Wednesday Fail.

We did eat today. But.

Breakfast was smoothies, lunch was leftovers, second lunch was more leftovers, and dinner?

Dinner was a total fail. I attempted a bean, pumpkin, ginger and coconut cream concoction but it was seriously inedible. The beans had an awful flavor (white cowpeas?) and the coconut cream couldn't disguise their bitterness. I'm feeling a little down about it- the last time I totally failed at cooking something was when I attempted tofu. I made some quick miso* soup with carrots and some wakame seaweed (Undaria pinnatifida) and defrosted a bag of my favorite bread dough. So, yep. That was dinner. Massive fail.

I think I might throw away the beans. We'll see if the dogs can stomach my failed bean stew.

I'll rally tomorrow.

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*I was beyond excited to find miso at a "Healthy U" store in Nairobi. I love cooking with miso- there's so much you can do with it, and it's super healthy!

Tuesday's (awesome) meals.

Um wow. 

Today was a good food day. 

Breakfast was just smoothies- papaya, banana, mango, strawberries (the same ones I found a few days ago), mango juice and yogurt. I made a gigantic batch and froze a bunch in jars so we could have easy smoothies for the next few days. 

But then. I had a craving. I wanted a hot, creamy, rich, buttery vegetable casserole, topped with fluffy, hearty biscuit. 

I googled, and to my dismay, the first dozen hits called for canned mushroom soup, frozen vegetables, and canned biscuit dough (the kind that pops open once you un-twist the package). Um, no. Not going to work. Are people really so busy that that's all they can handle? 

I finally found this recipe, for Tarragon and Mustard Chicken pot pie with biscuit topping. But we don't have any chicken, or bacon. And the biscuits called for 1 1/2 cups of cream, which a) sounds too rich and b) doesn't exist in Kenya. But I liked the tarragon and mustard idea, and I found this recipe for fluffy whole wheat biscuits. I vaguely followed the first recipe- mostly just using the mustard/tarragon/wine idea. 

Perfect. I rounded up all of our veggies (green beans, carrots, sugar snap peas, mushrooms, potatoes and a bell pepper) and diced them. 

Then I caramelized an onion, figuring it'd replace the bacon in the recipe (yes, I know, there's really no substitute for bacon). 

I sauteed the veggies with garlic, tarragon and pepper, then created a roux with butter and flour, added water, organic chicken bouillon paste, a teaspoon or so of mustard, and a generous kersplash of white wine, plus the caramelized onions. It smelled SO GOOD. I made Nathan get up and smell it twice. 

Finally, I mixed the biscuit batter, but substituted honey for the sugar- I figured it'd go well with the mustard in the sauce. 

I put the veggies in the casserole dish and poured the sauce on top, then blobbed the biscuit dough on top. It baked for around 20 minutes at somewhere around 425 (our oven reads in Celsius so I tend to invent my own temperature). 

Gorgeous!!

How was it? 

Oh my gosh. Amazing. Hot, savory, unique, hearty. I loved it. Nathan loved it (though he would have liked less mustard flavor.) 

Next time I'd reduce the salt in the biscuits and up the honey a little. It would actually be great with chicken, so maybe we'll sacrifice one of our birds someday. I'd cut down on the mustard level too (for Nathan's mustard-averse palate). But overall? Wonderful. Totally satisfied my craving. 

Geemi came over later in the afternoon and he ate half of the casserole- seriously. So I think he liked it too. 

After such a rich lunch, I wanted to make something light and easy for dinner. Cold noodle salad sounded good and we had just enough vegetables to use up.

We also had a giant avocado to use, which was perfect on top of the salad. 

I whipped together garlic, ginger, soy sauce, lime juice, sesame seeds, sesame oil and chili flakes, then diced cucumber, sliced carrots and sugar snap peas, and flung those in a bowl with udon noodles and drizzled the sauce on top. Then I sauteed a half-bag of sukuma in lime juice and threw that in as well. After a half-hour in the fridge, it was ready to eat. 

