My Favourite go to food!

So for a lot of people in this part of the globe, Nigeria to be specific rice is their Favourite food yes? 

Me? I loooooooooooove eba period! I don't really care what soup it comes with cause everything and anything goes with eba. 

My eba until very recently could break a wall 😂😂 I like it hard and with garri still clearly visible in it. All that cooking over the fire business is not for me at allllllllllll. 

Hubby makes his differently by pouring the boiling water into a bowl, adding the garri and then covering the bowl for about a minute or two and then turning it. It comes out nice and soft 🙈🙈🙈 not my cup of tea or rather bowl of garri 😂😂😂

So how do I make mine? Bowl water, pour into a bowl, add the garri( more of the garri than water), turn with a spoon ( I use a regular tablespoon) add more garri and turn just to incorporate. Voila! My eba is done.

Today I had it with organic ewedu( hand picked, blended in a food processor, cooked till it bubbled (about 5minutes)in iru and ede water. 

Stew was clay pot cooked bamboo steamed and blended pepper mix with delta palm oil, iru, ede, smoked catfish and organic pink Himalayan salt.

It hits the spot every single time. 

Did I mention my garri is organic too? ?

Read me soon😘

Live healthy!

ALL THE PREPPING

Olla peeps, 

Trust you and yours are fantastic. It's amazing how fast the year is flying innit? Ka sa ma dupe loosely translated we should always be grateful/thankful.

So are you one of those who don't like the prep work before the cooking?

For me it's all part of the process so I'm always happy(maybe not always😂) to do it.

I start off by going to the market of course and there's now a farmers market once a month on the mainland. Yayyyyyyyy with claims to be completely organic. Time will tell on that one.

I soak all my produce except onions and garlic in a water vinegar solution to get rid of any thing I can't see. Even if the produce are organic one still needs to clean properly. 

I rinse off the vinegar water and soak it n clean water for about 10-30 minutes ( thus all depends on what else I'm doing ( I like to think I'm the queen of multi tasking).

I air dry on my kitchen counter on newspaper, then store in the fridge or on the counter top.

I spend between 3000-7000 naira every 10-14 days on vegetables, herbs and sometimes fruits. 

Ok that's all folks, write you soon.

Like healthy!

IRU STEW

So yesterday while contemplating what to make and eat for breakfast so to speak, I cast my mind back to a fairly recent conversation with a friend right in my kitchen and we were discussing my clay pot 🤓 recently acquired by my mum. You know those local red earth pots that have been blackened and are used to cook in the villages where they have no modcons?

Wellllllllllll I am the proud owner of 2 of those pots💃🏿💃🏿💃🏿💃🏿💃🏿💃🏿

I used it to cook my ugwu efo a little while ago and so yesterday I used it to cook iru stew or locust bean stew. 

Oh my word! Local cooking methods and utensils are the bees knees!

So the stew had:

1 piece of smoked catfish

1 small pack of iru (sells for 50 naira)

6-8 cooking spoons of bamboo steamed and blended pepper mix

1 cooking spoon of ede or ground crawfish 

2 cooking spoons of organic palm oil 

1 small red onion chopped or sliced thinly 

4 garlic cloves chopped or sliced thinly 

 

Heat up clay pot, pour in oil and immediately pour in all ingredients except  pepper mix. 

Stir and cook for a couple minutes. 

Add pepper mix, stir and cover pot. Cook for 15-20 minutes. 

Voila! Serve with Ofada rice, steamed yam, steamed plantain, okro, ewedu, ogbono. See the possibilities are endless 

Don't you just love food💃🏿💃🏿💃🏿💃🏿💃🏿

I had it with steamed yam and boiled eggs. Yummy 🤓🤓🤓🤓🤓

Live healthy!

As I had deleted the pictures on my phone 🙈🙈🙈

MASH OH MASH

Ok I know I know I haven't been here in like a whole year! Really bad!🙈🙈🙈

Gods best to you and yours this year and always. 

I trust you and yours are fantastic and irrespective of all the appearance of gloom you are flourishing and bubbling 💃🏿💃🏿

So how have been with your health goals? Eating healthier? I did myself in this last Christmas and new year it was disgraceful I tell you! One good thing came out of it sha I am continuing on my journey to completely eradicate sugar from my life. 

I don't have sugar at home but I still can't resist cake and ice cream no matter how good or bad for that matter. 

Work in progress 😃

On to our mash, this is so far the bast mash I have made to date. 

Ingredients 

3 small sweet potatoes 

1 small beetroot

Half a roughly 6/7" pumpkin 

A good knob of kerrygold unsalted butter

2 tablespoons of cold pressed extra virgin coconut oil 

organic pink Himalayan salt to taste

Dry yellow pepper to taste

Poke holes in the sweet potatoes and beetroot  with a sharp knife, cut up and de seed pumpkin( clean seeds and roast in the oven with salt, cinnamon and a dash of pepper for about 10-15 minutes . Makes a beautiful snack)

Place on the oven rack directly and roast for about 35-45 minutes in a 400F, 200C, gas Mark 6 oven(not preheated)

Turn off oven and leave for another 30 minutes. 

