My 12/12/12

I spent Wednesday morning, December 12, 2012 (12/12/12) on the beach at Port Royal, Jamaica. I made an airport drop off and made my way to the nearby Port Royal (long time pirate haunt) instead of back to Kingston straight way. I had not been beachcombing in a while but this morning I did so much more; I ate my 'original' papaya by a boat on the beach, then I took off my shoes to get more connected with the earth and scrunched up my toes in the black sands as I walked along taking pictures intermittently as I picked up the bounty from the beach. This was my absolutely best beachcombing exercise as far as I could remember.
I found lots of shells and other stuff as I walked further and further and had many new ideas as the sea crashed into the shore and washed over my bare feet and legs. I passed a few people along the way, walking/exercising/fishing; they all said good morning and I responded in kind. (Good manners is apparently easier on an empty beach.) There were also lots of dogs, some with people and some by themselves.

I will try to post pictures of my 12/12/12 finds at a later date, but this was just a quickie post to document the day before it ends. My body aches and I'm very tired but I think my two hour long beach jaunt was well worth it. I should do this more often and I would certainly reccommend it as a healthy habit to commune with nature and you never know what you might find. Stay tuned! 

Healthy Green Blog: Discoveries At The Market

Healthy Green Blog: Discoveries At The Market: Tree Tomato ( Tamarillo) I love going to the Coronation Market and discovering fruits that I've never seen or heard about before, but it...

Discoveries At The Market

Tree Tomato ( Tamarillo)

I love going to the Coronation Market and discovering fruits that I've never seen or heard about before, but it's just as satisfying to find one that you vaguely recall meeting in the past. I re-discovered a fruit called a tree tomato, which I had come across at one of those parish display competition/events a few years ago. It was so unexpected; I was buying bananas from a gentleman at the back of the market and I noticed that he had a few large guavas and I was going to enquire about them when suddenly there were these lovely greeny/orangey ovoid shapes right beside them. It was as if they just appeared. I knew what they were immediately; the gentleman selling of course had a different name for them - chiney tomatoes, he called them. Jamaicans tend to have their own names for everything it seems. As this was the first time I was seeing these lovely fruits at the market I had to buy some; a dozen sounded good so we quickly picked out a dozen before they disappeared as they had appeared. As I made my selection a lady came along and asked about them as well and got the six that were left. Next week we'll have to go a little earlier in order to catch the "first worm".

The tree tomato is also known as tamarillo, a name given to it in New Zealand (where it is grown commercially) in 1967, in order to differentiate it from the regular garden tomato & make it seem more exotic (information from Wikipedia), but's it's still widely known as the tree tomato. It's a subtropical plant originating in the Andes of South America ( Peru, Chile, Ecuador etc.) but it also grows at higher elevations in Malaysia, the Philipines, Puerto Rico and elsewhere in the world. (I guess that's why this gentleman has a tree in the Blue Mountains of Jamaica).

As soon as I reached home and packed away my other finds I settled down and cut open one of my tamarillos & bit into it to remind myself of the taste.  I liked it; it was a little like a tomato but whereas I would not eat a tomato like a fruit I would eat the tamarillo all by itself. The skin is not edible, but everything inside is, including the seeds which made up most of the fruit in the one I had. There was only
a fairly thin outer fleshy area and a large circular area of mainly seeds in the center which was totally edible.

What else to do with the Tamarillo (Tree Tomato)?

Have it for dinner, of course! I decided to do an easy vegetable bammie* pizza. I soaked the bammie in my homemade coconut milk, then toasted it in the toaster oven, until slightly crispy, then slathered it in mashed avocado, layered it with slices of tamarillo (which I peeled before slicing), cucumber and some lettuce and ate it. How easy was that? A little sea salt and pepper could be sprinkled if desired.  Next time I'll make a sauce with the tree tomato and put that on the heated bammie, then add the avocado and any other vegetable at hand. Can't wait!  Whatever you can do with a tomato, you can do with a tamarillo; savoury or sweet. Coming Soon :-  more on my adventures with the tree tomato and hopefully some photos.  If you can't find the tomarillo you can substitute tomatoes if you'd like to try any recipes posted. Happy Healthy Eating!

Healthy Green Connection - totally green & healthy recipe as everything was locally grown, bought fresh at the market, including the bammie which was toasted, not fried. The only way to make it any greener I believe would have been to toast it in the sun and not use the toaster oven. 