Yum! Not sure what I'll do tomorrow- today was a big food day!

Monday's eats, and a bit of chicken drama.

Today started off nicely enough... I had a late breakfast of peanut butter and banana toast and enjoyed it outside on our new hammock. (That's our puppy, Muzungu, in the foreground.) 

With a little Kenyan chai tea, it was perfect! I love our new outside spot. 

Lunch was simple- I reheated last nights creamy tomato mushroom sauce, and added some homemade linguini and parmesan cheese (or so it was labeled- we're not sure it's really parmesan.) I brewed some iced herbal tea, too. 

Dinner looked pretty awful but tasted delicious- We'd made a huge batch of gyoza a few weeks ago and stored the extras in our freezer (I LOVE having a huge freezer). I threw together a dipping sauce (soy sauce, garlic, chili flakes, lime juice, cilantro) and fried/boiled/steamed the gyoza. I didn't use a non-stick pan so they got all mangled. We ate them anyways, with a huge helping of sukuma wiki. 

We had a chicken incident today. On Saturday, we had a little adventure. 

Geemi took us to Mulat to find live chickens for Thanksgiving. On the way, he took us to the cattle and goat market. I think we were the only muzungus to visit the market in a long, long time. Apparently it's not a tourist hot-spot. It was pretty fascinating though, hundreds of Masai men wandered around with hundreds of cattle, checking out each other's cows. There were some pretty gorgeous cows there. 

Nathan climbed up a small hill to capture the extent of the market. There were SO many cows, though this picture makes it hard to see. 

We asked, and the average price for a very nice looking large cow was around $200. I don't know a lot about cows, but I think the average comparable American cow is at least 5 times that price. We didn't buy a cow. Or a goat, though the goats were pretty cute, and only about $50. 

After ogling the cows, we went a few minutes away to the chicken market. Again, I think the muzungus were quite the spectacle. Much like the time Nathan threw a tanty at the cafe, we were hounded by dozens of men shoving live chickens in our face. There was a flurry of feathers. Thankfully, we had Geemi with us, and he handled the chicken examinations and bartering. Our goal was to get three birds- two for Thanksgiving and a back-up-bird. We ended up with four, because I felt bad for one lone man who only had one small chicken to sell for about 200 shillings ($2.25). 

Geemi was a professional- he groped and prodded, at one point grabbing the chicken's heads and pulling their necks forward until it looked like they'd pop off. We asked later, and he said that "you know a chicken is sick if it pukes when you pull it's neck forward". Our non-puking chickens were selected and a fair price was agreed upon (we ended up getting the four chickens for about $14, which was probably higher than usual since we always get overcharged for being muzungus).

We put the chickens in the back of the taxi, and headed home. They had their legs tied so they look kind of sad and death-like in this picture, but they rallied nicely by the next morning.

I named them on the car ride home (though Nathan "tweaked" the names the next day). From left to right, they are: Poblano, Chipotle, Serrano, and Habanero.

We brought them home, untied their legs, and introduced them to their new home. The "old" chickens greeted them somewhat viciously with lots of pecking, but by Sunday everyone was fine.

Until today. Tragedy struck. I was reading a book, Nathan was napping (he painted the kitchen and I think the fumes got to him) and our guard, Kutingala, knocked on the door. With a blur of Kiswahili, he indicated that I should take a look at the chicken coop, and then opened the hatch.

There. Under the chicken hammock (don't ask) was a very stiff Habanero. It should be noted that Habanero was the chicken that I guilt-purchased from the guy for only 200 shillings. She was also my favorite- the underdog, the runt, and she had pretty speckled black and white feathers.

I think there was a reason that Habanero was only 200 shillings. According to Geemi, who was immediately called to help translate this new chicken drama, Habanero died of chicken typhoid. Who knew chickens could get typhoid? She had to be disposed of immediately, and luckily Nathan had bought some sort of all-purpose chicken medicine at the vet shop earlier today, so we had it on hand.

