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.