Banana Muffins in Cookie Cutters!

My mother-in-law just made this recipe for banana bread in the cutest way possible: on a greased cookie sheet with the batter poured into greased cookies cutters! Hearts, stars, and little circles, it was adorable!

For Summer, Cold Fruit Ideas

Frozen Fruit and Smoothies

Frozen Fruit
When you are trying to beat the heat, frozen fruit, which is abundant in the summer, can be a great relief!
-Frozen watermelon cut into cubes make a great popsicle-like treat. I freeze them in an ice-tray so they do not stick together, and then move into a ziploc bag.
-Frozen grapes are great to eat or to use as replacement icecubes in a cold drink!
-Frozen mango juice, poured into an ice tray, is very, very sticky, but also very, very good.
-Bite-sized chunks of banana is a great icecream substitute! It can also be thawed and cooked into banana bread. I find breaking bananas into small chunks and freezing in a ziploc bag much more efficient for later use than freezing in their peel.

Fruit and Veggie Smoothies
The corner stones for most of my smoothies are a banana and yogurt. This is a great way to use up frozen fruit in the freezer, and can be taken for lunch in a mason jar or other wide-mouthed container (I don't recommend using straws!). 
Ingredients I love are fresh strawberries, raspberries, and frozen blue berries. I sometimes add a table spoon of peanut butter (for some protein and fat to keep you going) or a handful of spinach (for it's health benefits). While spinach will turn your smoothie green, you can't taste it when paired with the potent flavor of berries. I sometimes add shredded carrot and apple juice, mango juice, or a small amount of tofu. (Uncooked tofu remaining from a dinner beforehand, perhaps. Tofu is best used in sparse quantities and paired with a strongly flavored fruit, such as raspberries and a bit of lemon, but it's protein helps keep me going.) I have also added half a cucumber, or a few table spoons of ground flax seed flour (great for extra fiber and omega 3).

鍋 :: Nabe :: Hot Pot

 Now that the season is getting colder, I’m going to post various ideas and recipes for nabe!

The most basic ingredients are:

Broth

-hondashi and/or konbu (kelp)

-a splash of soy sauce

-some sake, if that suits your fancy

Ingredients:

-Carrots. Usually the Japanese cut them into pretty little flower designs, but I just cut them into medallions, but at an angle so they are oval and not so perfectly round (that way they don’t roll off my cutting board so much!). Carrots take a long time to cook and don’t lose their shape, so I add them first.

-Negi, or leeks. Leeks are long like green onion, but very thick, thicker in diameter than my thumb, and the leaves are fleshy and firm. The Japanese cut the leeks on a diagonal, into about thumb-length sections. If you wish, you can use an onion, though I find it gives the broth a strong onion-y flavor while leeks have a milder flavor. Because they add flavor to the broth, I add them early.

-Konyaku, or gray… jelly… stuff. (Wikipedia says it can be "devil's tongue" or "snake palm," though I've never said it in English before. Anyone know?) Lots of people don’t like konyaku, but I do! Konyaku stinks mightily right out of the bag, so it is good to let it sit in water, or perhaps boil it once and throw out the used water before putting the konyaku in your nabe. I cut the konyaku into triangle chunks because that’s what Japanese people do and I think it’s pretty, but if you’re fancy you can make konyaku bows, like this.  

I’m not sure what the optimal cooking time for konyaku is, so I put it in before the meats and soft vegetables and after the hard vegetables.

-Meat! Various kinds of meat taste good in nabe. Ground chicken meat balls, shredded pork, different kinds of fish. I usually only use shredded pork in my nabe, because I love it so. Pork will make a mucky yucky mess on the top of the water. I don’t think it’s bad for you, but I also don’t think it’s delicious or pretty, so I scoop that off with a small strainer or spoon and throw it away.

