Cassava

The afternoon rain has been quite torrential nowadays. Just two days ago I was waiting to pick Aiden up from school, and it started raining cats and dogs. From inside the car I had to crawl from the front seat to the back and pried the back seat open just to get access to my spare shoes and umbrella in the boot. Even with the umbrella, Aiden and I were both soaked to the skin!

Due to the constant heavy rain, the pokok ubi kayu in my quaint kebun at the back of my house, jatuh merebah bumi. I was so sad, because I didn't even get the chance to get a photo of it when it was all tall, mighty and strong. It was nearly twice my height!

But, it was certainly a great life experience for Aiden. In his science subject at school, he is starting to learn about 'tumbuhan', so I took the opportunity to introduce to Aiden how potatoes and cassavas/tapioca are harvested from the ground.

(Truthfully, it was my first experience too! #citygirlfail)

Visiting tempat kejadian. Siap sinsing seluar! Looking cute with his muka baru bangun tido.

Aiden trying to dig out a cassava, which was too hard to dig out of the ground.

Aiden was so excited when I told him that we could make desserts from the root and savory dishes from the leaves.

We managed to amass quite a huge pile of ubi kayu, and there was no way we were going to be able to finish everything ourselves. So we bagged some into individual plastic bags and distributed them to the neighbours. That was this morning. Well in the afternoon, so many ubi kayu based desserts turned up at my door step! *giggles* Thanks to them, we feasted on baked tapioca cake (bingka ubi) and talam ubi kayu for dinner.

That is certainly one huge pile of ubi kayu!

A bouquet of pucuk ubi.

Meanwhile, my maid made a special tapioca dish that is popular at her kampung. She shredded the ubi kayu, sweetened it with gula melaka, steamed it to cook and served it with shredded white coconut. Aiden really loved it. I jokingly asked whether he wanted to bring it to school for recess, and he eagerly agreed. I laughed my head off! Mummy pun tak pernah bawak ubi kayu pegi sekolah, Aiden! Sorry, but I felt that the whole situation was quite amusing! *chuckles*

Aiden's recess - sorted!