Pumpkin Smoothie with Soot Sprites

These are “Makkuro-Kurosuke” from My Neighbor Totoro, and also “Susuwatari” from Spirited Away. The translated version of their names often disappoints me, because it’s just “Soot Sprites”.

Soot Sprites…. I got the sentiments, but it kills the subtlety of Japanese goodness when I see the word “sprites”, -a supernatural entity in European mythology (i.e. Wikipedia). To us Japanese, we see souls, and spirits in everyday things, including dust or soot. We don’t see fairies, we don’t see fantasies, and we don’t really see “sprites” when we see soots floating around our oven. Instead, we see our attention, we see our appreciation, and that gives us a sense of togetherness, the imagination of what-ifs, and most importantly, we find the beauty of the mundane in our everyday life.

I don’t know how to put this, but I don’t think Hayao Miyazaki is after fantasy, though many people think he is. I made this recipe because I’m also not really after fantasy, or anything supernatural; -but I still fervently want to make something that would resonate with how I think of our world that we live in today. Let’s just put a face on it, sort of like personifying our everyday things. And if it tastes delicious, and if it’s really cute, that gives you a genuine smile on your face…. -then I’m really happy.
These adorable “Soot Sprites” are made of Shiratama(a type of rice flour), and I mixed it with cocoa powder. It was also Halloween time when I originally made this recipe, so I decided to add a bit of pumpkin into my favorite banana smoothie recipe to go well with the “Soot Sprites”.
This recipe is inspired by Hayao Miyazaki, with a bit of vegan touch. I hope you like it!

1: Freeze the bananas.
Cut the bananas into small pieces and put them in a container, then rest it in a freezer overnight. 2: Next day, boil the pumpkin.
Make puree from the boiled pumpkin in a bowl. Make sure you get rid of all the seeds! 3: Make the pumpkin tray. (Optional) 
Cut the pumpkin’s head and dig the inside using a spoon. (I was not used to carving pumpkins, so it took me an hour.) 4: Next, smoothie. 
In a bowl whisk together the milk, oats, and chia seeds. Place in the fridge for 1 hour. 5: Next, Shiratama.
Mix the ingredients and knead with your hand until the dough becomes smooth. If the mixture is too dry, add a little tofu till the dough is just right. (When it’s too dry, it’s difficult to stick ears and limbs together, and we don’t want that!)6: Separate the dough into 2 colors. 
Take 1/4 of the dough and knead again with cocoa powder. The color of brown turns darker after boiling, so no need to put too much cocoa powder this time.7: Crafting time. 
This is the best part! When attaching eyes to the face, make sure the dough is sticky enough; because if you don’t, they might fall apart when boiling. No one likes eyeless sprites!8: Boil them all.
Drop the sprites gently in boiling water with low heat, and cook them till they float. (Be super gentle when you pick up the sprites. I often break them apart when tossing it into the water…!) It should take around 5 minutes. When they start to float, that means they are ready to be picked up!

A video posted by Yukitchen (@yukitchen_) on Oct 23, 2015 at 3:02am PDT

9: Pick them up from hot water and drain. 
When they are floating, that means they are well-cooked. Keep the cooked sprites aside in freshwater while you work on the smoothie next!  10: Mix all the smoothie ingredients. 
Grab the soaked oats ingredients in the fridge, pumpkin puree, honey, cinnamon, and frozen bananas, and put them all in a blender. Then blend it until all mixture is combined. It should take around 2~3 minutes. 11: Pour the smoothie into pumpkin bowls.
12: Add the Soot Sprites on top and you’re done. 
Super cute Soot Sprites and beautiful pumpkin smoothie together; it sure reminds me of Halloween. It’s time to enjoy this healthy vegan smoothie with a few black soot spites on top.This is the healthy vegan smoothie with soaked oats with chia seeds inside. You might really like the subtle cinnamon flavor added in this smoothie… I added just a bit of maple syrup because it was already naturally sweet from bananas and pumpkins. But if you are a sweet tooth, or you just really want to try new maple syrup you just bought from the market, then add a bit more honey when mixing in a blender! 

Thanks for reading.

xoxo
-Yuki