Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Fresh Pennywort Drink (Rau Ma)

This drink was made out of the pennywort that I planted a couple months ago. So refreshing and healthy!!!

Medicinal uses: Pennywort is used for purifying the blood and curing nervous conditions and is said to be 'good for the eyes'. It is also one of the herbs used in tonics to improve the memory. Eating 2 leaves each day is said to relieve the pain of arthritis and it is sold in plant nurseries as 'the arthritis herb'.

This drink also have a cooling effect on the body and great for the skin.



Ingredients:

Fresh pennywort (use enough to fill two blender)
3 bottle of cold water (60 oz)
9 tablespoon sugar


Methods:

1. Wash the pennywort and rinse it many times to get rid of the dirt. If the pennywort is too long then cut it shorter. Use every part of it except the roots.
2. Fill the blender with pennywort and 1 1/2 bottle of water. Blend it until it's smooth.
3. Strain the drink and place the blended leaves back into blender. Now fill the rest of the pennywort in to the blender and add in another 1 1/2 bottle of water. Blend it well.
4. Strain the drink mixture. Using your hand to squeeze out the liquid from the pennywort.
5. Strain again a second time and place some of the drink into a clean blender and add in 9 tablespoon sugar. Blend it until sugar dissolved.
6. Now mix the two liquid together stir to even out the flavor.
7. Serve as it is or with some ice. Refrigerate the left over.

Note: you can add as much pennywort as you want to make the drink more concentrated.

Thursday, August 13, 2009

August Tropicals Update

Ok...here is an update of my tropical fruit trees. I'm pretty happy this year as all my trees are doing well. They are growing fast and some are fruiting as well.

From second floor window looking down.


Priestly atemoya

About 10 fruits on atemoya tree.

Hasya sapodilla

Some fruits on Hasya sapodilla

Dwarf june plum

June plum with some fruits

Another dwarf june plum

Makok sapodilla

One big fruit on Makok

Sweetheart lychee more leaves

Guava with lots of flowers

Lots of fruits

Sugar apple from seed 2+ yrs old. Now have lots of flowers but I have to pinch them off so it can grow larger.

Thai Lessard sugar apple

Caimito fruit tree (purple)

48-26 atemoya

Santol

Seed grown atemoya

Soursop growing more leaves

Mix of magenta, yellow, white dragon fruit

One flower on dragon fruit

Seed grown papaya from 08

Seed grown sugar apple 9/08

Dwarf pomegranate

Mix of cactus flowers

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Vietnamese Veggies and Herbs

Sorry I have not been posting recipe lately.....that's because I'm on a diet preparing for my coming wedding in October. So stressful!!! Anyway...this year I have an interest in planting rare vegetables and herbs. So we built an small area in the back and planted some hard to find edibles. Actually, you can buy the veggies and herbs at the store...but of course they're not cheap anymore. I'm thinking maybe I can sell some of these rare things next year so people who want to plant them in the US can do so....and a way to support me getting more tropicals...hehehe

This is how it looks like after a month or so.




This is how they look like when I planted them in June.


Some of the seeds grew shortly after a week or two weeks in June. The yam leaves were from the supermarket. The bottom was too hard to eat so I planted them. After a month or so you can have more yam leaves to eat. Just harvested some yesterday and they were looking good.