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Round up: No waste food challenge February - spotty bananas

02/29/2012

This month's no waste food challenge was spotty bananas. You will never be at a loss with what to do with those bananas again. We have now collated some fantastic recipes and I hope you all have some inspiration for using up your future brown bananas.

Just a few quick obvious tips. Banana's can be frozen and also make a really good base for a quick smoothie. I take their skins off chop them up and use them in smoothies. A basic smoothie recipe is:
1 spotty banana frozen or normal
1 glass of apple juice
1 handful of frozen berries.
Whizz it up and off you go!

This month proved quite popular so let's get started.

Firstly, Linzi from Lancashire Food submitted several recipes. Linzi's blog focusses on Lancashire recipes and regional produce. Linzi's first entry is a Banana and Almond Tray Bake. As Linzi says this is perfect for wrapping up and taking with you somewhere.

Secondly Linzi offered us Chocolate and Banana Muffins. These have a twist of cardamon in them which sounds lovely, a combination I definitely need to try. As Linzi points out muffins are good for using up bananas as they often only need store cupboard ingredients and things that you tend to have in the fridge.

Lastly Linzi offered us this Banana Crumble Slices. These look like perfect comfort food and have me warming up a bowl of custard as we speak!

Next up Janice from Farmers Girl Kitchen posted these simple Banana Muffins which look really quick to whip up and are topped with a sneaky helping of toffee and walnuts. They look very tasty!

Our next baker is Ros, Baking Addict who blogs on More than the occasional baker. She has been super creative with this challenge. First up Ros made a Cranberry and Banana Bread adapted from several different recipes. It looks really healthy and is made with spelt flour and topped with oats.

Secondly, Ros got complete into the spirit of this challenge and made her next recipe from the banana skins leftover from the bananas in her Cranberry and Banana Bread. The result is this Banana Skin Cake, originally a recipe from Edna Toledo. Ros explains that the cake doesn't particularly taste of banana but does taste super healthy and is full of fibre. I really want to try this soon.

Next up we have Karen from Lavender and Lovage who was so dedicated to the challenge she purposefully let some bananas go spotty. Not quite the aim of the challenge but I am glad she did because now we can all whip up her delicious Buttermilk Pancakes with Banoffee Bananas and Cream.

Julia from Eat Healthy But Tasty cooked this Low Fat Banana and Walnut Cake. Julia's cooking is brilliant if you are on a diet (or just want to be a bit healthier) and works with the weight watcher's points. Banana and walnut are such a good combination.

Next up we have our second pancake entry - great minds think a like - from Ren at Fabulicious Food. Ren cooked Banana and Maple Syrup Pancakes with Cinnamon Cream. Cinnamon is one of my favourite flavours and is a really warming spice. I bet these taste fantastic.

Kit's entry is for Chocolate, Hazelnut and Banana Muffins these muffins look like they would definitely satisfy my chocolate craving. Kit blogs at I-Lost in Austen a beautiful blog about baking and all things pretty intertwined with Jane Austen quotes and has the most calming music playing when you arrive at her blog.

Lastly we have the couple of recipes that I blogged. Nutella and Banana Milkshake, Strawberry and Banana Cake and Banana Souffle.

A big thank you to everyone for joining. I love the variety of recipes we have collated. Hopefully we will be preventing some future spotty bananas from hitting the bin!

The theme for March is going to be - yoghurt. Please email entries to turquoiselemonsblog@gmail.com by the end of the month and remeber to follow the guidelines on the no waste food challenge page.

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The Golden Spider Silk at the V&A

02/29/2012

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Warning! If you are a bit spider squeemish then you might want to look away. I was on exhibition road the other day in London and on a friend's recommendation popped into room 17a at the V&A.

The display is only small but showcases the world's largest peice of cloth made from spider silk. This silk is from the golden orb spider. It's silk is naturally this golden yellow and orange. It has not been dyed.

These spiders are found in the highlands of Madagascar. They are captured each day to produce silk and then freed at the end of each day. They cannot be kept in captivity due to their cannabalistic nature.

24 spider threads are used to make one thread. This 24 strand thread is then carefully woven into various patterns some of which include the spider.

I was at the 'Make It!' craft show on Sunday and visited the Japenese Embroiders Guild, do checkout their website their work is amazingly intricate, and I ended up chatting to the ladies for quite a while about the spider silk and showing them the photos on my iphone.

Anyway if you are passing the V&A I recommend popping into room 17a.

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Strawberry and banana cake

02/27/2012

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I made this cake last weekend with some spotty bananas to fit with my no waste food challenge. You don't need many strawberries for this recipe but it tastes and smells of summer.

