WOW... couldn't resist not buying the durians when I was at the supermarket, the shape was almost undeniably the bitter-sweet type & I really couldn't not buy & try. LOL

When I saw these yellow-orange flesh, I could only wish that Chi & Kung were still here.

Breakfast this morning:

Waffle with Rainbow Mango (Thai), Fuji Apple, Orange & a scoop of Vanila Ice Cream

Sri Lankan Broken Orange Pekoe Tea

Finally our first snow flake ice dessert at 32 Degrees Fahrenheit, Marine Parade.

Alan had a Green Tea with Red Bean. The green tea flavour was good and not really sweet.

I couldn't help myself but went for the Yakult Snow Flake Ice with D24 durian on the side. Both of us actually enjoyed the Yakult shaved ice a lot.
There are several interesting flavours, but I am sure there will be lots more opportunities.

Pink Musa

Finally a name to the pink flower banana plants we have in our garden - Pink Musa. 

They are such a beauty, with the pink petals on the ground, etc.

I wouldn't attempt to eat the hairy pink banana though, only one source indicated that it was edible.

Tomato flowers, and soon we will have tomatoes... hopefully, by the time Vic & ET are here, there would be some for breakfast & dinner & salads.

Broccoli & Cauliflower are our first attempt, hopefully we will our own harvest. 

I am starting to wonder if passionfruits ever drop on its own, or if we have to cut them down. It's like they hang on the vines forever.

Patience is a virtue, I remember an old friend used to say to me.

Candlenuts

I use the candlenuts when making Otak, it has to be ground to powder before adding it as a last ingredient to the final mixture of fish & spice. This would give the Otak a nutty flavour, but more importantly holding the mixture well. Similar to the use of cornflour as a thickening base.

Unfortunately, I haven't managed to find this in Sri Lanka but you can get them easily in Singapore or Malaysia.

Passionfruit

Different stages of growth

Cross-section of the various stages

Berries from the pepper vines... I'm taking some of this good stuff home for Mom to cook with her curries, I am sure she will love it too.

(Below) Managed to keep some of the rockets in our garden going, they were dying at one stage. I moved them to a slightly more shaddy area and they have thrived since. 

Just look at passionfruit flowers in our garden... pretty amazing sight actually.

The 'fragrant' from the flowers tends to be a bit on the strong pungent side...

I have blocked (stuffy) nose, so I could only trust Rasika's sense of smell.

Hopefully, I will be able to get some of these yummy fruits back to Singapore. Keep my fingers crossed.  :)

Rasika with some of the king coconuts from our garden.

From Wikipedia:

"King coconut water which contains sugar, fibre, proteins, antioxidants, vitamins and minerals. Coconut water provides an isotonic electrolyte balance, and is a highly nutritious food source. It is used as a refreshing drink throughout the humid tropics and is also used in isotonic sports drinks."

I believe this is the biggest passionfruit and the first to drop off the vine in the next few days. Measuring at 6.5 cm and about 80g, hope it will be really good.
Just a note: The vines are actually reddish colour, which we initially thought would bear purple coloured passionfruits, which is obviously not the case here.

Finally, the sighting of the first few passionfruits on the vines...
These are the yellow ones, which are pretty good. I prefer the purple one though. Let's see if I have some of those in my garden a week or two later...
Best to let these passionfruits drop off the vines - sweet & tart & full of juice.
I can't wait....

These passionfruits are not from our garden, still waiting for ours to fruit.

I hope ours will have different varieties and of course, different taste too. Meantime, I am still paying Rs10 (about USD 10 cents) per passionfruit at the Pola market.

Some of the innovative ways we have used the passionfruits. Not only are we making jams from it, we mix vanilla ice-cream with passionfruit, and also using them in our pancake mix.

Finally... flowers from the passionfruit plants that we have in our garden.

It took about 12 months from seed-to-flower, and each plant could yield up to 7kg of passionfruits.

Look at the flower, it's unique and it actually blooms once and shuts the next day - what Rasika & I called the 'making baby' stage. We may be wrong, & I should research more on passionfruit. We haven't seen any of these flowers opening up the second day.Unfortunately, I was greedy and had about 60 passionfruit plants, and they were too closely spaced. I have since removed many and left with a few plants in our vegetable garden. I could seriously (& easily) eat at least 10 passionfruits a day, like I could with mangoes. LoL
It was sheer joy watching these flowers, I can't wait to get my hands on our first home-grown passionfruit.