The next step you can use an immersion blender, masher, food processor or blender. 

Mash/blend with butter, coconut oil, salt and pepper until smooth.

Plate and garnish with slices of beetroot and fresh parsley. 

I was going to share but I just couldn't stop eating!

Live healthy

WHAT TO TITLE THIS POST?

Olla peeps,

So finally the elections are round the corner and one can almost touch the fear and panic in the air. Ah well if you're one of those who's been talking it's time to put your print where your vote is. 

On to food matters tee hee hee and no I haven't become a political activist overnight. . . 

I have missed my beetroot and that's through no fault of the beet itself just that I read somewhere that one should have a green smoothie everyday and I wanted to try that out and I did now that I'm out of spinach I shall do other stuff till I stock up.

I have of late tried to start off my day with a healthy breakfast and smoothies are the perfect go to for me cause you can plop everything in a blender and in a couple minutes it's ready as long as you've done your prep ahead of time.

I don't particularly like freezing food or fruits . 

I'm not of that school that says it's as fresh as it goes in when it comes out, it's never the same to me so id rather prepare from scratch or freeze in little batches. Also with our beautiful power supply freezing is not really an option now is it?

I'm working on transitioning from plastics to glass and maybe that would work out better for freezing? I'll keep you guys posted.

Today I had in my smoothie;

Greek yogurt 

About 2 slices of pineapple

Roughly 1medium sized mango

A small beetroot 

Half a medium avocado 

An inch of fresh ginger

A teaspoon of ground turmeric from Olla Natural @bodylabnatural

2 tablespoons raw honey from @bodylabnatural

2 tablespoons coconut oil from Clove limited

A couple dashes of cinnamon 

A generous pinch of dry yellow pepper

A whiz in the blender and all done. 

I'm going to include the picture of one of the green smoothies I had. All the ingredients and in the photo.

This is to the healthier you.

Write you soon

HMMMMMMMMMM

So when I'm quiet it usually means I haven't been too good with my healthy lifestyle eating habits and yes I have deviated a few times but honestly not enough to do any major damage 😃😃😃😃. 

Olla people, trust you're all fantastic and taking better care of your insides especially as well as outsides?

Didn't know how much I loved mangos until I started making smoothies yummyness and to completely make my day hubby actually had a smoothie and finished it to woo hooooooo💃💃💃💃

So that winning recipe is what I'm going to share today. 

I had a guest over that day so I made enough for 3😃

4 bananas 

4 mangoes

Juice of 2 oranges 

1" of ginger

A dash of cinnamon 

A dash of turmeric 

A dash of dry yellow pepper

Grated nutmeg

A couple tablespoons of coconut oil

A couple tablespoons of raw honey 

A whiz in the blender and voila! Yummilicious to the Nth degree. 

As a bonus I'll also share a Chocolate Peanut butter pudding I got of @incrediblesmoothies instagram page. She has some amazing smoothies. 

1 banana 

1 tablespoon homemade peanut butter

1 teaspoon Oluji raw cacao powder

1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

Of course I added my twist 😃😃😃

A dash of dry yellow pepper

A dash of cinnamon 

Grated nutmeg

A dash of turmeric 

Blend all ingredients until smooth and creamy 

I had posted the picture on Instagram before I tasted it, it was absolutely amazing and it's all healthy too. 

Let me know what you think 😃😃😃😃

Write you later. 

ME AND MY SMOOTHIES

Olla peeps,

Trust you've all been fantastic and living healthier. . .  Please tell me you've been trying tee hee hee.

For a lot of people once you mention healthier they are like it must be really bland and I'm like where do we get all these perceptions from really?

I have grown to love smoothies more and more because I can through the whole kitchen sink in a blender and still come out with the most amazing tasting food you can imagine!

Also it's a way to get in all those veggies or fruits you don't like to eat and you'll be wondering why you hadn't done this before!

So I have another smoothie today and I have gotten a lot of inspiration from healthy eaters on Instagram. Most of tif not all of the fruits and veggies they use we have available locally.

Today I made a MangoAvocadoBeet smoothie;

Roughly about 3 small mangoes

Half a medium sized beetroot

Quarter of an avocado

About an inch of fresh ginger 

A tablespoon of raw honey

About 2 tablespoons of coconut oil 

A dash of dry yellow pepper

A few gratings of nutmeg

A dash of cinnamon 

A huge heaping tablespoon of ground flaxseed 

About a quarter cup of Greek yogurt.

As most of the ingredients are cold or frozen I pour in the coconut oil as its blending. I got that tip of someone's Instagram page(can't remember whose now🙈) cause my coconut oil had been clumping.

Blend on high speed till all smooth and yummy.

Enjoy immediately 💃💃💃💃💃

The colours I get from smoothies is just amazing.

Blog you soon

Pa: the groundnuts were added #justbecauseican