Cucumber

Bixa Orellana Achuete is probably the most important ingredient in the Filipino cuisine. The bright red color that imparts in the food makes the food more palatable and presentable. It is most used in recipes that we inherited from the Spaniards like the dish we call “menudo” or the famous “paella”. Achuete is an evergreen,…

Banana – (Musaceae) is by far the most widely known fruit in the world and the most cultivated.  The varieties of banana is so wide it is divided into 10 groups from the cavendish type to cooking bananas called plantains but the Philippines also have the cooking banana variety we call “saba” or “popo’ulu” in…

Amaranth – Kulitis ( Amaranthus) is considered a very nutritious leaf vegetable in the Philippines.  The flowers are also edible and when the seeds are formed, the seeds are ground to make a healthy type of flour or eaten like a breakfast cereal.  The seeds of the amaranth is a good source of protein.  The…

Chili or sili as we call it have different forms and shapes. Some are hot and some are not. The intensity of the heat from a chili pepper is measured in Scoville heat units. Habanero peppers are rated as the hottest, but before habanero and even before the Scoville measurement, I think we ranked our…

I just wanted to show how the female pumpkin flower would look like. I had males flower last time I posted and now I am seeing more than one female flowers. I tried to hand pollinate one of the female flower and see how it will react. The flower closed already and now I’m waiting…

We call these delectable green vegetable Baguio beans because they are mostly grown in the Mountain Province where the temperature is cooler than the lowlands in the Philippines and Baguio City is the most popular destination during the hot summer months.