I'm also about to start planting the cool weather Asian greens and the ginger roots I planted from the grocery store are in bloom now.

Oh, and of course, I have a giant portion of my yard dedicated to taro which got as tall as me this summer that I've been picking at all year.

Sometimes unripe guava, santol, tamarind are used to cook stews too. Tamarind leaves are also used to make a refreshing drink. Also green mango shakes. Mmmmmm.....

Never had santol, maybe one day. I have a tamarind, surprisingly even the leaves are sour and are very good in any kind of sour stews like you mention. yummy... green mangos. Mysweetie, you are making me hungry!

how about this kind of small green skin pumpkin cooked in coconut milk, as a desert.

Or cream of corn with milk and sugar and ice in a tall glass anyone?

Eggo, sometimes i get some rock salt in my hand and i go out to the Tamarind (sampalok) tree (actually its a little grafted tree) and i start eating its young leaves with the rock salt. Vitamin C. LOL The younger leaves may also be collected and boiled to make a Philipino verson of lemonade, mixed with a boiled brown sugar syrup. Anyone tried this before?

i'm getting hungry too... waaaaaaa

I have never tried a drink with tamarind leaves before, another one on my got to tastes list now. how about those swelled up basil seed drink. another desert with coconut milk includes the taro tubers, also delicious. I had before these deep fried taro chips(not quite a chip but the outside was crispy and the inside were soft, kinda round and oval), it was made from diced up taro held together with a sort of batter, my favorite taro snack. I had a taro shake before, oddly enough I thought I would really hate it but I tried it anyway.

my favorite...anykind of sticky rice desert....yummmy.

sweetie75, you must be referring to halo-halo! My grandma really loads on the toppings with hers: mung beans, cream of corn, macapuno, garbonzo, jackfruit...the works! I just like macapuno and jackfruit, but I should try avocado, too. We don't have as much access to stuff as you in the Philippines so what else is there as toppings?

I was just curious if anyone might know what they are. (My search didn't turn up anything relevant.) Thanks!

Shelley

Oh, and I promise not to grow them, chaman. We're suffering enough from invasives like European buckthorn and so forth already. Thanks for the warning!

Shelley

Cream of corn with milk, sugar and ice is called Mais con yelo. <---Please ask Grandma to make you one.

My halo-halo toppings are jumbo tapioca or sago, nate de coco, palm fruit or kaong, gelatine or gulaman, ice cream neither mango or vanila, rice crispy or piniping, purple ubi and leche flan. And evaporated milk not fresh milk. Enjoy!

Other toppings are cooked saba bananas and sweet potatoes.

Thanks again for the info!

Shelley

That boar's teeth plant looks almost like a carved picture, quite interesting.

Here we can eat it raw (very young ones); or you can make a "salsa" with raw onions, nopales and tomatos to eat along with roasted meat; or boil nopales first and then cooked with eggs, like an omelet. Some even mix grapefruit juice and add nopales, celery, and pineapple and blend them and drink it to loose weight. Nopales ice cream and in south México they make nopal bread and even water.

It´s a little late answer.

Has anyone tried scarlet runner bean? There's not a part of the plant that you can't eat; flowers, shoots, roots, and bean pods.

Also, has anyone eaten the young shoots/leaves of sweet potato? My great uncle just visited from Hawai'i and when I told him about all the sweet potatoes I harvested last year, he mentioned you can eat the leaves. I thought they were related to potatoes and tomatoes, which have poisonous leaves.

Anakleki, my aunt had said the same thing about the leaves and stems. They are related to tomatoes and other in the night shade family but it seems that it could be cooked. I'm gonna ask to make sure.

Thanks for the memory,
Lydia

Here where do I live are many asian farmers, they grow lots of acres of giant guavas, garlic, bamboo, pak choi, and many other asian vegetables.

PS: They don´t sell anything to the locals, all is for exportation believe USA. =: Well, people has to steal seeds or cuttings or whatever in order to taste those vegetables, and now is common to some of these in backyards but in the case of pak choi people didn´t like it so much.

I use pak choi in soups, stir fries and a Filipino dish called Kare-Kare. Sort of an oxtail stew with peanut sauce. I also use longbeans in it which is why I want to try to grow it.
Lydia

I've been having it ALMOST everyday and mais con yelo (cream of corn with shaved ice, evaporated milk and sugar. The weather here is super duper hot.

Patusho, I don't know which Opuntia species are common here but there is a lot of these "Prickly Pear" cactuses around. I'm gonna try to get my hand on Opuntia leucotricha. You mentioned before they have soft seeds, the Opuntia here have incredibly hard seeds, like tiny pebbles.
I know lots of lychees from Mexico are imported into California! Do you know which part of Mexico these are coming from. Usually a ten or fifteen pound box for 25-30 dollars. yummy.

Mysweetie, Wait why does halo-halo have to be in season? Its a drink right. =)

Halo-halo is in season because its summer here in the Philippines now. Folks here don't usually have halo-halo during the rainy season, we have arroz caldo (Chicken rice porrige). Like children's parties, always have spaghetti, fried chicken and ice cream.

