Random recipes

Congolese breakfast I've been wanting to do this post for a long time. This was the breakfast served with the tea in the video I found for my tea blog post for the countries under the name of  Congo . She was having scrambled eggs with fried plantain. I've had plantain chips before and they were pretty good. Slightly sweet, and the salt complimented the flavor. I had never cooked with plantain before, so I thought I would give it a try. I read somewhere that plantains should look like really old, rotten bananas when you use them. Lots of black on the skin. Other sources talk about using green plantains as well, so I wasn't sure which way to go. As it is, I picked up one of the darker plantains at the grocery store, then took about a week or so to use it. This is what mine looked like:  This was its good side. The other side was pretty much all black. I was kind of wondering what this would be like when I cut into it. Since you are reading this blog post, you know tha

Ndengu Stew Ndengu is Swahili for green grams, or as they are known in the states, mung beans. Ndengu stew was a favorite of mine when I was attending Egerton University in Njoro, Kenya. Last time I checked, I think they had 4 campuses around the country.  While studying abroad, I came to really appreciate the dorm food in the USA. I know that everyone complains about how bad it is. I even did before I studied abroad, but I found that after a week or so of eating the limited menu at the student mess that I had technicolor dreams about American dorm food. That said, I did find that I missed certain dishes that I had as a student. Thanks to the internet, I found some recipes for ndengu stew. This version is much more flavorful that the college food version I had, and that's okay.  For years I wasn't able to find mung beans. The only Indian grocery in CR didn't have them. I don't think the employees even knew what they were when I asked. I ended up first

Chickpea patties I'm dusting off a favorite recipe for a Middle Eastern(ish) recipe. I was inspired by a falafel recipe on the side of a bag of chickpea flour. I tried it, and it was really, really bad. The fact that I made several substitutions probably didn't help, but chickpea flour is really dry when mixed with water and pan fried (I draw the line at deep frying things, and when I say pan fried it means a spray of cooking spray, or a little oil drizzled in the bottom of a pan. Never a measurable depth of oil). This recipe was also born out of some nostalgia for eating soy based fake meat. I really liked fake chicken, and I liked soy sausage better than the meat stuff. However, I'm supposed to avoid soy now because I take 2 medications that soy interferes with. Sigh. I guess I have to eat real sausage if I'm craving sausage (I don't because the real stuff is too greasy. We won't even talk about how disgusting real hotdogs are in comparison to veggie ones. E

Lentil Soup Just as I was finishing up making tea from the Middle East, I happened to go to Half Price Books, and decide to spring for a Middle Eastern cook book. I thought that I could save money and just check one out of the library, but I live in the country, so I don't get to the library as much as I should, and there's something nice about just having the book to browse whenever. I remember my mom's attempt at using lentils for protein in order to stretch our already tight food budget. Brown lentils boiled in water with carrots, celery, and a little onion. I don't remember if the bean water was still on it, but It was definitely not kid friendly. It tasted like boiled lentils. Of course I don't know that this soup is really kid friendly either, but it definitely has more flavor. The lady who wrote the book I got talks a lot about Nazareth, so that is the region I'm thinking this book represents. Apparently this lady runs a restaurant, and raise