, in a zigzag pattern which we then used as a trellis to hold the tomato plants upright.  

By this time we were ready to start planting. Hey, wait; we forgot to add dirt!  No, we didn't.  We already had some large plastic bins where we had mixed soil enriched with decomposed chicken manure and other organic matter which we used as our planting medium. 

Using mainly mulch in each bed and only carving small pockets or narrow trenches in the mulch we filled in with the planting medium and then placed the small plant or the seeds; this helped us with weed control.  With this method, each bed is technically, its own composting pile. 

After the seeds came up or our little starter plants started to grab hold, we side-dressed with organic manure and a couple of weeks afterwards side-dressed again with more soil and some more organic manure, since the original soil had already started decomposing the mulch around the plants.  When the plants started flowering and small vegetables started forming, we side-dressed again with a weak manure tea to give them a good jump start. 

Each week as the beds settled, we added a little bit more mulch all around the beds and that seemed to help keeping the weeds down. 

As time passed, we found other useful objects as planters and trellises that would probably have ended in the landfill otherwise.  

Photo above - We also used an old wheelbarrow with a flat tire and rusted holes in the bottom as a planter for some of our herbs. 

Look around you and see what you already have that can be used in the garden. You too can have a recycled garden for very little expense.

 

To read the previous posts on this same topic, please click on the following links:

The Home Farming Project - Edible Landscapes

The Home Farming Project - Victory Gardens

 

The Home Farming Project - Victory Gardens

From April through September 2011 I participated as a blogger in a Home Farming Project sponsored by Nabisco / Triscuit Company at the Gather.com site.  Some of my gardening articles survived the cut when Gather was sold, some did not.  I am trying to save all the ones that did survive so will be sharing through this blog.

 

Victory Gardens

Filed in Gather Home & Garden Essential by Sonia Martinez on April 6, 2011 • 

 

I'm sure most of you have heard or read about Victory Gardens, those little plots of land used for growing fruits and vegetables in urban areas during the two World Wars.

In 1917, Charles Lathrop Pack, better known as a wealthy philanthropist and philatelist, organized what was called the National War Garden Commission which was instrumental in getting people all over the United States, Britain, Canada and even in war torn Germany to plant food gardens in whatever scrap of yard, empty urban lots and even city parks they could find.  Eleanor Roosevelt planted one in the grounds of the White House to inspire the nation to follow.

In the United States alone, Victory Gardens contributed up to 40% of total food grown during the war years with companies such as Beech-Nut, Better Homes & Gardens Magazine, International Harvester Machinery and of course, the Department of Agriculture sponsoring colorful posters, instruction booklets on growing and preserving food and even recipe ideas to build up enthusiasm even among those who had never planted anything in the ground before.

Planting a Victory Garden was a visible way to support our fighting troops as well as feeding family and neighbors with fresh food so that much of the large farms could feed the military.

Today, neighborhood Victory Gardens are just as important as they were during the wars. Your yard might not have enough space to feed the family, but it certainly can be made to help supplement the weekly grocery shopping and cut down on soaring food costs. 

Starting a small family Victory Garden can be as simple as planting a few edibles in pots by your kitchen door, patio or deck or as involved as planting rows in sunny areas of the yard.

The satisfaction of growing and picking your own tomatoes, peppers, eggplants and cucumbers is a big reward for the hours you might spend tending to your edibles. 

Keeping the garden beds well mulched cuts down on dreaded hours of weeding.  Saving raw food scraps, egg shells and coffee grounds to make a small compost pile, can keep your edible plants happy. 

Here is how to make your own 'liquid compost' in small batches: 

I like to save all the raw vegetable peelings and bit pieces not used in cooking in a plastic bucket. At the end of the day, we put them in the blender with plenty of water and process until smooth.  You might have to do it in batches.

Use this raw veggie liquid mixture to water your herbs or vegetable garden by pouring it right around the stem of each plant.  If you don't have enough to water all of your plants at one time, water them in sections each day.

Obviously, this is not practical for very large gardens, but it works great in ours and also if you plant herbs in pots around your lanai or terrace.

Updated note: what you don't "liquify" can go into the regular compost

The Home Farming Project

From April through September 2011 I participated as a blogger in a Home Farming Project sponsored by Triscuit (Nabisco Company) at the Gather.com site.  Some of my gardening articles survived the cut when Gather was sold, some did not.  I am trying to save all the ones that did survive so will be sharing through this blog.

It was a lot of fun to share what I did know and also to learn things I did not know while doing research for certain topics. 