You need:
300g of bananas or 3-4 large bananas
4 strawberries finely cut or more if you have them
100g butter softened
2 eggs
150g sugar
150g self raising flour
1tsp on baking powder

Heat the oven to 180 C.
Cream together the sugar and butter.
Add the eggs, flour, and baking powder.
Mash the bananas and add to the cake mix.
Gently fold in the strawberries and add to a lined loaf tin or silicone mould.
Bake for 40 mins until cooked and golden brown. You can check to see if the cake is cooked by testing it with a skewer. If the skewer comes out of the cake clean, it is cooked.

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The week in photos

02/26/2012

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I am following the 366 photo challenge and here is this week's roundup.

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Spanish omelette

02/24/2012

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A couple of years ago I visited a friend in Madrid. I stayed in a lovely hotel which served a luscious breakfast of cake, fruit, cereal and hot breakfast. What I remember most was the spanish omelette. It was served with a tomato sauce and I found it a really nice start to the day.

I vowed when that when I got home I would learn to make this dish. I make it every now and then and cut it into slices. I wrap up each individual slice and put some in the fridge and the rest in the freezer. I then grab a slice from the fridge on my way out the door and eat at my desk for breakfast. It is also a really good way to use up leftover potatoes.

Ingredients

500g of boiled or raw potatoes or about 6 potatoes
6 eggs
Mixed herbs
1 large onion

Method

Start by heating some olive oil in a big frying pan (one that can go in the grill).
Slice the onion into rings and gently fry.
Either slice the bolied potatoes or thinly slice the raw potatoes.
Add the raw potatoes to the frying pan and cook until they are soft and brown.
If your potatoes have already been boiled add them to the frying pan to brown.
Meanwhile beat 5 of the eggs and add the mixed herbs.
When the potatoes are browned take them and the onions out of the pan and add them to the egg mix. Stir until mixed.
Add a little more oil to the pan and then add the potato, onion and egg mix.
Gently heat and using a spatula push the sides of the omelette into the pan.
Put on the grill whilst the omelette is cooking.
Beat the final egg.
Pour the last egg on to the top of the omelette.
When the bottom is cooked place the pan under the grill to cook the top. By adding the last egg at the end I find this gives a better finish and texture to the top.
When the omelette is golden brown, take it out of the grill and gently ease it onto a plate.

I am entering this into the Breakfast club which has as its theme this month, eggs. The club is being hosted this month by the lovely Karen at Lavender and Lovage.

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Make an owl doorstop

02/23/2012

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I am so so pleased with how this has turned out. It had been an idea for a while and I made this as a Christmas present for a friend.

I am a little haphazard when I make and bake and often can't be bothered to follow patterns or instructions. More often than not this leads to disaster and a very big mess but sometimes, just sometimes, something turns out beautifully.

I made this using an old pair of brown cropped trousers and scraps I had lying around the house. It is weighted with a zip lock bag of gravel and then stuffed with more fabric scraps.

I will talk you through how I made it.

To begin with draw your pattern on an A4 piece of paper.
Find a base material to use. I used an old pair of tweed brown trousers.
Cut out and pin the pattern to the trousers.
Make sure your fabric is folded in two (or just a trouser leg!) and cut out the pattern.
Measure the length of the sides of your pattern and cut two triangles that have their longest edge measuring the same as the pattern length.
Measure along the bottom and the sides to cut a rectangle for the bottom.

7. Now cut out the other pieces, the wings, feet, beak and eyes.
8. Pin these onto the front side of the owl.
9. Applique these features onto the front piece using a close zig zag stitch on your sewing machine.

10. Turn the front and back piece so that the nice sides are facing each other. If you would like a ribbon hook at the top pin this inside. Sew along the top.
11. Now pin on the sides, again nice sides facing in, and sew together.

12. Sew on three sides of the bottom, again inside out.
13. Fill a bag with stones of gravel to act as the weight. Make sure this is securely taped up.
14. Fill the owl with toy stuffing or cut up scraps of old clothes.
15. Make sure the stone bag is at the bottom but pack stuffing around it.
16. Hand sew the last side of the bottom together making sure you tuck in the edges.

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Banana souffle and homemade chocolate custard

02/19/2012

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I have just republished this to enter it into the Classic French challenge run by Jen from Blue Kitchen Bakes. January 2013 is souffles.

So I decided to be adventurous in the kitchen yesterday and make my own souffles and custard with the leftover yolks. My friends were therefore treated to Mrs M's lemon chicken followed with these souffles. They tasted lovely but I made an utter mess of the kitchen! Massive thank you to Greg for cleaning the kitchen this morning.

