Wednesday, August 7, 2013

Cooking in Namibia revisited

So remember when I was going to write about food? Whoops! Generally, breakfast is oatmeal with peanut butter, snack is bread and butter or eggs and toast or bread and like... bologna, lunch is an apple and peanut butter, and dinner varies. Sometimes, my room mate will cook porridge and game meat and stew or gravy.  Other times it's baked beans, rice and veggies. Or fried Kavango River fish and rice or porridge (delicious... and I was watching her cook them last time, so I'm going to help next time! Update on that to come. Also an update on how to best prepare kudu meat).

Anyway, throughout the term, I've made some pretty delicious things.  I made my go-to dish for a few volunteers.  Mushroom cream sauce with white wine with chicken and pasta. Turned out well, and it was on an electric stove top thing with only one side really working... the water for the pasta was the hardest part! Turns out the water kettle switch is opposite the one I have in my flat; it wasn't broken! Oops.  But I think it was worth the wait!
               Ingredients:
                                1 can mushrooms
                                1 bottle of wine (you'll need about a cup for the recipe, the rest is for you!)
                                1 clove garlic
                                1 small onion
                                1.5 cup cream
                                1 braai package of chicken
                                salt and pepper to taste
                                Pasta for 3
              Procedure:
                        Put water on to boil 2 hours ago
                        Cook chicken in the frying pan, because it's the only pan you have. With salt and pepper
                        When the chicken is finished, leave the juices in the pan, but remove the meat. Saute the onion and garlic in the rest of the juices. Add mushrooms after 5 minutes, tossing occasionally for 5 more minutes.
                        While the veggies are heating, cut the chicken off the bone.
                        Add wine to the pan, boil and simmer for a few minutes. Let's call it 5 minutes.
                        Go back to trying to get the chicken off the bone before the dog gets to it. For those of you into Namibian music, I accidentally typed that "The Dogg."
                       Add the cream to the pan and turn down the heat just before boiling, so that it will simmer for another... oh... 5 minutes (but it can be left over low heat for a while). Add the chicken.
                       If you're lucky, now would be the perfect time to cook the pasta!
                    Serves 3 volunteers (about 5 normal people)

For the fourth of July, I went "Treat-yo'-self" and bought feta cheese and mixed it into burger patties.  Very good decision! With avocado and tomato and lettuce and home-made barbeque sauce made by a PCV (Peace Corps Volunteer, for those not ITK (In the Know)).

I've been making a lot of cream-based soups with sausage and spinach, which have been turning out well.

Tonight, I made a nice veggie and noodle soup.
                  Ingredients:
                      One package of Knolls Curry Vegetable Soup Mix
                     1/3 large onion (probably could use 1/2)
                     1 clove garlic (could definitely use 2)
                     2 small green tomatoes (probably want to use 3)
                     1 small green pepper (probably could use 2)
                     about 1.5 cups frozen veggie mix (could definitely push this to 2 cups)
                     .75 L water to cook 2 cups uncooked macaroni (could probably cut the pasta in half if you're not going to add more veggies--the ratio I ended up with was really off)
               Procedure:
                      cook pasta
                      While water is boiling etc cut veggies and saute fresh ones until the onions are translucent
                      Add frozen veggies to the cooked veggies, and keep over low-medium heat until they melt
                      Combine the soup mix with about 3 cups of water
                      Add cooked pasta and its water to the veggies
                      stir
                      add soup mix + water
                      bring to a boil
                       simmer for like... oh.... 5 minutes. I think. (I say five minutes when I don't know how long I left it for. It was enough time to wash the pasta pot and put away some other dishes and stir it a few times)
                        Enjoy with 3 other friends! Or save some for tomorrow... there are about 4 servings.

And one last recipe for you.
                     You will need:
                             Spoon
                             Peanut butter
                             Apple
                     Procedure:
                            open jar of peanut butter by twisting off the lid
                            put spoon end of spoon into the jar
                            scoop out as much peanut butter as will fit in the spoon (or catch some in your mouth as it falls)
                           spread on each bite of your apple.
                           hopefully, you will have an excess of peanut butter.
                          If you do, don't waste it. Put it in yo' mouf (Sorry I couldn't wait!)

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