food post

Baking has been another thing I've been doing more of. Since most things have to be made from scratch, I'm learning how to bake bread and other things. I could actually buy bread from the local bakery but its a 10 minute walk there and I can just as easily make it here and fresh warm bread straight from the oven tastes amazing. Instead of making an actual loaf of bread I've been making buns which cook amazingly well in our toaster oven. I've also made tortillas, pilau (kenyan dish), french fries (last night), cookies (turned into a sheet of them instead of nice separate ones), potato chips, and a few other things. 

One of the challenges of baking is that many recipies call for things that simply aren't available here. I've enjoyed the More With Less cookbook but also have found some pretty good recipies on allrecipes.com that I've had to do minor alterations to. My biggest challenge so far was making scalloped potatoes for the Thanksgiving dinner that one of our US team mates invited us to. Most of the recipies I found called for cheese, something that I haven't seen here in a long while and when I do find it, its expensive. I found this recipe online (http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Old-Irish-Scalloped-Potatoes/Detail.aspx?evt19=1) but some of the comments indicated there wasn't much flavor/spice in it. After a bit more searching I found another recipe that did call for cheese but had a variety of spices (garlic, onions, paprika, and thyme) I had for the most part. I added the spices(except the thyme which I didn't have) from the 2^nd recipe and it turned out amazing. 

 

Toaster oven with hotplates on top and induction hotplate beside.

Recipe called for 1/2hr, this is the result after about 15minutes.

Using the toaster oven really speeds up the process. 

I learned the toaster oven isn't the best to make loaves. 

Although it was cooked on the inside it was burnt on the top/bottom

and since I don't have tin foil to reflect the heat, I've gone with buns ever since. 

(tin foil is available but very expensive)

 A much better result. They don't look fancy but E (a 3yr old that from another family)

is always asking for more "bed" (bread) every time he visits so it must be good. 

Gardening

Gardening is another thing that has been interesting to do here. Although life here in J has much more selection than D where the main things available in the market were tomatoes, garlic, onions, flour, rice, tomato paste, and pasta; there are still many things which are simply not available. Thus many of the team have started small gardens and are growing a variety of things. when I first arrived I thought I'd try my hand at a few things and planted basil, catnip, rosemary, and lemon balm since my internet research suggests they are good to keep mosquitoes away. A few weeks later and only the basil had come up which was kind of surprising as the catnip can reportedly be a bit of a nusance and hard to control if not in a pot. Since then I've planted many more different plants and have already notice that after just a few days I had some cucumber and watermelon shoots. I've been keeping things watered but have since noticed that the basil has had some sort of animal plant its eggs on it and soon after removing them  both plans have started to wilt. I've also noticed that the pots are either really wet or dry out really quickly which is making me consider getting a real garden and not the  small pots I've got now. I'll still start seeds in them but soon I hope to dig up an old garden that hasn't been used in a while and do some work with the compost pile which is growing. hopefully with the better dirt and water system I'll get bigger plants that will produce lots of food. Then I can pick food as I need it and not have to  get it at the market and use it in a few days.  Out here even the carrots only last a few days before  I have to freeze them or eat alot of veggies (not J's favorite idea).

Basil

 

just a few pots (there are tons more now)

 

 Garlic

Watermelon

 cucumber on the left, basil on the right

?Cilantro, parsley and basil (starting to die here)

 

 ?beans or bell peppers

 Tomatoes

Life so far

Well this past month I've been busy doing a variety of thing from medical stuff for the team to looking for a job in the city. Cooking from scratch, gardening, and sewing are a few things I've been doing as well. Over the next few weeks I thought I'd post a little about life here in J and what it looks like overall. 

I thought I'd start with a little about the Arabic language and some of the things I've found so far. One of the big differences is that the Arabic I spoke in D is different than the Arabic spoken here in J. I don't know how many times now I've used my Arabic and have it still get lost in translation even though it worked just fine in D last year. That being said, the little Arabic I do know has left quite an impression on some people in the market. Last week when wandering around the market looking for fabric some guy called "kawaja" (white person) and then turned to his friend and told him in Arabic that I am kawaja that speaks Arabic. While the locals may think I know lots of Arabic, the reality is I don't know much at all. I can get by in the market but beyond that I really struggle which is why I was happy to find a Christian bookstore that has lots of books in Arabic. I was able to find an Arabic/English Bible for less than $20US (which is a great deal considering the prices I saw while back in Canada) and even found the Arabic version of some books that I read as a child. I bought both with the plan to slowly do backtranslation and learn the words. This worked well when I was learning Spanish but I expect Arabic to be more of a challenge as even the letters are different.

In the mean time I've been using my Arabic/English Bible when I'm out and about as its easier to share with others who don't know the English but know the Arabic. With both languages side by side it works well for the most part except when I start looking up things and go to the wrong end of the book (Arabic is read right to left thus Genesis is where I would expect Revelations to be and so forth). Its taking me a bit to get used to but I'm sure I will.

anyone remember the books on the right? This one is the story of Martha and Mary, I have the Ruth one (and a few others) at home back in Canada.