Thanksgiving in Kenya

In the US, we share Thanksgiving with our family. The menu is arranged in advance, everyone brings something, and we all eat together. Here, we share Thanksgiving with friends. Each year, we invite different people to eat with us. Sometimes they will bring something to go with the meal, but as for my favorite Thanksgivingy foods, I cook it all by myself. This is a big undertaking with an American kitchen. With a Kenyan kitchen, it takes meticulous planning. First, let me show you what I'm up against.

I have four burners on my stovetop. However, I've never been able to use all four of them at the same time. Here it is with a 12" skillet and a 2 quart saucepan. I could fit my tiniest saucepan on the front left, but the back right is completely un-usable with the skillet there. I don't even have a big saucepan for the stovetop because it's easier for me to cook multiple things in smaller batches than to cook one thing at a time.

   

The oven is super small, too. It's difficult to take pictures inside a black oven, but here it is with a 13x9x2 pan. (I'll explain the thermometer in a minute.) You can see better in the picture on the right that the pan is not sitting on the rack. It's suspended by its own handles along the next-level guides for the rack.

These are the controls for the oven. This is the reason for the thermometer. How hot is big flame and how hot is small flame? Well, it varies: the longer the flame has been lit, the hotter the oven will be. Since it doesn't maintain a temperature on it's own, I have to monitor it constantly, adjusting the flame size, cracking the oven door open if it gets too hot or closing it if it cools off too much.

Then there's this little guy. I call it an electric roasting pan, but it's so much more. It's a slow cooker, a deep fryer, a skillet. I can bake in it, roast a chicken (or a beef roast), make soups/stews/chilis/beans, stir fry, deep fry. As long as the power is on, there's not much I can't do with this. Plus, it's bigger than all of my pots for the stovetop. AND it doesn't heat up the 80-degrees-on-a-cool-day kitchen.

Back to Thanksgiving. My plan has worked pretty well the past couple of years, though my menu has evolved.

Menu

• veggies and Ranch dip (this is ambitious of me because I have not been able to find dill in any store, but I have found seeds and am attempting to grow some to make dip with)
• tortilla chips with guacamole
• creamy parmesan green beans
• dressing
• turkey
• chocolate pie (with optional sweetened whipped cream topping)
• buttermilk pie

T-2 days (i.e. 2 days before Thanksgiving dinner)

• make pie crust dough, put in fridge to chill overnight
• bake cornbread (in the oven or electric pan - I don't like the texture of cornbread in the electric pan, but since it's for dressing, the texture is moot)
• make Ranch dip

T-1 day

• bake the pies
• make the dressing

T-6 hours (start time, but the last items are done just before we eat)

• put turkey in electric pan to slow cook
• prep veggies for veggie tray
• make guacamole
• whip cream
• cook green beans on the stovetop
• reheat dressing

Who's hungry?

taco night: a recipe

Months ago, I found a recipe for homemade flour tortillas. We have occasionally found some imported tortillas here and there, but they are horrible. Really, extremely unpalatable. I made this recipe a few times. I blogged about it. I tested various methods. A few secrets I would add to that post are these:

The oil. The recipe calls for 2 tsp of vegetable oil. Our vegetable oil here is palm olien. It's ok in the tortillas. I tried coconut oil, but it made them too stiff. EVOO is the best for tortillas, in my experience.

Cast iron. I have a cast iron skillet now. It does a great job! And it is big enough that, when the tortillas are done, I can cook the taco meat in it. Great tortillas, fewer dishes to wash. Win/win!

Fluffiness. I don't know the true scientific basis for this, I'm no chemist, but it seems to me that in our warm, humid, coastal Kenyan kitchen, baking powder has super fluffy powers. I have to reduce the amount I use in our pancakes to keep them less than an inch thick. I also reduce the amount in tortillas to 1 tsp.

Floured surface. Perhaps also because of the climate, the dough is either way too sticky to work with or it has too much flour in it to stick together. I use about 1/4 cup of flour re-flouring my hands, rolling pin, and surface as I roll them out.

1/2 cup this time because I made a double batch

 Most importantly. When I first started making tortillas, I would stack them on a plate when done, covered with a towel. Then we got these nifty insulated serving bowls, with lids. In there, the heat from the tortillas creates a bit of condensation, which helps them retain their chewy texture. I think this has improved my tortilla results more than anything else. I'm assuming it's the same concept as a tortilla warmer.

But, this is about taco night, so on to the taco filling.

In Kenya, people don't really eat raw vegetables. We've gotten into the habit of cooking ours, especially if we're having company. It's only natural for our Ken-Tex-Mex tacos to have cooked vegetables in them.

