food – Mimi's Thoughts

Something New

It’s Tuesday morning and I’m home, playing hookie. I’m not particularly proud to be doing that but I’m glad I picked me first today. Son is at my bake shop, he’s one of the students for the summer holiday baking class for kids. Husband is at work, so I’m home alone… suddenly I have a craving.

It is a weird one. I love to cook and try out new recipes but I’ve never tried this one. I begin to wonder if it would be any good.

First thing I wonder is; has anyone done this before? I check online and there it is…people have definitely made this dish before.

I begin to formulate my own recipe in my head… I’ve got a left over fish pepper soup in the freezer, I will just add it to it.

Then I think of fresh curry leaves…and I remember, Jacob has a small garden by his room. Jacob is the guy who manns our gate and he’s got a small room just by the gate.

I help myself to some curry leaves and some fresh pepper from his garden…I love pepper…hot pepper

One hour later, my dish is ready. I sit back with some cheesy mills & boon to match the mood.

Even if it’s been made by someone before, It’s new to me; Nigerian Jollof Rice/potato and fish

Macaroni Surprise

Macaroni, a kind of pasta shaped like tiny curved tubes, but where I’m from, any pasta that isn’t spaghetti is called macaroni. I don’t know why. I guess it’s just one of those things that get renamed by some people.

My son, SonTer, loves macaroni, so I make sure I have enough and a variety of “macaroni”.

I have five months till he goes to secondary boarding school.

Yesterday I was doing some thinking and told myself I would be intentional about the time we have left. One sweet thing a day, wish me luck here.

He loves surprises, no matter how little. So for his school lunch today, I packed for him a “macaroni” surprise.

What was in my “macaroni” surprise?

Cavatappi – twisted, ringed and longer than macaroni
Farfalle – ribbon shaped
Penne – straight tubes, wider than macaroni tubes
Fusilli – twisted like a screw
Conchiglie – shell shaped

I’ve never cooked more than one pasta in a meal for him before. I have only done that in my salads and he’s not a fan of salads so I doubt he has ever seen it.

I dropped him off at school and I’ve been at work, smiling at myself, imagining his reaction when he opens his plate to find what I made.

One day win.

pic courtesy; facts.net

Change is sure

For a while now I have been thinking a lot about my friend Dooyash, the friend I wrote about in What kind of mum are you?

We have been friends for as long as I can remember, we started nursery school together at age 4. We were also roommates in our final year in university.

Dooyash lived on Golden morn. A breakfast cereal which she had at any time of the day.

Lately my son, who has never liked Golden morn…ever, has suddenly fallen in love with it. It’s why I think of Dooyash these days.

SonTer never liked anything that even tasted like breakfast cereal. I remember how he used to feign puking whenever I fed it to him. The last time I tried was the day he froze and feigned shock for a few seconds…he is dramatic…like his mum.

This sudden love for something he never liked makes me realise, nothing stays the same… everything and everyone is subject to change.

Black Goodness

I lived in Lagos city for some time and while I did, my late uncle’s wife was a darling to me, she made sure her house felt like home to me and she made sure food was not a thing I had to worry about. Her generosity and love didn’t help when it came to my mental state of mind and she sensed it. She once said; “Mimi bakes when she is depressed”. We laughed about it, but she was right.

Lagos is a tough city and isn’t for the faint hearted, whenever it took its toll on me, I would stop by the market, stock up on all the necessary ingredients, go home, bake, leave it in the kitchen for anyone who wanted to eat and then I would go upstairs and catch up on a TV series or watch a movie.

I used to love baking, not so much anymore, but I still enjoy it every now and again. For someone who loves to bake, you would expect that I eat a lot of cake. The reverse is the case; I could go months without eating cake. However, there’s one cake that I can never walk by without wanting to have a slice or two or maybe more. My blogtober challenge will not be complete if I do not use one of my days to share the recipe.

Black Midnight Cake.

Ingredients

1 cup of coffee
1 cup of milk
½ cup of vegetable oil
2 eggs
2 cups of sugar
1 ¾ cups of plain flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1 ½ tsp. baking soda
¾ cup dark cocoa powder

Note: you need extra flour or cocoa powder on the side to dust the pans after you have greased them with butter.

Method:

In a bowl, combine all wet ingredients; coffee, milk, vegetable oil and eggs (beaten). Stir well till all ingredients blend together.
In another bowl, combine all dry ingredients; sugar, flour (sieved), baking powder, baking soda and cocoa powder. Mix all together till they are well blended.
Make a well in your dry ingredients and begin to add the wet ingredients as you stir, stir till the mixture is smooth and there are no lumps.
Pour in your greased and dusted pans and bake for 30 minutes. (2 pans preferably).
Try not to over bake this cake, it is meant to be soft and moist. Insert a tooth pick in the middle of the cake to check, if it comes out clean and dry then your cake is ready.

