Foot and Fire

My one-month old banana vinegar is now sour to my liking.  Just a month ago, we have overripe bananas with black peels already. I reminded my mom not to throw it away as I saw online that I can turn it into vinegar just by feeding the bacteria sugar and this bacteria will turn the mixture sour. Today, I strained the pulp and had a 750ml banana vinegar.  While straining the liquid to separate from the pulps, I observed a whitish jelly-like subsyance. This must be the "mother" as we ofter see in the label of apple cider vinegars. I returned the mother with the pulp so that the bacteria shall continue breaking down more pulps.  INGREDIENTS Banana pulps 1 cup distilled or spring water for every cup of pulp 1 tbsp brown sugar for every 2 cups of pulp Glass jar Cloth or unused facemask to cover jar mouth HOW TO Mash the banana pulp. Add water and brown sugar. Mix well and cover lid with facemask. Every day, stir the mixture using wooden spoon to avoid mo...

Juicy, ripe, yellow, luscious,  sweet, crunchy crisp, fresh, organic. These are what we blurted about our Giant Jackfruit. Hopefully, we can have one more giant next year! From my June 26, 2014 post: An amazing 22-inch tall jackfruit, a first pick from our tree.  Must be weighing 30 kilos...46 inch in diameter. Awesome! Sweet, juicy and plump segment of the fruit. One last look....

With three to four bites, it is all core already. Cherry apple is another nature's offering when one is bored of the usual-sized apples...                              @@@                            @@@ When everyone prefers big and huge, here comes the cherry apple to delight our eyes and renew our interest in apple. Sharp sourness can be passed up because anyway, there are three bites available only... My cherry apple mandala....

Atis is a seedy fruit with pleasantly sweet pulp when eaten at a certain ripeness... I can recall when i was small, we used the plentiful seeds of atis in sungka boardgame in lieu of pebbles or small shells. Delicate sweetness is one of the traits of an atis pulp...   Last five of a kilo of atis...

A thoughtful friend brought us a Snakefruit during her trip to Bali, Indonesia... I lavished and slowly chewed on the fruit after peeling off its snake-like peeling... I loved the taste. It has the nice sweet sour taste of a pineapple and the crunch of apple as texture and it looks like a giant clove of garlic when peeled and dissected. Is it a fruit or nut? When i had the chance, i googled and found out that it is from a palm tree like fig and dates... It is a popular and common fruit all over Indonesia and it can be made into wine... I think I will have more of this when I get to visit Bali too. *photos used above came from my google search...

Inspired by patterns, i served these cucumber, apple and oranges in circles.. Love the color and it lured everyone to pick up. Oh, i sprinkled some Italian herbs seasoning on top...

Gone were the days when we all need to go to Mindanao to taste this sweet and smooth fruit called Marang. This overpowering fruit in terms of its sweet smell in contrast to the killer smell of Durian is a favorite of mine by the time I first tasted it.

Verba or chinese batuan as we knew it here is also a childhood fruit. We used to climb two trees of it in Brgy. haguimit where we were used to have a short vacation. It is sour and turns yellow when ripe. It has no much commercial value as the same cannot be used in cooking although it is called batuan... It round and the size of longgan and the seed or two is found inside and as big asthe fruit itself. It can be enjoyed by peeling and squeezing the fruit seed inside one's mouth and letting it stay there for a moment while one is grimacing because of its sourness and then one ejects the seed. If one is lucky, some ripe fruits are sweet with only a bit of sourness.