365 days: banana muffins, caponata, pulled pork...

Quite a bit of cooking today.   Pulled pork, salted cashews, coleslaw, caponata, verdura cotta, pommes etuvees, etc.

Yesterday's sourdough was, as I feared, a disaster - I let it stand to long - the mixture - and it has become too sour.  Not sure if it's worth rescuing - think I'll make some conventional bread with dried yeast tomorrow for our visitors.  I'll grind up the sour dough into crumbs and use them sparingly... most of them will be in the freeezer for some time.  A shame, but a valuable lesson learned I think.  Perhaps I can dust a new starter with some spores of the old one.

Yesterday's muffins were pretty good - I would have called them buns years ago, but buns aren't fashionable, and as I made these in a 6-hole silicon brioche mould I guess they are more muffin than bun.   This recipe is based on my family's banana loaf recipe, which I have been messing about with for years.  This is also a frugality points recipe - because I used up two brown bananas and some very leftover blueberries.

So:  mash two old bananas, add 2 cups of flour (use basic mugs) or substitute half a cup of flour with dessicated coconut.then add a mug of soft brown sugar, about 4oz soft marge (oh use butter if you want, sprinkle on 1 tsp of bi-carb, add 2 eggs and some lemon juice (just a squeeze, lime is better if you are just doing banana and coconut.  Then mix them all with an electric mixer and add half a punnet (is that about 100g? 75g? ) and fold them in (you can add them before mixing if you like). If the mixture is very stiff loosen if with a little milk (a couple of tablespoons), then put them into whatever you use to make muffins (12 small ones) or buns (20? more?).   Cook in oven at gas 4-5 for about 20 minutes.  Chuck onto cooling rack and devour.

The banana bread recipe made a large loaf - and has an extra banana or two in it.  Also brazil or walnuts - about half a mug full, chopped, or anything else you like.  My mother once disgusted me by adding dates - urrrrgh - how could she?  My sister uses chocolate chips instead of nuts, and I suppose chopped caramels/toffees could be nice too, but these days I like coconut and plenty of lime juice in it.  Rum?

What we ate

Pulled pork, pommes etuvees, coleslaw, verdura cotta
Strawberries, whipped cream.

Drank::  Some very nice Sauvignon de Touraine.

Discovered some nice white tortilla chips, which are cheese flavoured and contain linseeds.
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Elderflowers - part 2

Yesterday I made the elderflower cordial - by adding a kilo of sugar to the strained juice, heating gently to dissolve it, and adding a generous teaspoon of citric acid. Today, having run some old sherry and port 0.5l bottles through the dishwasher I bottled the liquor.  Kirstie came over and we drank a lot, it was very delicious.  I hope it will keep - I think that's what the citric acid is for.  It tastes slightly wilder than the commercial ones, but it's also very sweet - perhaps too sweet.  I wonder if I should make more as Christmas presents - I'm thinking ahead of course. Will it keep that long?

A very frothy image above - positively bridal!

The champagne


I looked at the vat of champagne mix - disappointingly no sign of fermentation - despite my having picked the flowers on a hot sunny day - perhaps it was too early in the day (about midday) - which is meant to encourage plenty of wild yeast.   I decided, in the interests of "self-sufficiency" to add some of my own sourdough mix, rather than using commercial yeast, or going and buying brewer's yeast.  I mixed it in - then added another teaspoon or so and drizzled it over the heads.  A few bubbles started to rise - I was encouraged.   When I came back later it was all looking pretty inert again.   However, the very helpful forum on the River Cottage website (where I plucked these recipes) says sometimes you have to look for small brown patch on the surface, rather than bubbles, and this indicates fermentation is beginning.  I am now feeling rather impatient about fermentation, but then again, when I think how long it can take to get a sourdough starter going perhaps I'm being silly.

I've also discovered that the idea of bottling it after 6 days is crazy - it needs 3 weeks - but then again, I could probably bottle some on June 13th to take to my father's party - unless it is very very unready.  I am now wondering whether I need demi-johns and valves etc. Apparently it is perfectly OK to make it in large containers without lids - not sure about stirring though?  I did stir in all the sourdough mix eventually.

Frugality points
I think this scores a couple of frugality points - 1 for foraged foods, 1 for re-use of old bottles, 1 for using sourdough instead of commercially sourced yeast.