Kutingala was incredibly concerned. Masai are naturally very attached to livestock, and Kutingala is pretty devoted to his chickens. I think he was concerned that his chickens would all come down with typhoid, which is a possibility, I suppose. We brought out the medicine and immediately Kutingala turned veterinarian.  He climbed in the coop, mixed the powdered medicine with water, and began capturing the newbie chickens one by one and somehow pouring large amounts of water down their gullets. The chickens handled it pretty well, surprisingly enough. (I would not have taken kindly to someone pinning me down and pouring mediciney water down my throat.) 

At one point there were three men inside the coop treating our chickens. Nathan and I provided insightful commentary and took pictures. 

So, we shall see. Hopefully the medicine does the trick. Chicken typhoid is pretty brutal- as far as I could tell from Kutingala's Kiswahili and pointing, Habanero died an uncomfortable death of diarrhea. 

We're hoping Poblano, Serrano and Chipotle fare better. And I've learned my lesson- 200 shilling chickens are 200 shillings for a reason. 

Sunday's Meals (Photo FAIL)...

I totally failed. I made a pretty great breakfast and completely forgot about the photos. We had guests, though, and I made about 6 different dishes, so I do have a good excuse, right? Will you accept pictures of the dirty dishes that Nathan was kind enough to do after breakfast? 

I know, not good enough. Well, imagine, if you will... cumin garlic breakfast potatoes, chipotle lime beans (I used some of our precious stash of black beans from the States, as for some reason you can buy 30 different types of beans here, none of them black beans), seasoned scrambled eggs, guacamole (delish! Avocado, tomato, garlic, a hint of red onion, cilantro, and lime),  sauteed veggies (zucchini and pumpkin), and banana pecan muffins. I made ricotta cheese last night and topped the beans with homemade cheese. 

Our guests seemed to love it, and the gluten-free girl was stoked! The guacamole was a hit, and the muffins went fast... the picture below is the only breakfast picture I managed to snap! 

I found this fantastic Mark Bittman muffin recipe  a few months ago and absolutely love it. I've tried all sorts of flavor combos: banana cardamom pecan, mango almond, strawberry flaxseed, pumpkin walnut, and applesauce--and probably more that I'm forgetting! Every combination has turned out well- the muffins are really moist despite the 2.5 cups of whole wheat. Nathan loves them and requests them once or twice a week. It's a great recipe and takes only 5 minutes or so to make. (It does call for buttermilk, which I can't find here but should probably learn how to make. I use milk instead, sometimes with a squirt of lime, and it works well.)

This was my lunch: Two slices of Art Caffe bread (whole grain) with sliced banana, cinnamon, and honey. 

I'm really particular about bananas. After living in Samoa for two years and getting incredibly delicious and fresh misiluki bananas, I got spoiled. I also did some reading on the banana industry and saw a documentary (BANANAS!) and decided that I would save my banana-eating for when I was living in or traveling in a country that actually grows bananas. Luckily for me, Kenya has bananas. I've happily reincorporated them into my diet, and rather than being a commonplace snack (like they are for many people in the States), they've become a treat- even more so now that I'm eating very fresh bananas! 

Interesting fact: Most Americans hadn't eaten a banana before the 1910's, but Dole and United Fruit began campaigning to get pictures of bananas in children's books (A for Apple, B for Banana, C for Cherry, etc) in order to popularize the then-unfamiliar fruit. Along with other tactics, the banana industry was able to introduce bananas into nearly every American's diet by importing massive quantities of the fruit, while decimating large swaths of Central America's forests and treating their labor force horribly. Bananas became cheap and readily available. The land continues to be decimated and the labor force is still treated horribly. But, Americans now consider them an inexpensive staple item. 

If you, too, consider them a staple, I highly recommend at least purchasing fair trade bananas from a place like Whole Foods. 