* bammie or bammy is a Jamaican flatbread made from grated cassava (cassava flour)

I Woke Up This Morning ...

On sitting down to write "I woke up this morning ..." it occurred to me that many did not, so I am thankful to be here and a good day to all who are.

I woke to the sound of a woodpecker; pecking away at the tree outside my window. The shortlived peace of the Sunday morning was however soon shattered by the mechanical sound of a lawnmower  starting up in the distance. Not expecting to see the bird I eventually opened the windows, but all was not lost as it was a lovely dawn to a new day with the different hues and colours of the new leaves of the East Indian Mango Tree sparkling in the morning sun to the sound of unseen birds. Hopefully I will see the woodpecker another day as I have done in the past but for today this was enough.

Green Idea/Tip!

Later in the morning I went outside & my sister was mowing the lawn (not the mower that shattered the early morning quiet) and I noticed clumps of chewed up and spat out pieces of grass which she said came from the lawn mower when she hit a rock. Immediately I had an idea for this readymade mulch.  I picked up the clumps and spread them around one of my new papaya trees to act as a protective cover for the soil around the plant and to keep more heat and moisture in, thereby enhancing plant growth (or so I've read).
 

Next time your lawn is mowed leave the cuttings to disintegrate and meld back into the soil. This is good for the soil and creates less material to be disposed of. (Small Step on the Green Pathway)

 

Isn't it interesting that the same thing can be a blessing as well as a curse (the mower that disturbed and the mower that provided readymade mulch for my garden). It is said, when given lemons (or limes), make lemonade, so make lots of lemonade today as limes and lemons are in season.

They are also very alkalizing for the body. Live Green & Healthy!

 

Brawta! (Extra!) - Sorrel Lemonade

Add some sorrel sepals to freshly made lemonade and let sit for a while to allow sorrel colour & taste to infuse the lemonade. Use as little or as much as you like to get a hint of colour or to make it very red, in which case you might need to add more water and sweetner. (Fresh sorrel sepals can be used, but you could also re-use the sepals that were used to make a batch of sorrel. These can be kept in a sealed container in the fridge for a few days or frozen for weeks.) 

Merging Saturday Morning Market into Healthy Green

I have been very occasionally writing a blog about shopping at the Coronation Market, downtown Kingston, Jamaica since 2008; but since then I've become interested in a lot more things than just buying greener food, so I'm starting a new blog that will incorporate most of my new interests without abandoning the old. 

                   

"On A Mission" (In Search Of Healthy)

Ever since being diagnosed with 'Graves Disease/Hyperthyroidism'  a few years ago I have been in search of 'healthy'; new ways of living well on a much larger scale than before. (See previous post originally written in November, 2011)  I believe Health & Wellness go hand in hand with Green Living hence the new title, "Healthy Green" will cover most of my new and older interests of wellness and greenness.

Food is a large part of the new mission, so I'm eating mostly green (plant based food), sometimes raw and hopefully always healthy. This of course means making most of my own food, a daunting prospect, but with some preparation can be accomplished most of the time. Like everything else, it's a work in progress. Also, finding, using and sometimes producing healthy green products is another area of interest that I have delved into as the search continues.  I invite you on this journey of green health and wellness. It will be one of discovery as the steps are not set in stone but will need to be deciphered in the shifting of the sands as I walk along the edge of the water where the waves come in and rearrange the scape of the beach. 

In search of Healthy

I'm on a search for healthy. I've been on the search for a while now but I haven't really found it yet. Maybe it's the journey that counts. I've found some interesting things along the way and I've even tried some.

I've also been trying to go green or become greener for a while now and I think the two concepts are somehow intertwined, hence my 'Healthy Green Blog'. I believe that if one could go completely green one would be healthy but it would be practically impossible to do in the here and now of the modern world. Maybe if I lived on the moon; I assume there's no pollution or any humans creating pollution there but we have to work with what we have; so I'm attempting to go green and become healthy in the suburbs of Kingston, Jamaica otherwise called St. Andrew.

Good health is a fragile thing. If you have it,you need to cherish it because it's pretty scarce. One's health is impacted by so many things, the things we eat, where we live, what we do for a living, how we live and play, the things we did in the past, our ancestors and much more.