I can easily climb on my soap box and carry on about what each of us can do to contribute to a lessening of the carbon footprint left by commercial growers, but that is for another time….Just read my articles and you can easily read between the lines…and get on the bandwagon.

Edible Landscapes

Filed in Gather Home & Garden Essential by Sonia Martinez on April 6, 2011

We don't all need to live in farms to grow edibles.  Any size yard can accommodate at least a few edible plants to supplement our produce and fruit needs. 

We are seeing more people growing edibles in their yards.  Many are ripping costly-to-maintain lawns and are planting food instead. 

Some neighborhoods don't allow 'garden plots' in the landscape, but if you incorporate some herbs and food plants into your yard plantings, you yard can look beautiful and be useful.  After all, if you have to work so hard to have a pretty lawn that just sits there, isn't it a lot smarter to work as hard but be able to reap an edible harvest in the same space?

If you take the time and care to think about landscaping with herbs and other edible plants, your yard can look as pretty as it it was planted in masses of flowering bushes or trees.  Just make sure your flowering bushes are all growing edibles and your trees bear nuts or fruit.

In areas where the growing seasons are short, more care and consideration needs to be taken into what is feasible to grow during the shorter growing season.

To keep a home garden manageable and interesting it is best to plant smaller quantities of an assortment of edibles more often rather than a bumper crop of one or two selections at a time.

A way to take advantage of small plots of land is to do companion planting which can be done in even a small 4 x 4 space in a sunny spot of your yard.

The easiest way is to mark the square out with spray paint on the grass.  Start layering newspapers over the grass to form a thick barrier between the growing bed and the grass and weeds below.  Water the area thoroughly after laying down several layers of the newspapers.  Keep layering as thick as you feel it needs to be.

If you like to have 'boundaries', lay 4 pieces of 4 x 6 or 4 x 8 (depending on the depth of your top soil layer) and nail them together with corner brackets.  On top of the newspapers you can add the soil, which can be potting soil enriched with compost. 

Plant the taller plants in the center; corn or okra are good examples.  Underneath them you can plant climbers like beans or peas, which will use the taller plants as trellises.  Around them spot tomato and pepper plants in the corners with some varieties of basil in between.  Outside that row then plant the shorter plants, such as parsley, chives, creeping oregano or marjoram and marigolds, the petals of which are edible in salads and they discourage some pests from attacking the other plants.

Before you know it you can have your own "Itsy Bitsy Farm" plot in your urban garden. 

 

 

 

 

 

Farmers Market Bounty….. Food as Art

 

Almost 4 years ago I did a farmers market feature article about the Kekela Farmers Market on Mana Road in Waimea for the Hawai’i HomeGrown Food Network, but the following photos were not in it.

Photo: multicolored carrots

The Kekela Farmers Market is unique in that it opens twice a week - Tuesday & Friday in the afternoons and it is located on the farm grounds itself.

Photo – Carrots

Most everything they sell is grown on the farm, except for some fruit that don’t grow well at their elevation and climate (avocado, citrus, coconut, mango, etc) and some value added food products (coffee, vanilla beans, honey, etc)

Photo – Gold and white cauliflowers

Their produce is so gorgeous I had to take time to just photograph it

Photo – Fennel bulbs

The farm grows about 30 different veggies and about 100 varieities within the 30.

Oner/farmer Paul Johnston was an OB-GYN in his pre-Hawai’i days when he lived on the mainland East Coast and worked at it also in his first few years in Hawaii.  At first their farm sold all the produce through another farmer and then when the farm started really taking off they decided to concentrate only on the farm.

Above two photos – multicolored lettuces

Now they sell at their own farm stand; at the Waimea Town Market @ Parker School  -see link for feature below –  and to several of the resort hotels for use in their restaurants.

Photo – Beet greens

Here is a video that shows the beautiful farm – Kekela Farm

Waimea Town Market – Parker School

Photo – Multocolored beets

 

 

Photo – Broccoli

 

Photo – Purple and regular kohlrabi

Photo – Scallions

To read the feature article about this market at the Hawaii HomeGrown Food Network site, click on the highlighted link below:

Kekela Farm Market, Tuesday 2 - 5 pm, and Friday 3 - 5 pm
Located at 64-604 Mana Road, Waimea/Kamuela. Turn onto Mana Road at 55 mile marker, Mamalahoa Highway; left at stop sign, 0.4 miles to red barn (first left after Koa Lane). Local, organic produce plus coffee, honey, goat cheese. Tuesdays only: stone oven-baked breads. Info: Paul Johnston -pej1001@aol.com - Manager Betsy Sanderson: (887-0023) - Website: http://www.kekelafarms.com/

(c) Sonia R. Martinez

Yes, we have no bananas...

