Monkeying Around Again

... guess that's why the posting has been a little light around here.  Go over to From the Monkey Bars and learn a bit a Swahili, why don'tcha?

Gone for a Swing!

On the Monkey Bars that is!  Today I am over at From the Monkey Bars sharing a favorite eggplant recipe that is quicker than takeout (or your money back!).  Please visit me there!

Monkeying Around

Hi!  Guess what?  Exciting news!  Today I am guest blogging over at From the Monkey Bars, a great blog about the pleasure and pain of parenting.  One of my favorite cooking blogs, The Kitchen Witch, is the lead contributor to their Eat series.  She was looking for guest bloggers and guess who went knockin'.  I will be over there once a week sharing Tanzanian takes on recipes from my kitchen, as long as the lion's don't eat them before I can type them out ;).  Hope you enjoy!

Tabbouleh

I have three food dislikes.  Tuna fish - just can't get over the smell enough to even try it.  Back in my office days, I silently cursed the person who ate tuna for lunch in the office kitchen and stunk up the whole place.  Olives - I don't know, just have never been able to get into them.  And tomatoes - just always worry that I'll get a mealy one, so I generally avoid them.

With the exception of tuna fish, I like foods made from olive and tomatoes.  Olive oil is a staple in my pantry (and I'd gladly dip loads of fresh made bread in it).  I like ketchup with my fries, salsa with my chips and prefer tomato sauce to cream sauce on my pasta.  But the actual tomato plain, I just can't do.  Unless...... it's in *my* tabbouleh (I didn't actually make up the recipe.  I got it from a vegetarian cookbook years ago and haven't the faintest idea what it's called.  All I remember was that it was square-shaped book). 

There is no shortage of tomatoes here.  In fact, you only have to locate one person selling a small kilo of tomatoes in order to find 4 dozen others selling the exact same kind of tomatoes for the same exact same price right next to them (more on this curious developing country phenomenon later).  But what there isn't much of is cherry tomatoes!  So when I do find them, I go straight to the parsley, cucumbers and green onions at the farmer's market and head home to make this recipe:

Tabbouleh
1 cup cracker bulger wheat
1/2 tsp salt
1 large bunch Italian parsley
5 green onions, cut into thirds
2 tbsp fresh lemon juice
1/4 cup olive oil
1 small cucumber, diced
1/2 pint cherry tomatoes

1) Place bulger, 1/2 tsp salt and 1 1/2 cups water in a sauce pan and bring to a boil.  Reduce heat to simmer, cover and cook until al dente, about 13 minutes

2) Cut off main parsley stems, then cut remainder of bunch into thirds.  Combine parsley with green onion and finely chop in food processor.

3) In large salad bowl, whisk together 2 tbsp lemon juice, olive oil and salt & pepper to taste.  Add the bulger, parsley mixture, cucumber and tomatoes and stir to combine.  Salt & pepper to taste.  Chill.

The picture isn't of the tabbouleh on its own.  I don't have much patience for pictures when a fresh batch is made.  Rather this was the result of having run out of pita bread to eat it with but having some salad greens on the verge of wilting in my fridge. And since all that green stuff just looked too healthy, I grilled up a few slices of halloumi cheese to put on top.  You know, for protein ;).

Yellow Squash Monster

Found this ginormous yellow summer squash (and it's even organic!) at the farmer's market this week.  First time I had ever seen summer squash here, usually just zucchini and butternut and all kinds of varieties of pumpkin.  I used one-half of it and made this zucchini curry from The Kitchen Witch.  Tasty indeed!

Just wait until you see the size of the avocados!  But they won't be truly in season until next year, around June.

Recipe: Hard-to-Mess-Up Autumn Soup

I love butternut squash, known as pumpkin here.  As if it hadn't endeared me enough with its luscious twilight orange color (one of my favorites, see My Wedding 2005).  Then it has to go and be all delicious and versatile and what not.  Not to mention dirt cheap here ($1.30 for 2.2 lbs!)

