Lunchtime

Lunchtime

I spent an hour on lunch today, which is about average for my main meal of the day. Most days I toss random ingredients together and hope the result is edible, today was no different. However, apparently the clouds parted and heavenly light rained down at just the right moment, and Yea, Verily, edible bliss ensued. Because something so delicious demands to be shared, here’s the recipe. Enjoy:

Easy Bread & Awesomeness in a Skillet

“So Easy A Caveman Could Do It”-bread:
2 cups flour
1T oil
1/2C Water
1L Nalgene Bottle

Explosions of Awesomeness in a Skillet:
Garden Eggs (or eggplant/aubergine)
Tomatoes
Onion
Garlic
Agushi (neutral, adds protein. Dried squash seeds.)
Lime
Dried Mint
Oil
Salt

Stupid-easy bread:
Mix 1.5C flour with oil, add water gradually until it looks like bread dough. Divide into 8 balls. Chase cat off table, flour rolling area, roll balls into flat rounds with Nalgene bottle (hint: fill bottle half-way with water for added oomph). Cook in pre-heated, ungreased skillet for a few minutes, flipping half way.

Skillet Block Party:
Chop onion & garlic, put in hot pan with oil & salt - the floury bits from previous enterprises add flavour. Add diced garden eggs & tomatoes, cover. Clean up mess from making bread. Stir skillet, add dried mint sparingly because it’s bloody expensive from Accra. Squeeze lime, pick out seeds because you’re a doofus. Add salt again because salt & lime adds to the awesome. Stir. Turn off gas. Eat with bread.

OM NOM NOM NOM.

Market Day

I went to market today, which was sufficient enough to make me feel accomplished. The nearest market to me runs Sundays and Wednesdays, and I’m usually there at least one of those days. Without storage space or a refridgerator, I basically am limited to shopping for a few days at a time (as is everyone else here, which is why markets are generally open twice a week).

I had a good trip this time around, so decided to blog about it and post a photo. So counterclockwise, starting with the bread:

• Bread (1.00)
• Bananas (free)
• Groundnut Paste (1.80)
• Bissap (.10)
• Okra (.20)
• Onga (.10)
• Tomatoes (.20)

I go through 1-2 loaves of bread a week. Prices of basic market goods are universal, and bread is very easy to find - if I’m lazy, I just get it off of a woman’s head out the window of a tro-tro. Yes, really - so I buy it often. It is generally consumed with the following two items.

The bananas were dashed to me as I left the market, I was going to buy some anyway but a woman gave me 4, so I didn’t have to. The price for 4 would have been .10, by the way. Because the smallest coin in circulation (commonly; not technically) is the 5ghp “nickel”, that means it’s impossible to pay for fewer than 2 bananas.

The groundnut paste (which is just “organic sugar-free no-preservatives-added peanut butter”, by the way) is a 2x/month purchase, so while it did take a chunk out of this week’s market allowance, it all evens out in the end. I was going to pick it up Sunday, but my Groundnut Paste Lady was all sold out and so I had to wait. The container is mine; the paste is sold by “spoonful”, my container holds 18 spoonfuls. You do the math!

When people speak of the “nectar of the gods”, what they don’t realize is that they are actually referring to Bissap. This frozen lump of ruby goodness is my personal reward for dragging my lazy self to market (20 minutes each way, people!) under a noon-day sun. It’s a sweet tea made from hibiscus flowers, with so much ginger you’d think it was actually pepper-tea. At market it’s sold frozen: a bissap-pop. If I had a freezer I would have it every day, but as it is I literally chase down the Bissap Girl every time I go to market. I could write an overly-emotional Ode To Bissap, but I’ll stop now.

Okra and tomatoes are self-explanatory, I hope. These will be cooked with onion, hot pepper, gari, and beans (which I picked up last Sunday) tomorrow.

“Onga” is just boullion. Flavour powders and cubes are staples in all Ghanaian recipes, (”Maggi” is the most common), but Onga is one of the few easily-obtained varieties that doesn’t have any MSG. Since meat is too much trouble to deal with, I’ve become mostly vegetarian — but I still give in and use small-small Onga in beans, stews, etc.

So there you go. An average mid-week trip to the local open-air market. Total time: 1 hour. Total cost: 3.40, or “34 t’ousand”. Now try to hit up your air-conditioned, over-priced, mega-supermarket with the same perspective you had last time!

Persian Food is Weird

I’ve only recently begun to realize how “weird” my family’s food habits are. I actually got the idea to write this tonight when I was googling recipes; I stumbled across some blog entry where things I thought were tasty were being used as examples of “exotic fear-factor food”. Granted, I grew up thinking salty fermented yogurt was a perfectly acceptable summertime drink. So there is that.

In any case, this isn’t a recipe post, just felt like mentioning the “weird food” of my past 24 hours. Last night it was almost 11pm when my parents & I met each other at home, & we were all too tired to cook (oh, eating supper at 11 is also “weird,” I guess, but not terribly abnormal for us). Our fallback meal for just such occassions consists of: watermelon, paneer (feta, basically) cheese, hot flat bread, and ridiculously sweet hot tea. You make watermelon cheese rollup wrap thingies, no cooking required. If we don’t have watermelon we use havidge morraba instead, which is carrot marmalade — also mentioned in that “fear factor” discussion. I always thought watermelon paired well with cheese, and carrots made great marmalade, and all of the above went really well with hot tea. Oh, and actually our tea here is pretty good, and sort of recipe-worthy: 2 parts loose gulabi baruti to 1 part loose Twining’s earl grey, a splash of rosewater in the pot. Serve extra-strong with hard sugar cubes on the side.

Tonight I made chili, which is boring and not recipe-worthy either. Desert was vanilla ice cream-carrot juice-cardamom milkshakes, though. So there is that.

Foodie food nerd

I like to cook. A lot. It’s something I’ve always liked to do, and it makes me happy. This semester I’ve pretty much taken over kitchen duties for my family, because I enjoy it and I’ve got the time. A few days ago I started keeping track of menus & recipes. I have discovered that it is ridiculously difficult to quantify things I’ve never thought about or measured. So because I’m putting so much effort into writing these down, I reserve the right to post them here as well — starting with tonight’s dinner.

Continuing the theme of Norouz (Persian New Year) — tonight we had traditional New Year’s food. Yay, quick & easy! The salad and kuku combine with hot bread to make “pita pockets”. As with most Persian food, each family has their own recipes, and regional differences abound. The following are my versions of my mom’s versions of my grandmother’s original recipes. Enjoy.

Kuku Sabzi (”Green kuku”)
- 2 cans spinach, drained
- 5 eggs
- 1 TBSP dried parsley
- 1/2 TBSP dried fenugreek
- 1/2 TBSP cilantro
- sea salt

Drain the spinach well - use a strainer (or your hands!) and some effort to get all the water out. Beat the eggs in a seperate bowl with the salt, then combine all ingredients. Mix until smooth.

Heat melted butter (or olive oil) in skillet. Drop spoonfuls of the spinach mixture, cover, cook on medium heat. Turn once, allow second side to cook uncovered. Serve hot.

Shirazi Salad
- 2 cucumbers
- 1 large tomato
- 1/2 onion
- 1 C lemon juice
- 2 TBSP dried mint
- sea salt

Dice the cucumbers, tomatoes, and onion. Put into one bowl & salt liberally. Crush dried mint over the top (again, you get to use your hands: crush between your palms into fine powder). Add lemon juice and stir. Taste & re-season if neccessary… it usually is.