Muffins gruau et bananes

Mon frère PJ a fait il y a peu de temps des muffins. Pas les muffins au gruau de notre grand-mère, mais des muffins au gruau et aux bananes, parce qu'il lui restait des bananes à terminer. Je pense que je vais les essayer moi aussi, parce que petit loup devrait aimer.

Breakfast at the office

 I went to the office a few weeks ago. I work from home most of the time, but once in a blue moon I must show my face at work. But I do have good employers: there was breakfast available: croissants of different sorts, including, bananas, tea, coffee, orange and apple juices and jubilee plates and nakpins. I had a high sugar diet, but it keeps me more active.

La durée de vie des bananes

Photo prise à Totnes dans le Devon, lors de la parade de leur festival local, je la partage ici car elle illustre assez bien mon propos. Enfin bref, nous mangeons tous des bananes dans cette maison, mais il y a une chose qui m'agace énormément avec elles: elles passent rapidement de pas assez mûres pour être bonnes à trop mûres pour être mangeables, alors on en perd. Suis-je le seul à trouver ça irritant? je sais que mon beau-frère m'a fait remarquer la même chose la dernière fois qu'on l'a vu. Il faudrait faire des recettes au lieu de les manger une par jour, j'imagine.

Banana Bread

Yesterday we made time to bake our own dessert, trying to be healthy and all. We had bananas that were getting seriously ripe, so we decided to make banana bread. My parents' recipe. There are plenty online, they are all more or elss the same (seriously, how different can be a plain, simple banana bread), but Wolfie was adamant that he wanted us to make "grandpapa's cake" and no other, so this is what we made, even though the recipe comes originally from my mum who got it from a colleague I think. That was decades ago and it has been our banana bread recipe since then, the one that I enjoyed through childhood and beyond. My wife had a bit of struggle making conversions of measures, but in the end wethink it was a success. Wolfie loved it anyway. So here you have it, the result of three generations of banana bread bakers.

Banana split

These days are time for ice cream and sundaes, so we recently went back to Bourne for Desserts to treat ourselves with an icy dessert. I had this banana split (and sorry for the blurry picture). I don't know why, but I was in the mood for one. Hadn't had one in decades. Back in the days, it was my brother Andrew who was quite fond of banana splits. I rationalize the consumption sugary decadence by saying it has one portion of fruit and that it has plenty of dairy product, which is good for bones. I mean surely this is as healthy as a dessert can be, right? I didn't allow Wolfie to have any, but he was quite curious. Must be the banana that caught his attention.

Les pains aux bananes

Lors de mon dernier séjour à Chicoutimi, j'ai eu l'occasion de manger ce pain aux bananes, qui avait été préparé par ma mère. Une tranche avec beaucoup de beurre (beaucoup de beurre) comme partie de mon déjeuner, juste après mes toasts au beurre d'arachide. Ca me donnait de l'énergie pour la journée. Quand j'avais une fringale en après-midi, j'en prenais aussi en collation. (Remarque linguistique ici: j'utilise le terme collation, jamais le mot goûter, que je n'aime pas. Ca fait précieux, franchouillard et je trouve que ça sonne dégueulasse. Dane le même ordre d'esprit, je déteste l'adjectif goûteux, que ma mère utilise passablement). Inutile de dire qu'il n'a pas fait long feu.

De retour en Angleterre, ma femme avait déjà acheté les bananes pour en faire un nous mêmes. Elle le connait bien, le pain aux bananes de ma mère, c'était ce qu'elle prenait pour déjeuner durant ses séjours à Chicoutimi (ça ou les muffins au gruau, qui sont les prochains sur la liste). J'ai fait une recette classique et ai résisté à la curiosité d'y ajouter des bleuets. Mais j'ai mis quatra bananes plutôt que trois et y suis allé au pifomètre pour les mesures. Sauf que le résultat était quand même excellent. Et là il n'en reste que très peu. Je ne veux pas me vanter, parce que je fais souvent des catastrophes quand je cuisine, même pour les recettes niaiseuses à faire. Alors je suis particulièrement heureux du résultat.

Un pain aux bananes et bleuets

J'ai acheté ce morceau de pain aux bananes et bleuets dans un café végétarien de York dont le nom m'échappe. Je l'avais acheté pour le déjeuner du lendemain.J'aime le pain aux bananes, que ce soit pour un snack/dessert en après-midi que pour déjeuner. Celui-ci avait un élément original qui m'a fait apprécier le pain encore plus: les bleuets. Étant du Saguenay et le bleuet étant notre fruit régional (rérional), alors ça m'a fait penser à mon chez-moi. Je suis toujours à l'affût de nouvelles façons d'utiliser les bleuets, alors les rajouter dans un pain aux bananes est une excellente idée.

