I had a few to many butternuts lurking in my kitchen a while back, and as I’m not the biggest fan of butternut soup, I decided to make some muffins. Improvising a bit here, and a bit more there, which is how most of my recipes come about – sheer experimentation – I came up with something quite nice. Very nice, actually. The butternut was soft and sweet (it was roasted until slightly caramelised), and the muffins were moist on the inside and crunchy on the outside – a light sprinkling of treacle sugar over the top before baking gave the muffins a slight crust, and voila! a perfect tea-time treat. They were a little dense inside, most likely because I pureed the butternut – next time I’ll just mash it a bit, and also perhaps use a bit of soda water, to give them some bubbles.
Here is the recipe:
2 cups cake flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 cup roasted/boiled/steamed and mashed butternut (1 small butternut)
1/3 cup canola or sunflower oil
2 tablespoons vinegar
1 tablespoon vanilla
1 1/4 – 1 1/2 cups apple juice/water
preheat oven to 180 degrees C.
Butter and flour a large, 6 muffin baking tray, or a smaller 12 muffin baking tray.
Stir together the dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl, I use a whisk.
In a separate, smaller bowl, mix together the wet ingredients until well combined.
Make a well in the middle of the dry mixture, add the wet.
Stir well to amalgamate everything.
If the mixture is very dry, add a little more water or juice, the consistency must be just pourable, but not sloppy.
Spoon the mixture out equally into your chosen muffin tray.
Sprinkle a little treacle sugar over the top (actually, any sugar works, I just like the rich, crumbly sweetness of treacle sugar).
Bake for about 25 – 30 minutes, until the tops are crusty and a knife inserted comes out clean.
Leave to cool on a wire rack and enjoy!
Today, I am trying out apple muffins. Like soup, muffins are fabulous for using up sad, slightly past their prime goodies lurking in the fridge. Hopefully they turn out well. So far, the house smells heavenly, and that isn’t only because there is rain in the air. All I need now is a cup of strong tea, and to look out the window and see the swirling waters and slate-grey shadows of a storm tossed sea. Some things never change.
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Guitar Fish, or Shark Ray. Dating back to the Lower Jurassic period, the fossil record of this genus goes back about 150 million years. They are beautiful, harmless creatures, persecuted by (surprise surprise) small-minded humans. Why can’t these people leave anything alone? I had a manager once who was a brilliant fellow. He always said that people who kill things are afraid of them, like people who chop down big, beautiful trees (this is a crime, in my book) do so because those trees are older, and wiser; and people who hunt do so because they feel small and inferior, so if you don’t understand it, and it makes you feel stupid, well, best to just crush it. There is no evolution here, nor is there any inkling or spark of kindness, let alone intelligence.
Jeremy Mansfield has an interesting comment on his Facebook page regarding the recent furore about the so called ‘huntress’. I won’t put the picture here because I hate it, and I hate to see it. (Hate is a big word, and I don’t often use it, but in this case nothing else will do.) I also won’t repeat the word he used used here, because, well, I’m a good girl….but if the shoe fits….Having said that, every time I see it, or someone mentions it, I think of just how appropriate the word is. And a few choice others besides. Still, it does no good to be vengeful, but I have to ask – why bring such bad karma down on yourself? My goodness, to do such a thing – such a majestic creature – well, that’s asking for trouble. She must have a very low opinion of herself. Its all about respect, in a way, isn’t it. And not only for others.
“Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages.”
― Thomas A. Edison
“The time will come when men such as I will look upon the murder of animals as they now look upon the murder of men.”
― Leonardo da Vinci
So, as I was saying, Guitar Fish (it seems I went right off the point, this is actually about fish and not spineless people), or Batoid elasmobranchs, under which rays and skates, including guitar fishes (Rhinobatidae) fall, are very closely allied with sharks, hence the name Shark Ray. They are highly complex animals with large brains, and they engage in intricate social behaviour. I am busy sketching one of these wonderful creatures in graphite washes, my little boy loves them, so I thought I’d inspire him a bit. This is where we are at, for now:
Preliminary Sketch
I remember, we found one once, in another lifetime. He was so very lovely, and had been washed ashore. The memory of that fish has always stayed with me, along with Nudibranchs, fishcals, eels in rock pools. I often wonder what those rock pools look like now… But again I digress. The point is, what will the world be without sharks, tigers, guitar fish, lions, rhinos…It seems they are disappearing before my very eyes, and the world is winding down.
Every year my mother travels to India for a month in December, on a spiritual pilgrimage, for yoga and meditation. She has done this since my dad died in 2006, and she lives for this trip. This year the trip has been postponed until March, and she is completely deflated. It seems to me that in places like this, some things never change, they have stayed the same since time immemorial, and somewhere in themselves those people, who have nothing, find the ability to just give. They give of their time, their food, whatever they have, and they simply carry on. One wonders if there isn’t a simple, pure joy in having so little. The children laugh and smile, and are always so happy. I think we complicate our lives with things and with selfishness. And in the case of many, with greed. I haven’t travelled much, although I’d love to, ever, ever so much. I especially want to go to the Fertile Crescent, and see where the Sea Peoples, Persians and Assyrians plied their daily wares and lived in a world more complete than ours. And of course, to Italy and Greece, to see where the muses and saints went about their daily business among the olive groves and vineyards.
Some things, as I say, never change.
“There is, one knows not what sweet mystery about the sea, whose gently awful stirrings seem to speak of a hidden soul beneath”
– Herman Melville (1819 – 1891)
As always, sweet dreams, and sleep tight.
MTB
xxx
Vanilla Stone 
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