Mango Trees from Nipa Hut Gardens

After long research and reading about mango tree, I decided to get the nam doc mai and carrie mango trees. I ordered two mango trees from Nipa Hut Gardens. They are 2 ft tall. The trees came pretty fast with ground shipping. It came in 3-4 days and no damage. The nam doc mai is a newer graft than the carrie since the trunk is still green. I'm pretty satisfied with my order from Nipa Hut and their shipping is a lot cheaper than other nursery. Let's see how well I can grow mango trees in PA. :)

Left is Carrie, right is Nam doc mai

right NDM, left Carrie

Picked 1st Makok Sapodilla

I picked my first makok sapodilla on May 22nd. It was somewhat soft on the tree but I still have to let it ripe on the counter for couple more days. The taste is sweet but not as sweet as the alano. The smell is just like a sapodilla. The color of the inside is light brown. I think it's supposed to be a darker brown, but maybe being planted in a pot and no direct sun for a couple months in the winter affected the color. There might be a lack of fertilizer too. I would say the flower started around July of last year. So it took about 10 months for the fruit to ripe and ready to eat. I think it took this long because of not enough heat and sunshine. The fruit is larger than a large egg. The tree is flowering again.:)

I should have leave it for another day. Still a little green on the edges. But this is still good.

Tips for picking: To test if the fruit is mature to pick, try to scrape hard into the skin. If it's not ready then you will see the latex coming out. Also, when it's ready then it come off easily from stem.

Gefner Atemoya from Plantogram

I know I'm not suppose to get anymore tree but I can't help it because I'm addicted to tropical fruit trees. This is my first time ordering from Plantogram nursery. The customer service was fantastic with Mickey the owner. He is a really nice guy and I can call him anytime of the day...even after 5 pm. On their website they have a 24/7 service. The gefner atemoya is about 5 ft tall and he already topped some off. He also threw in a free barbados and surinam cherry trees. The barbadaos is a nice looking tree with really nice purple flowers. My overall experience is very good and their tree is larger than most nursery.



My trees came in this huge box without any damage.


Nicely wrapped so no soil falling out.

Cream Cheese Sponge Cake

I got this recipe from the web a while ago so I don't really remember where I got it. This is a really good sponge cake with cream cheese flavor. It is moist, soft and so yummy when hot. It's also good the next day or after refrigeration. We love this cake and I make this every once in a while. I modified the recipe a little since I want to use the whole stick of cream cheese instead of 190g.



Ingredients:

225 g cream cheese
155 ml heavy whipping cream
4 large eggs
150 g sugar
55 g plain flour
55 g self-rising flour
55 g cornstarch
2 tbsp lemon juice (optional)

Method:

1. *Using the double boiler method, heat the cream cheese and whip cream together until the cream cheese melt. Remove from heat and whisk or stir the cream cheese until smooth. Set aside to cool.
2. Sift the three flours together three times.
3. Heat the oven to 325 F at this time.
4. Beat eggs for about 1 minute and gradually add in sugar. Beat until creamy and thicken leaving trail of ribbon.
5. Gradually fold the sifted flour into the egg batter.
6. Now gradually fold in the cream cheese batter. Mix in lemon juice.
7. Pour in nonstick pan and bake for 50-55 minutes until cooked. (8 or 9" pan)
8. Serve hot or cool.

* Double Boiler- upper pan containing the substance to be cooked with the lower pot of boiling water at the bottom.

Alano Sapodilla

I ordered some Alano sapodilla from Harry in Florida. I got 7 lbs and they were delicious! My mom say this is better than the one we get from the supermarket. The Alano is very similar to the one she ate in Vietnam. The fruits came in different sizes and shapes. Some larger, some rounder, some more elongated. The inside is reddish brown and super sweet. I just have to eat one and I'll be all happy and energetic! There is a lot of sugar in this fruit and so yummy. Thanks Harry!

White Sapote

I ordered some white sapote with my cherimoya last week. I've never taste or seen this fruit before and nor did my mom. But the name sapote sound so similar to the sapodilla. In Vietnam, we call the sapodilla "sapote" too. But as you can see these are totally different fruits. The white sapote is green to yellowish and the sapodilla is brown. The texture of the two is totally different too. The one thing they have in common is that both are super super sweet! These white sapote are so sweet that I could only eat half of the fruit each time. No one in my family can eat more than half. If so, we need to have good health insurance like they have here just in case somebody goes into a diabetic coma.

The white sapote looks just like a green apple. The skin is very thin and smooth. The inside texture is very similar to an avocado, except more juice than the avocado. It's very buttery like the avocado too. The taste is like custard with a little of peach flavor. You can say it's somewhat creamy when you bite into it. There are 4 seeds in each fruit. The fruit is ready to eat when yellowish and soft.

Harvested June Plum in PA

Today I decided to harvest my dwarf june plum. The total weight of my harvest is 1 lb 7 oz. This taste very similar to the big june plum. The fruit is sour and crisp. The dwarf june plum is not as crisp as the big one but still good. A lot better when eaten with the sauce.





One dip is chillies w/ salt. The other is 2 tbsp sugar + 2 chillies + 3 tsp fish sauce.

Small seeds. Some seeds so small you can eat them too.