Cucumber

Lablab -Bataw – Parda – Hyacinth bean (Dolichos Lablab) is one of my favorite vegetables.  I like to cook it with pork and shrimp with “sotanghon” or cellophane noodles.  I don’t have it in my garden now but when I did, it grew like crazy.  It is a vine and needs trellis or fence to…

I sowed seeds of pumpkins (kalabasa) along with winged beans (sigarilyas) and hyacinth beans (bataw) about a week and this is how they look like. The larger leaf is the pumpkin, the ones on the left is hyacinth beans, and the farthest left are the winged beans.

Last January I featured Malunggay/Moringa leaves as one of the best green vegetables. This time it is the fruit. Malunggay fruit is green in color about 10 to 12 inches long and about 1/2 to 3/4 inch in diameter. When you open the fruit, it would have three sides with white meat and tender seeds….

Beans sprouts from Mung Beans-(Phaseolus aureus) – came from the seeds of the plant we call munggo or”vigna radiata”. These plants have long been cultivated in India, China, Thailand, Philippines and other Asian countries. Japan on the other hand cultivates soy bean sprouts(glycine max) and they call bean sprouts “moyashi”. In the Philippines, beans sprouts…

Chinese Broccoli also known as Kai-lan or Gai-lan is one of my favorite vegetable to grow. It is also my favorite vegetable to stir-fry. I first encountered these delectable leafy vegetable when I traveled to Hongkong a decade or so ago. Most of the restaurants in Hongkong serve these delicious leafy greens mixed with meat,…

Shallots in the Philippines is called Sibuyas Tagalog or Sibuyas Iloko. Sibuyas is a word derived from Spanish word “cebolla” which means onion. I like this type of onions fresh mix with tomatoes and used as a side dish for grilled fish, especially milkfish. But anything grilled like pork or chicken or even beef will…