PINAKBET REPUBLIC: dinengdeng a bunga ken uggot ti karabasa, squash fruit and shoots stew

As a kid and a farm boy, one of the vegetables I love that much is karabasa (squash) mainly because my mother used to tell us her children that squash fruit is actually an "itlog ti nuang" or a carabao's egg, so nutritious and full of vitamins and minerals and whatever healthy stuff growing barrio kids need, aside from the "fact" that it really is good for the eye, for it to see more clearly, so my mother said so. We always have a squash plant with its vine freely creeping on and/or climbing up at our backyard vegetable garden, or in corners of the farm where rotting rice straws are kept (rice straw compost is an excellent organic fertilizer so you can imagine how lush and thriving the squash planted in it).

Karabasa is so versatile a vegetable in that its main parts are all edible and great for dinengdeng. Besides the fruit, its blossoms are prized as well as its shoots. And what I love most of it is that the three parts can become a very delicious dinengdeng combination, all in one or with other leafy greens.

Going home in Casantolan, my place of birth and boyhood, I foraged the vegetable patches in our yard and came upon karabasa crawlers amongst sweet potato vines and in between saluyot shrubs. No full grown blossoms yet at the time so I just picked one young fruit and succulent shoots, and gathered some saluyot, too, and some alukon shoots growing from an alukon stump amidst the shrubberies. I salivated at the idea how gorgeous my dinengdeng would be!

See how lovely are these squash shoots? How so inviting is the young fruit? It's young as in young, still developing, immature, not yet ripe, which is just what's actually best and perfect for dinengdeng, you know!

Now, the veggies are ready, naimurianen! No, sir, I didn't peel the skin off the young karabasa. At this stage of development, the skin is yet that soft and so very much edible, and palatable, I promise you! It will all goes well with the greens.

See how stunning the prepared veggies are?

This karabasa is one of the variety which is nakilnet (thick or somewhat glutinous) and not nagares (mushy or soggy) so even at this level of maturity, it manifests its being nakilnet, and so even at its raw stage, at a glance, surely, you'll find it kind of irresistible,!

And now the panagdengdeng, the panagbugguong process... Let's skip the details here, yet again, because this is just plain and simple dinengdeng as was usual. But one thing, put the karabasa fruit in first and boil for some time before the saluyot, alukon, and the karabasa shoots. The fruit cooks longer than the leaves, we dont' want an overcooked dinengdeng here especially of overdone greens. See to it that the karabasa shoots are done kind of crispy but succulent. I added onion and few slices of tomato for some aroma and flavor.