Author: smoothiesandsundaes

5 Second Banana Muffins for Baby (or whoever)

.Reading time 4 minutes.

I started making a version of these muffins around the time baby started doing more snacking, and we’re still making them almost a year later. That’s saying a lot: baby is still finding them tasty, and I’m still finding the time to make them! Originally, it was just a way to use up his leftover baby cereal – which we had way too much of! 6 tubs of oat cereal had seemed reasonable at the time, but I hadn’t really thought about how little of the stuff they would actually eat! As I found out, not that much! Anyway, what is a mom to do with 5-1/2 tubs of leftover oat cereal? Turns out…make banana muffins!

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It’s Noir or Never!

.Reading time 2 minutes.

At the end of this past growing season, we were blessed with (among other things) a harvest of garlic, apples and chestnuts from Katsumi Farms, (Megan’s parents homestead). With minimal fridge space and an eagerness to learn more about preserving and fermenting stuff, Megan and I decided to try turn them black before they turned bad. Let’s start! To make black chestnuts, black garlic and black apples, we vacuum sealed them in bags and placed them in a dehydrator at 60°C/140°F for 4 weeks, 6 weeks and 8 weeks, respectively.

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Shio Koji

.Reading time 2 minutes.

Shio Koji. Lately, I have been putting that $H!T on everything. Ever since I finished the Koji Alchemy book, which I highly recommend, I have been trying to get my hands dirty with koji. No deep dive here yet, just small baby steps. It started with just seasoning with a bottle that you can just buy and use it right away like any type of seasoning. I would use it as a marinade or as a finishing when sautéeing vegetables, (Nicholas loves it). Everything came out pretty tasty so far, and I’ve found there’s less of a chance of over-seasoning as long as it’s used sparingly. Note that shio koji has both sweetness and saltiness, and the commercial ones tend to be a little bit on the saltier side.

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Hoshigaki

.Reading time 1 minute.

Did you know we can grow persimmons in Ontario? The trees have been on the farm for some time, but you wouldn’t know it until this year now that the fruit has finally started to appear! The fruits were quite small and some had fairly large seeds without much meat, but it was still such a thrill to see them on the trees for the first time. They tasted pretty good too! With the first harvest of fruit this year, we thought we’d try to preserve some as hoshigaki for fun. We strung them up and left them to hang in our garage – which has a little airflow, but not much. Due to lack of planning, we didn’t get the process quite right. We should have peeled and hung them earlier (they were already starting to ripen) and the temperature of the garage ended up being a bit too cold. Hopefully we will get another shot at it next year!

Supper Club (Christmas Eve Eve)

.Reading time 7 minutes.

We had 3 dinners lined up for Christmas this year, back to back: my sister wanted me to do a 7-course meal, we were going to do our own sushi train (not for the kiddies, but mainly for the adults), followed by a delicious porchetta by Karin. I was the first to go! The meal was supposed to be French with Japanese ingredients, I thought that some of the courses were ok, but most of them needed more work. With 2 kiddies under 4, we were trying our best to pace the dinner properly so that they the bedtimes fit in between courses. I’m not sure if they went well or not since I was pretty full before our main and was ready for bed, but of course I had to stay up and power through for dessert. Dinner started around 4:45 and ended around 12 – one of the longest I’ve been to, and keep in mind I’ve had a 100-course dinner.

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