Although its technically spring here at the moment, butternut squash is available here in all its autumnal brightness (I actually get a little tingle up my spine when I make that first cut into its skin and see that vibrant color!  Geez, Becky, get out much?).  Cooking and recipe searching/swapping has become one of my most favorite hobbies here so I thought I would take the fruits of some of my labors out of my kitchen and day dream that they just might land in yours.

Today I will start with an original recipe, for butternut squash of course.  But down the road, most recipes will probably come from other (see blogroll of favorite recipe sites).  I think I will turn this into a weekly series where I share what's cookin' in my kitchen.  Will try to make it seasonally appropriate for your Northerners that don't have things like year round butternut squash and avocado's the size of pineapples.  Hope you enjoy!

Hard-to-Mess-Up Autumn Soup

2 large zucchini’s, chopped into ½ inch chunks (about 4 cups)
2 lb butternut squash (or other pumpkin) chopped into ½ inch chunks (about 4 cups)
1 large yellow onion, diced (about 1 ½ c)
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/3 c bulger wheat
2 tbsp tomato paste
4 – 6 cups water
1 tbsp fresh curly parsley
1 tbsp fresh basil
1 tbsp fresh oregano
(if fresh not available used 1 tsp dried.  You pick herbs, anything works)
Optional: 1 – 2 links savory Italian sausage
2 cups baby spinach
Fresh sweet corn
Fresh green peas

1) Pour oil into deep pot and tip in onion and garlic.  Saute until soft.
2) Add butternut, zucchini and mix with onion.  Saute for about 2 min
3) Add bulger wheat and coat vegetables.  Toast for about 1 min
4) Add tomato paste and water (sometimes I use 1/2 water, 1/2 chicken stock)
5) Cook for about 20 min, until butternut is soft.  Add fresh herbs and cook for another 10 min. 
6) At this point, if making ahead, I stop cooking and store the soup.
7) If serving immediately, add the optional ingredients.  I almost always make this with sausage for a little protein and savory boost.  Depends on what I have available.  If pre cooked sausage, I add in with herbs.  If uncooked sausage, I will cook it first in a pan before adding to soup (with herbs).  If using spinach, throw in just before serving and cook until leaves wilt.  Same with fresh corn and/or peas, throw in just before serving until heated through.
8) One of the great things about this soup is that it gets better with age.  Makes great leftovers and just gets thicker every day.  As a veg option, I suppose you could use quinoa for protein or also red lentils.

When life gives you 6 lbs of papaya...

Make papaya sorbet!

Over the weekend, one of our guards, Joseph (actually, they're both named Joseph), gifted us a papaya.  He cut it up, removed the seeds and put it on a nice plate.  Roger, who was out of town, loves papaya.  I, regretfully, do not.  We weren't sure how Millie felt about it, but apparently on Sunday she was in a I-love-papaya mood, so she ate about three pieces.  And of course to show my appreciation for the generous gift, I ate a piece too (desperately wishing to myself that Millie would steal my piece and eat it for me).  By Monday evening, Roger & Millie managed to  make their way through the 1 lb papaya.

Millie's enthusiasm on Sunday led Joseph to believe that papaya was her favorite food so on Wednesday he gifted us a 3 kilo papaya!!  Sadly (but fortunately for the fruit flies), the love for papaya had passed and Millie wouldn't muster a single bite, so I made papaya sorbet and papaya sorbet popsicles.  They will make their debut this afternoon once the sun comes out and Millie is awake from her nap.  Let's hope it's a success! Pictures to follow!

CEO Bex

I alluded last week to a new business for myself but didn't really fill you in on any details. Many of you probably know this already, but a few months ago I started myself a little business in Arusha selling hummus and other dips. There is a significant expat population here with many boutique-y products geared towards them like salsa, tortilla chips, tomato sauce, jams and yogurt that don't really appeal to the maintstream Tanzanian cuisine or food pallet (ok, and yes, the TZ pocketbook!). Surprisingly, hummus was not on the shelves (or at least I never saw it) until the day I decided in my head to go for it. I kid you not, I made up my mind in the car outside the meat shop (where many of these types of specialty products are sold) to make and sell hummus and what should I see upon the shelves but tubs and tubs of hummus!