Ok. Moving along to dinner... 

I've mentioned my deep passion for sukuma wiki (collard greens) on this blog before, and here it is. We like to buy it from our favorite Kenyan mama, who pre-shreds it and bags it. It's super convenient: empty the bag onto a frying pan with a kersplash of olive oil, a couple pressed garlic cloves, and some squeezes of lime juice. We can easily down this much sukuma in one meal (it shrinks down a lot.)

I also made a creamy tomato-mushroom-sundried tomato sauce (low-fat milk, butter, flour, mushrooms, tarragon (my new favorite herb!), diced fresh tomatoes, sundried tomatoes, and lots of garlic). I wish I'd added some caramelized onion to add more depth and smokiness to the sauce. Next time. I tossed homemade ravioli (filled with homemade ricotta, sundried tomatoes and herbs) in the sauce, and topped it with more homemade ricotta. 

Highlight of the past week? It might have been when Nathan installed our new hammock in the yard! It overlooks the city and is underneath a giant peppercorn tree. It's perfect for relaxing in and reading a book. All five of the dogs like to lay underneath or near it when I'm laying in it, which makes it a very cosy spot. (I'll try to remember to post a picture tomorrow.) 

Saturday's meals

Breakfast was super quick since we were off on an adventure today. I made smoothies with the strawberries, papaya, mango, yogurt, passionfruit juice and some flax seeds (from the States). We also had peanut butter-honey-cinnamon toast. We discovered delicious bread at "Art Caffe" in Nairobi- it's got a hint of sourdough, lots of whole grains, and is pretty awesome. When we are in Nairobi, we make a point of picking up several loaves and putting them in our freezer. 

We went to the cattle, goat, and chicken market today. We wanted to buy some live chickens to raise for the Thanksgiving that we're planning to have with the researchers at the Hyena camp in the Mara. Geemi, our assistant, took us to the town of Mulat, about 40km away to find "the very very best chickens". I had tried to find some in Narok, but only found one sad, scraggly, bedraggled, poop-covered hen. We passed on buying her. However, in Mulat, there was a plethora of chickens. We bargained and bought 4 (two for Thanksgiving, two for future feasts) and also saw the cattle and goat market. I think the Masai at the markets were completely bewildered by two wazungu showing up out of nowhere and wandering around their cattle. 

When I got back, I was starving! I had last nights pad thai, and fixed scrambled eggs and toast for Nathan and Geemi. Geemi hadn't had scrambled eggs before. I think he liked them, despite his very serious expression in the picture. 

We were pretty exhausted from the day. Usually one of us cooks a fancy dinner but we were out of energy tonight. Nathan had left-over Green Egg soup and I had the rest of the smoothie from this morning. And a glass of wine. Nathan had a Tusker beer. Apparently the soup wasn't enough, because he also fixed a bowl of ramen noodles, without the seasoning packet. Ew. I didn't get a picture, but I'm sure you can imagine it. 

I spent the evening prepping food for tomorrow's breakfast- we're having guests! Three girls from the Hyena research camp are stopping by on their way to Nairobi. One is gluten-free, one hates beans, and one is allergic to bell peppers. Quite the challenge for me! I decided to ignore the one who hates beans and make a mexican breakfast- I'll post about that tomorrow. 

Friday's meals

I had the most exciting discovery on Thursday when I went to get chicken feed, sugar, vegetables, a new mattress and bleach at Naivas, the local 'grocery store'. Sitting in the refrigerated section, jauntily peeking up at me... strawberries!! I hadn't seen strawberries in Kenya- I didn't even know they existed here! So exciting. I promptly bought 4 packages and toted them home.

This morning we had oatmeal with fresh strawberries. I added about a teaspoon of chia seeds (brought from the U.S.), cinnamon and a sprinkle of sugar. Delicious! I hope I can find the elusive strawberries again. In the mug is Kenyan chai tea. It's made by boiling about a teaspoon of chai mix/tea leaves with water and milk, then straining and adding sugar. It's not quite strong enough for me, but Nathan really likes it.

