Culinary Adventures with Camilla

We are continuing with the 'B's in our cooking around the world adventure, venturing to Belize for dinner tonight. I found two simple recipes that could be whipped up while helping the boys with homework and still feeling behind after our glorious four day weekend. One ingredient is ubiquitous in Belizean cuisine: the coconut. They use every part of the coconut. The dried husk is used for stoking the cooking fires; the water, milk, or cream is a drink or the base of sauce; the meat is grated for a number of uses. I used coconut milk in the rice and beans and to simmer the fish. Yum-mo. Belizean Rice and Beans brown basmati rice red kidney beans, cooked coconut milk water minced garlic pink Himalaya salt flower pepper Mix all the ingredients in a medium pot and cook the way you would usually cook rice. Belizean Fish Stew fish coconut milk tomatoes fresh herbs minced garlic paprika pink Himalaya salt flower pepper In a large flat-bottomed pan, bring the...

So, that is not a typo.  I do not mean 'muffin.' Mochi + Muffin = MOffins.  When my friend posted a recipe for MOffins , I was out of rice flour.  But after Chinese New Year I had both rice flour and leftover red bean filling from my mooncakes .  So this was a 'must try' this morning...with my typical variations, of course...especially since I didn't have any matcha powder. 3 eggs 1/2 C canola oil 2 cups milk 1/2 C organic granulated sugar 1 T baking powder 2 t ground ginger powder red bean filling 1 box of rice flour (I actually didn't have a whole box because I had used 1 C for my mooncakes.  I substituted some coconut flour) Mix the eggs and oil.  Then mix everything else except for red beans.  Pour half the batter into muffin cup, add about teaspoon of red beans, top it off with more batter. Bake for about 30 minutes at 375˚F till the top of the MOffin is slightly browned.

One good thing about being wrong about the date of Chinese New Year, I had an extra day to make my mooncakes.  Click here for the recipe.  But, as usual, I can't follow a recipe to save my life...even my own recipes!  My Year of the Rabbit variations: instead of straight wheat flour I used a mix of rice flour, coconut flour, and white whole wheat flour.  And in my red bean filling, I added a dash of ginger syrup and powdered ginger for some added zing.  They are in the oven as I type, we'll see how they turn out.