I wish I could say I was adapting to motherhood. But it’s not exactly true, is it? Motherhood doesn’t give room for “adaptation”. It seizes its share of your life, your time, your space. 

And I could go on and on about how it’s a good kind of “baby takeover” or conversely, how important I think it is to maintain one’s autonomy in the face of a baby’s subtle manipulation (lol!) but this is not that kind of post. 

No, it’s not. I want to talk about food instead. Specifically, I want to talk about moi-moi. 

  If Nigerians were into superfoods and all what not, moi-moi would be a superfood. It ticks all the right boxes. High-protein (especially when filled with fish), check. Bulky enough to be filling, check. Nutty umami-ness, check. I love moi-moi. I’m not so crazy about all the work required to make it.

These days, though, I’m making it once a week. Thanks to two hacks I discovered about roughly the same time.

The first is bean flour. No, not the commercial ones with their weird chemical taste. This bean flour is homemade. Simply soak beans, peel them, sun-dry for as long as necessary and then mill it. Voila! I like this hack because it saves time in the long run. When I’m ready to eat moi moi, I simply blend the flour with peppers and onions and in less than 5 minutes, I have moi-moi batter. 

  Another hack is to peel beans with a food processor but I’ve never quite gotten the hang of that.

Yet a third hack is to forget about peeling the beans and simply blend soaked beans with onions and peppers. I haven’t tried this either but I hear it doesn’t make a difference in taste.

I’m seriously considering milling dry, unpeeled beans. No, it’s not laziness. Lol. I mean, didn’t you hear that the skin of the beans holds the majority of the protein content?

Anyhow, guess what else I found? Silicone moi-moi moulds. That’s right. Someone came up with this nifty product so I don’t have to wrap my moi-moi in banana leaves. Because I don’t even have the strength right now.

   I like the fact that they have little lids. Basically, I transfer these babies from the pot to the fridge to the microwave oven to  my lunch bag. Silicone wrap 1, banana leaves 0. Convenient, check.

The manufacturers claim you can also bake muffins with the moulds but trapezium-shaped desserts aren’t my thing right now. I can see that happening in my future, though. I can also use them as food molds for when I want to get fancy with presentation.
If you’re going to use them for moi-moi, I’d recommend you lightly grease the insides first. My experience was that it made it easier to get the moi moi out.

And I can’t believe I just did a whole blog post on moi-moi. Lol. Okay, I’m going now. At least, I’ve done a post. 

P.s. Disclaimer: This is not an ad or a sponsored post. However, the manufacturers did send me a pack for review purposes. If you’d like to buy a pack, here’s their store.

P.p.s. If you’re wondering which recipe I use, I modified this one from dooneyskitchen.com.