For lunch, I had leftovers from last night sans mushrooms. The Portuguese-Colombian Green Egg soup was just as good the next day!

Nathan had leftovers from Wednesday- I'd made a green curry with pumpkin and potato and lots of ginger and garlic, and today I threw in a chopped zucchini for extra veggies. I randomly added a poached egg and toast.

For dinner, we had our old standby, pad thai. I don't know if any Thai person would recognize our dish as pad thai, but our version is simple, delicious, and satisfying. For the sauce, I mix about a half cup of peanut butter, two tablespoons soy sauce, a tablespoon or two of tamarind paste, a sprinkling of chili pepper flakes, chopped garlic and ginger, and the juice of several limes. Then stir fry carrots, snow peas, and some sort of shredded green (though we were out tonight), bell pepper, scrambled egg chunks, and rice noodles, and top the whole mixture with the sauce. Stir. It's best with cilantro, but we didn't have any. I threw on cold diced cucumber for crunch (I detest bean sprouts and think cucumber is far better on top of pad thai) and some more chili flakes. So easy! So good!

In other news, we've booked an apartment in Mombasa for the first two weeks of November- I'll try to get some job hunting in on the coast. We're taking a train there- it's an overnight train, and I'm excited because it's on my life list to sleep on an overnight train. Yay! We've also found a Kiswahili teacher! She'll be coming 3 times a week to help us learn some conversational phrases, words for vegetables and fruits and animals, and count. It should be fun!

See you tomorrow.

A week in the lives of our stomachs.

Several of you have asked me what we do on a day-to-day basis. I wish I had some fascinating answer but our lives aren't that exciting. Yes, when we go on an adventure to the Mara and see hyenas and lions and elephants and leopards, it's pretty great, and we do fit in an occasional trip to Nairobi. But when we're home in Narok, there isn't much to tell. 

We get up at a comfortable hour, make chai tea with milk, check our email and catch up on news online for a while. Nathan works on-and-off throughout the day, usually fitting in a full day of computer/phone calls, in between regular household chores. We don't have a dishwasher or washing machine, so dishes and laundry are done by hand. (Usually we hire a lady to help with the laundry.) There are dogs to play with and feed, floors to sweep multiple times a day (it's dusty here!) and other assorted chores to do. We have a mid-morning breakfast, a later lunch, and usually a hearty and "fancy" dinner. Every other day or so we have errands to do in town, which we can usually do on foot. We've been getting better about exercizing- I'll go for a jog around the campus 'track' while Nathan kicks the soccer ball around. I do some reading, job-hunting and food projects throughout the day. After dinner we watch an episode or two of a TV show, read, and go to bed pretty early. 

Often in the middle of the night, we are woken up by either a nightclub or a screaming preacher, or both, and sometimes the mosque in town gets a little over-enthusiastic with the speaker system, and the muzzein call at 4:00 am wakes us up. 

So generally- not that exciting. However, I've been using the ample down-time to experiment with new 'recipes', creating some interesting new dishes. I've made mozzarella and ricotta cheese, perfected homemade pizza dough, made a lot of homemade pasta, hummus, smoothies, soups, sauces, pancakes,  muffins and more. Food is usually the most exciting part of my day. 

We'll be in Narok for the next week, so I thought it would be interesting to post pictures (apologies in advance, I'm not a talented photographer) of our meals. Maybe it will provide more insight to our day-to-day life?

Tonight, I had two bundles of sukuma wiki to use up before they wilted. Sukuma is, as far as we can tell, the same thing as collard greens. We usually buy it pre-shredded from our favorite vegetable lady, and then give it a quick saute with lemon, garlic and olive oil. It's my favorite vegetable here, and we eat it almost every night!