Well, I believe most lychees found in California must be from my state (Sinaloa, northwest, lychees driven in trucks must take a 24 hr drive trip to Los Angeles, CA, if there´s not much traffic in customs, etc). And some lychees in Florida comes from Veracruz and some other southern states. Sinaloa is th driest lychee producer state, so, when winter comes, there´s almost no rain, and thus trees can get into at least stress water and girdling, if there aren´t too many chilling hours predicted.

We get $14 dlls./15 pound (cheapest price), unless you have your own tree.

Patusho, the Opuntia I found here had hard seeds. Lots of times the light green fruit variety are the ones found in Latino grocery stores. Tasted like a mild honeydew melon to me. Hated the hard seeds though. Other red/orange fruits I tasted from peoples backyard also had hard seeds. But tastes was really poor, probably because it was one chosen for looks and not fruits.
We get lots of lychees here, either from Mexico or Taiwan. I can't remember which one(but it wasn't probably Taiwan), it said on the box "prohibited into Florida" or something to that matter. Lucky you! Living in lychee territory!

Sweetey, summer ain't quite here for us yet. But your really reminding me of this smoothie I like to make when the weather's hot. I use ice, canned longans, canned jackfruits, condensed milk, and blend. Turns out quite good. Canned because its so easily available.

I just got back from a month long visit to the eastern part of India, and this time made it a point to visit many smaller markets on the outskirts of Kolkata (a metropolis). Goodness gracious, the many kinds of greens available. I bought every single kind, and most people in the city (my family) did not know the names of all of them, or gave different names (mistaken) for the same plant.

But a common thing available in most markets was taro runners (kochu'r loti), as well as taro shoots (kochu'r danta). Our help, who is from the villages, made a delicious preparation with each, and no, I didn't get an itchy throat, though hubby complained of a mild irritation after eating the prepared shoots.
By teh way, as a kid, I did have roasted jackfruit seeds. And cooked raw jackfruit is very very common, a favourite of mine.

/blue

green papaya grated, soaked in vinegar. then add vietnamese beef jerky and pour fish sauce/sugar/vinegar. eat like a salad.

Some of my friends think I'm weird, but until they taste it, they don't know what they're missing.

I also love raw winged bean dipped in some meat broth or soup.

I normally eat common American food, but I never feel "balanced" and often crave asian veggies afterward.

I am going to buy some avocadoes right now and try with sugar and milk, you guys are making me hungry!

Edible Taro

Non-edible

Non-edible

There is also the pink leave taro and the mini green with white poka dots coloured taro. Also non-edible.

What is green mango shake? I heard it was better than regular mango shake. I find that hard to believe!

Thanks

Best way for me to describe it would be, its summertime and instead of lemonade shake, green mango shake. Can you taste it now?? LOL

/blue

I also like unripe papaya used in stews. To me, they're just like cooked chayote/sayote.

Anakaleki, it sounds like unripe mangos to me. Is it?

I didn't know if it is commercially grown or not.

Thanks for the description, but honestly, no I don't have any idea what a lemonade shake is. But I know what a mango shake is. What's the difference between a mango shake (ripe mangoes in a blender with milk/ice cream) and green mango shake? Is it that color by using the ripe mango variety that is still green when ripe that someone else posted?

If not, where is the green color coming from? The green peel? Do you use unripe mango when it's mixed in with the ice cream?

Thanks.

Green mango shake is made from unripe mangoes (any variety will do). I'm not sure how well their flavor would combine with ice cream or milk since they are *extremely sour*. Still, the recipe specified only water, not milk. You can use partially ripe mangoes for a sweet/sour balance.

As for the mango that's green when ripe, it's the 'Langra' variety. It's very sweet with a spicy, fragrant flavor. I believe it's commonly grown in SE Asia and Eastern India.

That green when ripe mango sounds awesome. I wish this country would allow Asian fruit like mangoes and everything else into the US. But I hear it could introduce pests that we couldn't handle here.

Bill_SoutherCal,

Yes, shakes here can be made with just ice. To make these green mango shake. Peel green mangoes, slice or dice and place in a blender add ice and sugar or syrup. You might have to add a little water. Just so everything will blend in the blender.

You can also try to make buko shake or Coconut shake. I had this last year. To make, scoop some coconut meat into a blender add ice, sugar the same as the green mango shake.

And calamansi or limes shakes, the same as above. There's even a papaya shake but they add evaporated milk. It has a yummy colour.

Ripe mango shake and avocado shakes, we usually add evaporated milk instead of ice cream.

Also, overiped bananas are mashed and cooked with sugar to form a caramel like candy. The sticky results are further rolled in sugar. - Banana candy.

You're all making me hungry and homesick. I sooo miss the cool treats for summer in the Philippines like creamy sorbets in cocoa, coconut, ube, avocado, langka or queso flavors. How about the sweet red bean posicles? Yum! I think I'll open a can of creamed corn and top it with crush ice and evaporated milk for now ... ooohhhh!!!

Hey, can someone identify a plant for me? I don't have a picture but my grandparents eat it a lot in stew. It comes from a tree and has compound leaves. The leaflets are roundish-oblong and feel smooth and delicate, less than an inch long. Any guesses?

Here's a pic with its huge pods. And yes, even the pods are eaten.

I'm also willing to trade some asian seeds if anyone has saluyot seeds to trade.

Please use the Asian Vegetable Exchange Forum for Corchorus olitorius.

Jim