The fruits this August

This is a quick post about this month's baskets of fruits from Fruitful Office. One of the things that make me look forward to the first Tuesday of the month. I said yesterday I disliked Mondays. Well, Tuesday, at least one time out of four, is a far more pleasant day, if only for that. It does bring joy in the office, I can tell. People smile more, they chat more, they actually have something trivial to talk about. So the fruits are very popular, as you can see in the snapshot I took of one of the baskets. This months was mainly bananas, apples (green and red) and nectarines. I took one apple and one banana, the nectarine looking a bit too raw. So was the banana, actually, the yellow going a bit green. So I did not have them to accompany my breakfast, like I usually do. The banana I will have tomorrow, hopefully it will have ripened enough by then, the apple I will crunch in a few minutes. All the same, the mere presence of the fruit baskets brightened my Tuesday boosted my morale.

The fruits for July

Today was/is the first Tuesday of the month. This means that the fruit baskets were back at work. I am really getting fond of this monthly ritual, which started in February. It gives me much needed fruits to make my breakfast complete and it brightens my day. Anecdote: I just discovered (by actually paying attention to the label on the basket) that the company that provided the fruit is Fruitful Office. For July we did not have pears, but there were nectarines and clementines added to the usual bananas and apples mix. I didn't have clementines because I find it too out of season in July (I start eating them on November). I took a green apple and a banana, ate the green apple and brought the banana home. The banana is a bit raw still, but I will have it tonight. And I am already looking forward to next month.

Fruits for Tuesday

The fruit baskets were back at work today. I mentioned them here and here. I think I understood the schedule now: basically the first Tuesday of every month. It brightened my day, as it always does. They had the usual bananas (not ripe enough), apples, satsumas (I think they were satsumas) and I did not see any pears. I think they were all gone by the time I went to the kitchen. I did not have them for breakfast this time, as I was too busy at my desk, instead I took a banana in lieu of dessert after my lunch. Gosh I cannot believe how healthy I am these days! Or try to be anyway. But I discovered that I enjoy fresh fruits, especially when they are free.

A few trivial observations about the fruit baskets:

-"Always remember to give the fruit a quick wash before eating it." Well, I do.
-The picture of the fruit basket is a still life.
-The fruit basket is also a sort of horn of plenty.
-Fruits are surprisingly popular among my colleagues. The baskets are empty at the end of the day.

Well, that's it really. I will try to say something new in a month's time.

The fruit baskets at work

I blogged before about the baskets of fruits we receive at work. I said back then that the fruit baskets were there some Tuesdays. Well, apparently it can be any day of the week: they were there Wednesday this week. The fruits go really quickly. Yesterday, I took the time to take this picture before my scavenging colleagues and myself emptied the baskets. This is actually a still life. You see bananas, satsumas (I think it's satsumas), apples and pears. The pears were green, but surprisingly they were ripe. And juicy. It was a nice contrast from last time, when the pears were kind of raw and I crunched them like an apple. I have usually a banana and a pear. I love the days of the fruit baskets, but I wish they could be delivered weekly, on a specific day.

Le temps des galettes aux bananes?

Je regardais Dropbox et j'ai retrouvé la recette de galettes aux bananes. J'ai déjà blogué à leur sujet, la dernière fois c'était en avril 2013. C'était un un des desserts santé que j'aimais bien durant mon enfance. Je crois que ma mère la tenait d'une voisine, mais mon souvenir est peut-être inexact. Ca se mangeait bien comme collation en après-midi avec un grand verre de lait. Mais enfin bref, je trouve un peu honteux que je n'aie pas essayé de faire la recette depuis que j'en ai eu le goût... il y a deux ans. Et on a des bananes, bien qu'elles soient encore pas tout à fait assez mûres. Dans quelques jours peut-être, si j'ai l'énergie.

Fruits at work

There is a new trend at work which I wanted to blog about: some Tuesdays, not every Tuesday but some, there are baskets of fruits available in the kitchen in the morning. I don't know who had the idea, but it is a sort of scheme to make us eat better. The fruits are mainly bananas, apples and pears. All of them are a bit too raw, but all the same, it makes a nice change from the chocolates, biscuits and cakes that are usually available, so I usually grab a banana and a pear. It makes my breakfast healthier. And, while I have yet to truly enjoy a banana that is not ripe, I get used to the raw pears.

