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.