We followed our Christmas tradition and made pasteles (similar to Mexican tamales). Pasteles are made with a dough of grated green bananas, pumpkin, various root vegetables and coloring and have a meat filling of chicken or pork. They are then wrapped in paper and banana leaves and tied in a neat little package to be boiled. We also made some of yucca, which can be boiled or baked in foil and are called empanadas. We set up our assembly line with "abuela" leading us to a record 473!! At 85, abuela Raquel, doesn't tire.....a cap on her head, string around her neck (for wrapping), we set up our factory. I found a paper from 2006 that said we had made 347. Some of our pasteles are gifts, some we eat right away and serve our guests, some we sell, and the rest we freeze. Pasteles taste the best in summer when no one has seen them for months...easy fast food....b
oil 'em up and you have a full meal....yum!It's a new year and I'm still talking about my garden. My tomatoes are slowly appearing, the
peppers don't look great and I have more seeds to start while picking up goat poop to mix with my compost. Like most things in the jungle, certain plants go wild without much care. Check out our roof garden. Unlike most roof gardens in the city, our roof garden appeared on its own. We've already have eaten stuffed chayotes and are drying out our loofahs...waiting for the next harvest.And so...welcome 2009....we're ready! We're gonna try to grow more food, try to continue our morning walks to the end of the farm..touch the banana tree and then cirle the camping area "track" and come home for breakfast, and try to meet more people from more places than ever before. January has brought us wonderful people so far and we're looking forward to meeting more.
I'll be talking to you soon...with more pictures and more info from TJ Ranch, Arecibo and Puerto Rico. Adios and Feliz Ano Nuevo!!!
2 comments:
I noticed a lot of grass in your
photography.
That equals to a lot of noise and pollution, please get rid of it.
Plant groundcovers!
I will check again.
What kind of ground cover do you suggest?
I hear there's something from the pica-pica family (but doesn't "pica") that's a ground cover and when it gets cut, it's fertilizer too.
Feel free to use TJ Ranch as an experimental station and you're welcome to come and plant your ground cover.
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