Banana bread at work

It happens sometimes, on a gloomy or grey day usually, someone at work brings something they baked. Sometimes, like this week, it is banana bread. I love banana bread at any time, but even more on a working day when I am tired and when I want my breakfast to taste a little bit better than  usual. So I said to the colleague who had baked it and was offering some to me: "I had breakfast already unfortunately, but it would be rude to refuse a slice of banana bread and I do not want to be rude." And I had a large one with tea. Pure bliss and a nice moment of happiness in a gloomy day. Oh and I think what I said can count as a new great unknown line.

Liverpudlian (counter)culture

One of my Facebook friends put on her wall this silly internet article, 22 Things Only Students In Liverpool Will Understand. Well, I never was a Liverpool student, but I worked as a teacher in Liverpool and many if not most of my students were Scousers. So reading this silly article brought back some memories. Among them that I never quite got their accent, however charming I found it. Some of the vocabulary I never got either. Anyway, reading this, even though it is exaggerated and overall rather silly, really made me miss my time there. I do disagree with one thing: I am not certain the Beatles and their heavy heritage is as popular as the article seems to claim. And I have a confession to make: I don't remember the lambananas. Which is a darn shame, as I love that kind of quirky stuff. I guess I will need to revisit the city at some point.

Banana bread on the house

I went to the local artisanal food shop to buy myself sausages for tonight's supper. I go there because the sausages are made by a local producers and they are delicious. I mentioned the shop before. They also offer some kind of café service, where they serve coffee (duh!), tea and various cakes. As I was hesitating between various specialties, the shopkeeper was finishing banana bread, and asked me: "Do you want the last bit of it? It's on the house." I already loved this shop for many reasons (quality food at a not so expensive price, and the most delicious pears I ever ate), now I have another one. So I came back home with tonight's meal, which was delicious (Toulouse sausages) and tomorrow's breakfast. Or maybe tonight's dessert. I am not sure yet. But I love getting slices of banana bread on the house. Buying them, I always find it expensive for the size of the slice. But free, I can't complain.

Galettes aux bananes

Ceci est un court billet de fin de soirée. Catégorie: les trésors que l'on trouve sur Dropbox. En fouillant donc dans ladite Dropbox, j'ai trouvé la recette des galettes aux bananes sur lesquelles j'avais blogué en anglais ici. Ce qui est une découverte heureuse. Je ne sais pas si je vais vaincre ma paresse habituelle pour m'essayer à en faire, mais je c'est rassurant d'avoir la recette. Je vais peut-être me commettre à la faire un de ces quatre.

Craving banana cookies

I discovered, at total random, that among many recipes my dad shared with us via Dropbox (where I now get more and more of my pictures for this blog), there was also a number of pictures of things he baked over the years. I mean a massive load of pictures. Many of me or my brothers as children too. So soon I think this blog will be covered with many more pictures of my past. And pictures of food (although I will try to avoid turning this blog into a food blog).

So anyway, tonight my attention went onto this picture. They are banana cookies, or "galettes aux bananes" as we call them. Recipe from the mother of my oldest childhood friend. it tastes more like banana bread than cookies, really, like all "galettes" in Quebec they are reall small cakes. They are delicious. Looking at the picture, I could feel the taste in my mouth. I cannot remember when I last had them. I usually crave molasse cookies, or those with raisins we had, or the one with the maple syrup icing. I haven't seen pictures of these ones yet. But some banana cookies would be great comfort food tonight.

Gloomy Monday and banana bread

I blog a day after the events, but I blogged regularly enough this year so far and I try to produce something interesting. I say this and this is both a trivial and food post, both things I do quite often since the beginning of the month. I will try to write something different tomorrow, promise.

Anyway, it was yesterday a dark, grey, cold, gloomy November Monday. Mondays are often gloomy in their nature. Mondays are Hell, in fact. I sat at my desk, changed my password, looked at the amount of work that had piled up over the weekend and almost felt like crying. Well, maybe not crying, but I felt like it was Monday and that my life was grey, grey, grey, that a ton of bricks was falling on me, pick up the cliché you prefer. Everybody else around me had a gloomy face, which never helps putting yourself in a good mood. I went to the kitchen to pick up a cup of tea for my breakfast (I have breakfast at my desk) and a new coworker, native French speaker, was cutting some banana bread her and her daughters (whom I had met two weeks before, when they visited their mum with their daddy) had baked. She generously offered me a slice. I gracefully took it. It made my day.

I just thought about it munching it ravenously: how little you need to change your mood. The banana bread was delicious (I had seconds in the afternoon), but even if it had not been the act of kindness was enough in itself to make this Monday less gloomy.