As this month's No Waste Challenge is bananas I thought I would try a banana soufflé with some chocolate custard. I adapted a Nick Nairn recipe found here on the BBC website. I altered the amounts slightly and have included the quantities for four souffles. I have never eaten a sweet souffle before so I wasn't entirely sure how it was supposed to turn out but I'm very happy that they raised well, browned nicely and tasted fab with the chocolate custard.

The custard can be made in advance and heated again just before serving so let us start with making the custard.

For the custard I used:

4 egg yolks
25 g of dark Chocolate
250 mls of milk
100 g of sugar

Whisk together the egg yolks and the sugar.
Gently heat the milk in a pan. As soon as the milk starts to bubble and boils take off the heat.
Gently stir in the chocolate until melted.
Slowly add the hot milk to the yolk and sugar mixture stirring all the time.
Now place the custard back into the pan and heat gently until it thickens.

For the souffle:

4 egg whites
2 mashed bananas
100 g of sugar
Juice of half a lemon

Heat the oven to 200°C.
Grease four ramekins.
Whisk the egg whites until they are stiff.
In a separate bowl mash the bananas and mix in the lemon juice and sugar.
Gently fold in the banana mix to the egg whites.
Divide equally among the ramekins and gently flatten on top.
Place in the oven for 10-15 minutes until they rise and are a gently brown on top
Serve immediately alongside the custard.

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Rubbish Diet update week 2 and 3

02/16/2012

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Right time for a quick update on my Rubbish Diet. To read more about this check out my first blog post on the Rubbish Diet. I started a week late so I did week 2 and 3 together.

The aim of week 2 was to focus on changing your shopping habits to be more green and lead to less waste. For starters I folded up the piles of plastic bags I have and sorted them by supermarket. I will return these to the recycling points as each supermarket. I have made sure I have kept several bags to put in each bag I take out so I always have a plastic bag on hand.

I already shop from several companies which are careful to make sure that all their packaging is recyclable. I buy a Riverford Veg Box fortnightly which comes with very little packaging and the packaging they use is all recyclable. You can just stick it back in the box and it is picked up by the couriers. The other company I am pleased with is Graze. I am a massive snacker at work and this works perfectly for me and also uses fully recycling packaging. I am getting good at identifying recycling symbols and am being a lot better when shopping. Plastic film is a nightmare to avoid sometimes though!

Week 3 focussed on reducing food. This was my main aim for undertaking the Rubbish Diet. This week's food wastes (which goes in the council provided food waste bin) was mostly peelings and fat meat trimmings together with 3 tomatoes and a pizza that had gone mouldy. This shows how much I could do with meal planning. Mrs M has set up a Meal Planning Monday which I plan to join in with (although I failed this week!). Utterly Scrummy also had a great post on using food leftovers and I am doing a 'No Waste Food Challenge' each month to build up a bank of yummy recipes to use up leftovers.

Weekly bin round up:
- Half a food waste bin
- Three quarters full recyclable bin
- Half full wastebin
I also recycled a couple of things on freegle - a canvass wardrobe and old hoover. I also found out that some charity shops are really happy to take plastic bags.

I am not sponsored by Riverford or Graze I just love their products. If you want to try a graze box here for free I will get a £1 towards a graze box

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Cocoa, rye, pumpkin and cheddar scones

02/15/2012

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Every month Choclette sets a 'We Should Cocoa' challenge. The aim is to use cocoa in a recipe together with something that is chosen for that month. February's challenge is to use cocoa in something vegetarian and savoury. I am very nervous as this is my first ever We Should Cocoa entry!

I had been racking my brain and thought that cocoa would go quite nicely with pumpkin and cheddar cheese. In order to match the cocoa with darker flavour I used some rye flour in the recipe. Now this was all in the aid of experimentation and the challenge. My parents weren't too convinced. I thought they were very nice with a dollop of cranberry and apple chutney.

Next time I would probably add more cheese and maybe slightly less rye flour and I have tweaked the below recipe accordingly in case any of you are crazy enough to try it!

Makes 8 Scones
25 g butter
30g grated cheddar cheese
100 g of rye flour
15g of Green and Blacks cocoa powder
100g plain flour
3 tablespoons baking powder
150 mls of milk
10g of pumpkin seed and a few more to sprinkle on top

1. Grate the cheese.
2. Mix the butter, cheese, flour, Cocoa and baking powder together in a processor until you have breadcrumbs.
3. Add the pumpkin seeds.
4. Slowly add the milk and knead until the mixture forms and dough.
5. Form into rounds and place on greased baking tray.
6. Brush with a little milk and sprinkle with grated cheese and pumpkinseed on top.
7. Bake for 10 to 15 minutes until the cheese has melted and slightly browned on top.

Enjoy these as a healthy breakfast snack with butter, cream cheese or chutney. Any thoughts from the real foodies out there on whether this was a good idea would be appreciated!

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