-Hakusai, Chinese cabbage, cut them into two-inch by two-inch squares.. Chinese cabbage is very plentiful and cheap in Japan during winter time, and it has a mild, pleasant taste. It is softer than cabbage, and the head is about twice as long as it is wide. It cooks well, and can be cooked as long as you like (I prefer my greens more wilted than I do well cooked, though some of my friends are opposite). Side note: Chinese cabbage is the vegetable used to make kimchee in Korea. If you can’t get your hands on Chinese cabbage, or you just have a lot of regular cabbage on hand, you can use regular cabbage. The leaves are tougher so they take longer to cook, so I cut them slightly smaller than I would Chinese cabbage, and add it early on, right after the carrots.

-eringi. These are little, long white mushrooms that look like little bundles of spaghetti growing all in a row. They are delicious in nabe. The cook rather fast, so I add them later on, and they are done when they are limp and noodle-like.

-Tofu. If tofu is boiled it will fall apart, and it really only needs to be warmed through, so I add it last. I recommend a firm tofu, since it will hold it’s shape better, but softer tofu is okay. Another tastey option is agedofu, a tofu that has been fried and has a firm, golden yellow exterior and a soft tofu interior.

Alternative ingredients:

-Gobo, burdock root. I like the woody flavor of burdock, but you have to be careful with it because it can be very bitter. The way to get rid of the bitterness is to soak it in water. I peel the root and then cut it into medallions on an angle, then let it sit in water while I’m prepping other ingredients. The water will start turning a purplish color, and I will pour that out and cover it with clean water and let it sit again. After two soakings, all the bitterness should be gone, and it’s ready to be put in the pot! Burdock takes a while to cook, so I put it in early and let it cook the longest, right up there with the carrots.

-Kabocha, Japanese squash (sometimes called kabochi in America?). Kabocha are a squat, orange-fleshed pumpkin that is very hard. If you cook it for a long time it will start to melt off of the peel, which can result in a kabocha-paste soup instead of a nabe (but I think that is delicious, too).

-Satsuma imo, Satuma yams. These are the purple-peeled, orange-fleshed potatoes that are abundant around Japan. I scrub the peels well, make sure all roots and eyes (the little rootlets that haven’t become roots yet), blemishes, and dirt are cleared away or cut off, and then cut it into 1-inch cubes. They need a cooking time of 15-20 minutes, depending on how hot the water is. But, be careful! Like kabocha, these potatoes will melt away if they are cooked for a long time, but also like kabocha, I think the resulting sweet paste-y soup tastes delicious. If you want to, you can add other kinds of potatoes—I prefer golden potatoes, or a potato with a colorful peel. All potatoes will reduce to potato mash if cooked for a long time.

-Renkon, lotus root. A strange vegetable, these are hard roots with long, large holes all the way through. They usually come muddy (lotus grow from the bottom of ponds), so be sure to wash them well (including the tubes inside!). They need to be peeled, and I have found the best way is to drag the edge of my knife along the tuber, scraping off the peel. Trying to cut it off is dangerous for my fingertips, and a potato peeler gets frustrating. Once cooked, they have a nutty flavor, and they maintain their crunchiness. I cut them into 1cm (1 finger width, or a half inch) medallions, and they need to be added early on because they take awhile to cook.

-Moyashi, bean sprouts. These little guys taste springy and fresh, though very woodsy and earthy. I don’t usually add them to nabe, though they are regularly found in ramen. Be careful with them! Since they are sprouted in the dark, damp places, they can have more bacteria in them than most other foods, and they are not good if you have a compromised immune system.

-Spinach. For all your dark green, vitamin-y, health-lover needs. I don’t usually add spinach because of its strong flavor, but, when I do, I add it last, and just let the spinach wilt on top. That way the dirt-like flavor of the spinach doesn’t get into my other vegetables. XD

-If you're feeling brave, I have helped make enringi mushrooms wrapped in bacon! We pushed toothpicks through the rolls, and then just threw the whole thing in the nabe.

-I don't know if the green is called nanasai-- but there is a lacy green that tastes delicious in nabe. I will ask my friend and update here when I've confirmed the name.