 

Several years ago I joined a group of friends from an on-line 'cookbooker's' group in a scrapbooking recipe project, where we each made copies of our page for everyone else participating...It was fun, but it was also a lot of "time comsuming work"...

I didn't do too many, and my participation didn't last long, as time was getting too tight for fun projects with all the other 'real' responsibilities I had...

Now that I am trying to simplify my life I might make time again for scrapbook recipes for my own enjoyment.

Meantime, I want to share the few I have so I can get inspired again...

 

 

and here is the one I shared yesterday

Passion Fruit Hot Pepper Jelly

 

 

If I can cut down on activities this year, maybe I will have time again for working on some recipe scrapbooking

I did this one a few years ago... the 'frame' is embroidered

 

 

Chef Olelo pa'a at Honoka'a High and Intermediate School

I was invited to attend a special cooking demonstration at the Honoka'a High and Intermediate School presented by Chef Olelo pa'a Ogawa.  

Other guests were Donna Mitts, Derek Kiyabu and Zoe Kosmas, of the Kohala Center's Hawai'i Island School Garden Network; Carol Yurth representing the Hawaii County Economic Opportunity Council and the Honoka'a Ohana Kitchen; Manuel Jadulang, agricultural teacher and overseer of the school's farm & gardens, and Sarah Anderson, photographer who also freelances for The Hamakua Times.

Soursop (guanabana, as I know it)  is a delicious underutilized fruit in Hawai'i.  Has a creamy, white custard-like flesh with lots of black seeds and sweetly sour taste.  Can be eaten as is or used in milkshakes, smoothies, custards and ice cream.

Homemade vanilla extract made with Kona Gold Vanilla beans and Maui Ocean Vodka.

Olelo is well known for her use of the freshest ingredients in onolicious combinations and for her support of local farmers and insisting in using as much locally grown and sourced ingredients as possible.

She was ably assisted by Mia, Elijah, Isaiah, Ethan, Samantha, Sherena, Tatijama and Ashlyn, students of the school's Culinary I and II classes and Xenia Bremseth, their talented teacher.

The entrée consisted of a salad with fresh greens, papaya wedges, curly carrots & beetroots, chopped macnuts and fresh, raw pieces of green beans drizzled with Kona Gold Vanilla Lime Vinaigrette and Basil Oil, served with Blue Corn Chips on the side.

To make the Kona Gold Vanilla Lime Dressing you need lime juice, sugar, sweet onion, mustard, olive oil, salt and the seeds of the vanilla beans.  Amounts to taste.  Place in blender to emulsify. 

Also on the side were chunks of Curried Roasted Pumpkin, Minced Grass-Fed Beef Curry and Purée of Caulifower.

The pumpkin was seasoned with garlic, ginger, masala, olena (turmeric), Glow Honey, salt and olive oil before roasting.  The beef was cooked with garlic, ginger, cumin, curry leaves, onion, celery, carrots, peas, clilantro, chicken stock and coconut oil and minced.  

To make the caulifower purée, cut the green base off; cut the caulifower flowerettes and simmer them in a mixture of water and milk seasoned with salt, a piece of Meyer lemon rind and nutmeg.  Place in blender with a touch of milk (if needed), add vanilla and blend.

The dessert plate!  Coconut Caramel Flan, Cassava Balls with Caramel Sauce, Orange sections, Waimea Strawberries, Banana and Fresh Mint, with a sprinkle of chopped and toasted Macadamia Nuts.  

To make the Cassava Balls, you peel and boil the cassava (Manihot esculenta, also known as manioc or yuca) and mash.  

Add a bit of mochi flour to give it body, add shredded coconut, and a small amount of sugar.  Mix well and form into balls.  

Deep fry until golden.

To make the Caramel Sauce: 

1 cup brown sugar - packed

1/2 cup half & half

4 Tablespoons butter

1 Tablespoon vanilla extract

 

White sugar may be used, although I prefer brown.

Place the first three ingredients in a saucepan over medium-low heat.  Whisk continuously but gently as it cooks, for about 5 to 7 minutes, or until it gets to the consistency you want.  Add the vanilla and cook for another minute.  Turn off heat and cool slightly; pour the sauce into a glass jar and refrigerate until ready to use.

 

 

 

The school farm garden and orchard, overseen by ag teacher Manuel Jadulang, provided some of the ingredients used and the flowers and fruit used in the centerpieces.  

 

I hope to do another visit soon to write about the farm garden.  A Hawai'i Canoe Plants Garden holds a special place.  Canoe Plants are the original plants brought by the early Polynesian settlers of the Hawaiian Islands.