Last year, I wrote a post about
Visiting Our Backyard Garden. Actually, it was about my parent's garden. Now that we are residing here in the Philippines, we have our own backyard garden. It doesn't have as many plants and trees as in my parent's. But let me share with you some of the trees and plants we have here.
One that I really like is the
malunggay or horseradish tree (from the Genus Moringa). We have several of them. The malunngay leaves are very nutritious. I remember that I put lots of these in my tinola or stew when I was breastfeeding because they say it's good for increasing breastmilk.
I've also read from a product ad that it has 17 times the Calcium in milk, 15 times the Potassium in banana, 1/2 the amount of Vitamin C in orange, 4 times the Vitamin A in carrot and 25 times the iron in spinach. Wow! Malunngay is really packed full of nutrients. No wonder it is considered as a super food. Because of this, there are a lot of products that are coming out that in the market which are fortified with malunngay including
pan de sal, noodles or pasta, shing a ling and more.
Now, I can just take some fresh from the tree and add it to our soups and vegetables. I am still teaching my kids to eat this because we don't usually have this when we were still in Saudi Arabia.
 |
| Malunngay (Horseradish) Tree |
 |
| Malunggay (Horseradish) leaves |
Another surprise when we came here is the
atis (sugar apple or custard apple) tree we have and it was just the first time that it bore some fruit. What good timing! We have already tasted some of the ripe fruit and it's very sweet and delicious. I haven't eaten this for a long time and this is the first time my daughters ate this. At the start, they don't want to taste it. But when they did, they really liked it.
 |
| Atis (Sugar Apple or Custard Apple) |
 |
| Yummy atis that my daughter is eating. |
Lastly, we have plenty of
kamias landing inside our backyard. Actually, this tree is planted in our neighbor's backyard but since its branches extend over the wall, we have plenty of kamias landing on our side of the yard. Of course, we could also ask from them and pick the fruit straight from the tree.
Kamias can be eaten as is if you fancy eating something really sour. Just dip in a little salt and it's great. It can also be cooked in sinigang (sour soup or stew) as a substitute for tamarind (sampaloc) or guava (bayabas). I also like to add it as filling when I make inihaw na bangus (grilled milkfish). I've also seen it concocted to make delicious drinks. You know the drink called pink lady (made from purple camote tops and kamias)? how about mango-kamias shake? They're something really different but naturally delicious and nutritious.
 |
| Kamias Tree |
I'm hoping to plant more fruits and vegetables in our backyard. Little by little maybe ...
6 Comments