(Sukuma image from http://www.thedailygreen.com/healthy-eating/eat-safe/winter-farmers-market-recipes)

I wanted to mix it up a bit, so I did some googling and found a recipe for Portuguese Green Soup, and a recipe for Colombian Poached Egg Soup from my new favorite blog, Global Table Adventure. We don't have any spicy sausage (for the Portuguese soup), and I loved the concept of putting a poached egg in soup, so I sort of combined the recipes, creating Portuguese-Colombian Green Egg soup. It was pretty awesome! To replace the meaty/spiciness of the sausage, I fried sliced mushrooms in butter with some garlic, chili flakes and tarragon, and served the soup with a partially submerged poached egg, a sprinkling of mushrooms and ground pepper. I baked pumpkin bread for dipping. 

Unfortunately I remembered to take a picture only after Nathan finished most of his soup!

The soup: I sauteed onion and garlic in olive oil, then added a generous sprinkling of turmeric, ground pepper and red chili peppers. Once softened, I added organic chicken bouillon, two tomatoes, a zucchini, a carrot and 5 small potatoes (all loosely chopped) and water to cover. After about 15 minutes of simmering I added about 1.5 cups of low fat milk to add some creaminess. After another 15 minutes, I pureed the soup to a creamy thickened broth, then added about 4 cups of chopped sukuma (collard greens). After the greens were quite wilted, I pureed the mixture again, allowing the sukuma to retain some texture. 

To serve: Submerge a poached egg and sprinkle mushrooms on top.

And then we held a lion cub.

Corruption is Evil.

I'm sure you agree. Most Kenyans do. This sentiment is emblazoned on parking lot attendant's smocks, posted at government buildings, found on much official signage. Even the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) agrees:

I don't think we're too sure about that now. A few weeks ago, Nathan and I went to the Kenya Wildlife Service's Animal Orphanage. I think this is meant to be a recovery center for injured animals and their cubs. After paying the exorbitant entrance fee (around $15 for non-Kenyans, around $2 for Kenyans), we wandered around the grounds. There were a lot of cats- cheetahs, leopards, cervals and other wild kitties and assorted randoms: warthogs, a buffalo, some birds, an ostrich. It was the day Ramadan ended so the park was full of celebrating Muslim families decked out in finery, kids waving new plastic toy guns (which seems a strange post-Ramadan gift).

We were enjoying ourselves, admiring the playful cheetahs and the cheeky ostrich, when a man in a trenchcoat (with the KWS logo) sidled up to us and quietly enquired if we would like to hold a lion cub. Ummm, what kind of question is that?! Of course we would like to hold a lion cub! He informed us it was 1000 ksh, which is about $11. This was maybe our first hint this was not an above-board offer. Oh well. We met him about 30 minutes later by the ostrich pen, and he quickly herded us through the gate, around a few bushes and finally directed us into a small shed. Which contained caged rabbits. (Food for animals?) Trenchcoat man then disappeared.

At this point we are quite confident that this is not a legit lion-cub holding experience, but there we were. In the tiny shed. Awaiting a lion cub.

Several minutes later, two different men appear, one holding A LION CUB. I cannot over-state how stinking adorable he (?) was. The men hand him over (after showing Nathan how to hold his hind paws) and there we are. In a tiny, rabbit-filled shed. Holding a two-month-old lion cub. He smelled liony, his yawn was a little terrifying, and he was heavy and snuggly and beautiful.

We admired, we took a lot of pictures (the men kept urging us to take more), then paid the men, the lion was removed, and we were told to take the same route out. We re-emerged by the ostrich pen a little astounded at our luck and embarrassed at our collusion with the corruption*. But really? We held a lion cub. It was pretty awesome.

Yes, this is an entirely un-food-related post, buuuut.... it's a lion cub. And, in theory, we could be his food, someday, right?

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*Note: Yes. This was wrong of us. We got swept away with excitement and bewilderment. We do not advocate for holding wild animals without the explicit permission of the KWS. The lion cub probably would have been happier without being held.