The goods ready for market

After copious amounts of Amarula soothed my devastation, I was not deterred. One of the little perks of Roger's job is the access I get to his co-workers who, duh, work all day and don't have time to prepare little treats like hummus and balsamic feta dip. The ICTR staff became (and remain) some of my best customers. I also sell at the meat shop, at the equivalent of a U.S. organic farmer's market and just about any other shop the expats flock to. Business has been good to me but Roger will be keepin' his j-o-b until I can sell about 1 billion more tubs. I named my venture Sophia's Specialty Foods. By special order, I also make Mexican Brownies and crostini. Recipes may or may not be shared here, will have to consult my lawyer on that ;).  But via email they can probably make their way to you!  

Herby Feta Dip, a customer favorite

But that is not the only source of income I am bringing in, can you believe it?  My dad has brought me in to the family biz. Many of you know, my dad runs the highly successful Washington Photo Safari and he wants to keep up with the kids by immersing the biz in the social media world. I will be handling things like Facebook, Twitter and eventually a blog. He even gave me a fancy title - Director! Take that, older siblings! Nevertheless, I am a complete Luddite when it comes to this stuff (don't tell the boss!). So tips welcome and "Like" the Washington Photo Safari on Facebook! Paid to surf the net, I can barely believe it.

A party I catered for in June

Tanzgiving

May we begin by wishing all of you a very Happy Thanksgiving! So very much to be thankful for this year in our lives. We hope everyone's turkey day was filled with family, friends, fun and food comas! Ours certainly was, geographical coordinates notwithstanding. At It's Kili Time HQ, we hosted a nearly authentic Thanksgiving feast with friends from near and far. On the menu were potatoes, stuffing, green beans, swiss chard, cranberry sauce, a bird from the poultry category and even pumpkin pie! Plenty of food, wine and merriment were had by all.

Yes, that's right friends, it wasn't turkey, it was chicken so please don't revoke my American passport. Although available, a turkey wouldn't exactly fit in our oven at home. Contrary to your preconceived notions (probably due to the fact that we have granite countertops. in our house. in Africa), we don't actually have a Viking Range in our house, so cooking that bird in these parts just wouldn't fly (ha!). Moreover, call it my cunning intuition, but I just somehow KNEW that in the midst of cooking the bird is when the Tanzanian Energy Company would choose to enforce the power cut schedule they haven't been sticking to lately. And was I ever right! But we soldiered on with rustic implements such as kerosene lanterns, flashlights and a generator and Tanzgiving (gotta copyright that one!) was saved.

However, for you purists who aren't buying the-oven-is-too-small line of reasoning, may I further the line of defense of my American heritage by noting that the cranberry sauce was from A CAN! Although I may have previously extolled the virtues of fresh, locally available produce here, never would I have thought to stray from such a deep cultural tradition as the canned cranberry sauce. Perish the thought! But actually, the person who deserves the credit for this massive feat of cultural preservation is our very dear UK friend Katie who found it when I could not (get this girl a green card, would ya!). And speaking of Katie, not only did she save Tanzgiving, she also made a pumpkin pie - from scratch, people! Scratch, as in, no can opener required. And it was delicious to the last crumb (which was eaten about 10 min after the first slice was cut!).

Now I sit in a comfy chair, with a glass of wine, freshly popped popcorn and a very full bottle of Amarula beckoning me from the fridge (along with a workout DVD on pause on the computer) while Roger sits in a tent on the rainy slopes of Mt. Meru with 4 other dudes. Although apart, we collectively send you our warmest and heartfelt wishes for a great holiday and our gratitude for having you in our lives!