-Another interesting green I've had in a nabe was, I think, chrysanthemum greens. (I will also confirm this with my friend.) They were bitter and strong, but not objectionable.

Ponzu

After cooking the nabe, I take the cooked ingredients out with my chopsticks and then dip it in a sauce, shabu-shabu style. One sauce is goma-dare, or sesame salad dressing. The other is ponzu. Ponzu is basically vinegar and soy sauce, and it is tastey on gyoza [pot stickers]. I have a tastey homemade recipe for ponzu here, and some of my friends also use it as a salad dressing.

BUT, sometimes I’m lazy and scoop everything into a bowl and pour ponzu on it all, and then drink the broth afterwards. Whatever suits your fancy!

Variations—

Soy milk kimchee nabe.

You don’t want to over cook soy milk, so I add the kimchee while things are cooking so the flavors have a chance to mix, and then pour in a cup or two of soy milk at the end, after I add the tofu. For the basic broth, I just use equal portions hot water and sake, flavored with konbu, and skip out on the soy sauce.

Do you know any other tasty ingredients? Do you cook things differently and find it works better? Let me know!

Stuffed Bell Peppers

Ingredients:
-rice
-Bell Peppers
-minced onion
-eringi mushrooms
-ground beef
-diced tomatoes
-minced garlic
-fresh basil (if you have it!)
-spinach
-cheese

Cook the rice, it can be the day before or in the morning. (Yay! Something for used rice other than chahan! [fried rice]) I used white rice with a small packet of beans and sesame and black rice. I'd be interested in trying with brown rice. You only need a cup or two.

Stir fry the onions and the eringi mushroom (trying a different mushroom would be fine, but I like the meatiness of eringi), and once the onions are turning clear add the ground beef and the garlic. After the meat has browned, add the tomatoes (I used boxed canned tomatoes with sauce) and the basil, and cook down. Turn off the heat and let cool a bit.

Cut out the tops of the bell peppers, and put in a table spoon of rice at the bottom to catch the juices. Then mix the rest of the rice to the sauce, and add as much cheese as you like (a lot if you're me!), mix well, and then stuff the peppers. When it was nearly full, I stuffed some cheese in and then covered it with another spoonful of stuffing.

Put in a baking tray with an 1/8th of an inch of water at the bottom, and bake at 170C for 30 minutes.

Daniel's Banana Bread

Banana Bread

INGREDIENTS

• 3 or 4 ripe bananas, smashed
• 1/3 cup melted butter
• 1 cup sugar (can easily reduce to 3/4 cup)
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• Pinch of salt
• 1 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour

METHOD

No need for a mixer for this recipe. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C). With a wooden spoon, mix butter into the mashed bananas in a large mixing bowl. Mix in the sugar, egg, and vanilla. Sprinkle the baking soda and salt over the mixture and mix in. Add the flour last, mix. Pour mixture into a buttered 4x8 inch loaf pan. Bake for 1 hour. Cool on a rack. Remove from pan and slice to serve.

Pancakes in Japan Idea

I keep kinako powder-- ground soy bean powder that is typically eaten on mochi-- in my kitchen, because it is tastey in a banana and yogurt smoothie. Today I tried cooking it into pancakes, because I have so much and move through it so slowly, and I don't want it to go bad.

It was tasty, but it would probably be better with white flour (I did it with whole wheat), and no cinnamon.

Mushroom, tomato, bell pepper, kimchee, basil omlette.

Surprisingly yummy. Another example of "let's throw what I have together in a skillet and see."

1 tablespoon sesame oil
fry 1 cubed eringi mushroom (some onion optional). When it gets soft, add
1 cubed red bell pepper. when it is soft, add
3 cubed cherry tomatoes.
1 teaspoon soy sauce.
When it's stewed for awhile, add a scrambled egg. Push all ingredients into the egg so they get coated, but try not to move the egg around until it's firmed up, then flip.
When finished, garnish with kimchee and shredded basil.

Yum!

(I ate it so fast I have no picture. Sorry!)
(Sausage would possibly be an excellent addition.)