Here's an update about our garden...

Some of the coriander plants like the one above have seeded and I am hoping to let that part of the vegie garden be filled with corianders. All of us love coriander, so why not?

Rockets have grown really well in the pots too, they were first planted mid-October and we have added them to our salads and our pizzas. Fantastic taste, and you can't beat the freshness of having them straight from the vegie garden.

Also, the Dill have actually grown very well. But I must confess that I still haven't found a recipe that I like to use them yet. Anyone with recipes that I can use the dill, please send them to me.

Last but not least, we have temporarily constructed climbers for our passionfruit garden, using handmade coconut husk braided ropes. Rs 90 for a roll of 100 metres, I think. Look at Bodhi sitting there posing for the camera. What a sweetie. :)

Pineapple Tarts
My first attempt at making Pineapple Tarts - perhaps I could bring some home for Chinese New Year, but only if they tasted any good at all. It tasted all right, but not as delicious as those I can easily buy in Singapore.

It is not difficult to make, here's the basic recipe that I use:

Pineapple paste/jam

500g pineapple pulp
400g white sugar

1 tsp cinnamon powder

Pastry

150g flour

1 tbp cornflour

2 tbp sugar

100g butter (salted)

1 egg yolk

pinch of salt if using unsalted butter.

Cacao Fruit

Bought this for Rs20, about USD 20cents. No idea what I could do with this, but the lady who sold it said the pulp was sweet, so I thought why don't just give it a try.

It was difficult to halve it, the rind was hard. On trying the pulp, it wasn't sweet as we were told. And now, we didn't know what to do with the whole fruit. I intend to keep the seed and roast it, and subsequent blend it into cocoa powder.

Childhood memories:

I remember the first time I saw a cacao fruit, Cher Whatt (my childhood friend) showed me one of these when we were about 10 years old. I still remember that. I wonder if you remember, Cher Whatt?

We have landscaped the garden a month ago, didn't really have the time to enjoy them or appreciate them, as we have so much more mosquitoes and I hardly out in the garden.

Unfortunately, I am also less than impressed with the quality of the Australian grass given to us and the work done by the landscaper, Sunflower Lanka.

The herbs are looking quite promising, the Dill looks good but I haven't decided how I would use them in my cooking (yet). Thyme is still taking its own sweet time to grow, not sure if it requires special attention though. And, I am still waiting for the Mint to mature so that I can cook Pho for dinner. As you can see, the Coriander is now healthy and we are frequently using that to garnish our meals.
(Top, left) Passionfruit plants are growing very well now that they are separated and growing individually. However, we need to reduce that amount by 80% so that they will not be overcrowded. I would create a passionfruit farm in a flash, if I had my own place. Unfortunately, I can't grow them all over the place in this rented house.

(Top, centre) The only butternut pumpkin from the whole lots that we have previously. None of the plants which grew on fertile soil had anything, except this plant that was 1)not planted by us and 2) grows on a pipe, has a pumpkin. Talk about nature!

(Top right corner) Rockets are growing ok, not very pleased with the growth but not sure if the suitability of the local climate as well. Hope that we can use them pretty soon, love to have rockets in my salad.

(Bottom, right & centre) The various types of ginger that we have planted along the wall. Unfortunately, the afternoon sun is so strong that it burns the leaves. Watering twice a day helps to maintain the growth of these plants. We made a really fabulous Tom Ka Gai with the blue ginger, lemongrass and kaffir lime leaves from our garden. Fantastic stuff!

(Bottom left corner) The most successful ever was the tomatoes crop that we have in our garden, it is growing mad and we have never had this many tomatoes. There are two types in the garden, I have yet to try them but should be able to pick them this weekend.

Hopefully, by next year, we will have heaps of passionfruits dangling in our vegie garden. I hope to grow some passionfruits from Australia as well, will get the seeds next time.
Just planted seeds for Mint this morning, let's see how it will grow. It requires shades and moist condition, and apparently it can get quite unmanageable. I wonder.
The baby pandanus is now growing and looking healthy, will be able to use them the next time we make Kaya.
Lemon grass grow very well in our garden too, I use them heaps. For cooking, even with rice, for tea, and more...