As a coffee lover, I think the main thing that draws me to this cake is the rich aroma and taste of coffee. Whenever I bake a batch for myself, I love to enjoy it with a good cup of black coffee.

Do you like cake? What’s your favourite flavour?

Body Jump-Start

A few days ago I shared about my relationship with carbohydrates. It has been hard to manage. I never had any problems with carbs until late into my twenties. I began to notice that my body was taking its good time with digesting foods. My metabolism had slowed down.

Carbohydrates contain sugars that take long to digest and break down. Every now and again I try to speed up my metabolism and I also completely cut off carbohydrates. This allows me to jump-start my entire body and make it happy for a period of time.

How to speed up metabolism:

Replace carbohydrates with lots of protein
Drink lots of water
Take at least 10,000 steps daily
Drink green tea and coffee
Eat a lot of pepper and other spicy foods
Get at least 8 hours of sleep

How do I know if my metabolism is slowing down? Your metabolism may be slowing down when you feel some of these symptoms;

When you begin to gain a lot of weight
You notice that you are getting tired very easily
You start to get dry skin/hair and your nails break easily
You feel constipated
You get nagging headaches that dont go away
You get a feeling of sadness and depression

Some of these signs may not be related to your metabolism so it is recommended that you speak with a health specialist before coming to any conclusions.

It is very important to note that Carbohydrates are essential for the body as they are its main source of energy and so cutting them off completely for too long can be dangerous to health.

And or with?

I love tea. Especially black tea. I love to take it with some lemon and honey. Over the past couple of months I’ve begun to drag my husband Terver into my morning tea routine. He’s not a tea person. Last week I placed his breakfast on the table and he noticed the tea was different. He asked why it was whitish, I told him it was Lipton with milk and a little suger… I love that combination. “Sugar?” he asked. “Why didn’t you use honey?” I explained how I thought honey didnt go well with milk in black tea.

I actually have never tried black tea with mlik and honey. So I honestly don’t know if it doesn’t go well together. For me, it’s just one of those things that you feel do not go together. Just the other day Terver came over to my bake shop and he had with him some corn, coconut and mzembe (local pear). He offered and I declined. I told him I didnt think it would go well together. He persisted and I tried. The corn and pear is a very common combination but I had never tried it. I was right. I didn’t like it. The coconut and pear however was awesome. Different strokes for different folks I guess. I have heard people say a little honey in warm milk has calming effects, helps with insomnia and so on. I just don’t know if I can combine them. I have never been so much of a milk person and I also learned to like honey so I think i see where the problem could be coming from.

Anyway, his response to my opinion on Lipton with milk and honey was quite funny. He said “Babe, even the Bible talks about milk and honey together and you think milk won’t go well with honey?”. Guess what my argument was, “The Bible said ‘milk and honey’ , it didn’t say ‘milk with honey'”. It’s been days now, but I really can’t get it off my mind, were the people drinking milk and honey or were they taking milk with honey?… I guess I will never know.

What cheers you up?

I may be having the worst day but when I eat a well cooked plate of beans, I feel better. For some people it’s ice cream, for others it’s alcohol, for some, chocolate etc. Everyone has that thing that does it for them.

In October 2017 I found myself in a very frustrating situation. I had just started a low carb diet and I realised beans had lots of carbohydrates. Growing up we were told to eat beans for protein. Yes. Beans has more protein than rice does and then it goes ahead to load up on carbohydrates too. No, I kid you not. For every 100g of beans you consume, you would be consuming 63g of carbohydrates and 21g protein.

I really love beans. I remember a long time ago, maybe 20 years ago or so. My cousin came back home from school. He had travelled over 500 kilometres. He arrived very late at night. There were no mobile phones then so he couldn’t tell us he would be arriving and so we didn’t make any meal ready for him. He was someone I could do anything for, I loved him very much and we were very close… I still do even though we aren’t so close anymore. When I realised by morning time that he had helped himself to my pot of beans, I cried, literally. I always had beans cooked and stored. He didn’t understand why I was reacting that way. He didn’t even believe i was upset. He only laughed. Yes, Imoter will laugh at you in your most serious moments and he’d get away with it, he’s adorable.

Back to the present, I’m 38 years old, I’m watching my weight and I need to be careful how many carbs I take in because my body has a love hate relationship with carbohydrates. Suddenly I find my self on a mission to find something besides beans that gives me joy. Something that isn’t bad for my body so that I can alternate with my beloved beans. I wonder what that is. Although I must confess, beans is the only high carb meal I cheat with and I don’t feel guilty.

I wish myself luck on my mission to find a replacement joy giver. For now, it’s still beans.