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