A couple of months ago, I wanted to make cheesy enchilada casserole, but I didn't want to go to the trouble of making tortillas just to put them in a casserole. I had seen recipes for noodle-less lasagna, using slices of zucchini in place of the noodles. I had zucchini. I tried to mimic that for our enchilada casserole. It ended up soupy, so we used it as dip. But it was so yummy, Rodgers asked for it again! I tried it again, but didn't have the zucchini that day. It was not as good. We realized that ground beef + taco seasoning + zucchini = a winning combination. Thus, our taco meat recipe includes zucchini. And it is so, so yummy.

2 medium tomatoes, boiled, peeled, and smashed
1/4 cup tomato paste
2 Tbsp water
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp chili powder
1 tsp oregano

Prep the above ingredients in a large saucepan while the tortilla dough is resting. Put it on to simmer while cooking the tortillas.

4 zucchini, cubed
1 medium onion, diced
1 medium bell pepper, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 tsp black pepper
oil

Prep while the tortilla dough is resting (or get your husband to do it while you're cooking tortillas, like I did). After the tortillas are done, wipe out any flour left in the skillet with a clean towel. Heat oil, then add above ingredients and saute until done. Add to the tomato sauce (which is still simmering).

1 kg ground meat
1 tsp salt

Brown the meat with some salt (I always add the salt to the meat, rather than the sauce, don't ask me why - that's just when I remember to do it!). When it is done, drain and spoon into the sauce. Continue simmering. Do a taste test. I'm never sure quite how much spice I want to use, so I keep tasting and adding more spice. For the dip, I use the same amount of tomato sauce, but half the zucchini, half the meat, and top with cheese. Mmmmm, boy.

Finished product. Ben can't keep his hands out of my plate.

brownies - a recipe

When we want a baked treat, we almost always choose brownies. We. Love. Brownies.

I am almost sure I got my original brownie recipe from Betty Crocker. However, the recipe calls for unsweetened baking chocolate, which I almost never have on hand and never remember to buy. I do always have cocoa. I use the 5 Tbsp of cocoa + 1 Tbsp oil per oz of baking chocolate conversion. This comes to 1 Tbsp short of 1 cup of cocoa. I round up to a full cup. Also, when adding that oil to the called for 2/3 cup of butter, it comes to 1 tsp short of a cup. Again, I round up. I also reduce the sugar because we are fans of less sweet chocolate, not for healthy reasons because it's still a lot of sugar and a full cup of butter! These are more fudgey brownies, not cakey at all. So here is my altered recipe. It is fab:

1 cup butter
1 cup cocoa
1 1/2 cup sugar
2 tsp vanilla
3 large eggs
1 cup flour
1 cup optional extras (i.e. chocolate chips, chopped nuts, candy pieces...)

Preheat oven to 350° F

Grease bottom and sides of pan - I use an 8"x12" jelly roll pan, but the original recipe calls for a 9" square.

Melt butter with cocoa over low heat, cool for 5 minutes. (Originally I thought this wasn't necessary, since I'm not using baking chocolate that needs to be melted, but it does make it mix much more smoothly, so I melt the butter with the cocoa now.)

Beat sugar, vanilla, eggs in medium bowl; beat in chocolate mixture; beat in flour until just blended. Add optional extras. Spread in pan.

Bake 30-40 minutes or just until pulling away from sides of pan.

For Rodgers' birthday, Nate wanted to do a bicycle cake, so I used chopped Snickers to make a bicycle and stick figure Rodgers on top of his brownies.

Looks silly, but Rodgers dubbed it The Best Brownies Ever Made.

recipe: fish fingers

Nate has long been in the "I don't like any food" phase of life. Ben is still usually a good eater, but gradually arriving in that phase as well. Because of this, I have been looking for lots of kid-friendly foods. (Now's as good a time as any to point out this Chik fil a copy cat recipe. It's one of the few recipes I actually follow exactly.)

The boys love fish fingers (fish sticks) that come in a box, frozen, precooked, and highly processed. One great thing about living here is that we don't have access to all of that processed food. But it also means that my kids, who have tasted processed food in the US and LOOOVE it, have a hard time finding fresh food that they like. It has taken me a year to find a fish recipe the picky toddler will eat. We've tried to get them to eat different types of fish, cooked different ways. Sometimes in the past Ben would, but less so now. I've tried different recipes for fish fingers, thinking maybe if they look the "right" shape and are fried, they'll eat them. No go.

Until today.

I started with this recipe, but I kind of did my own thing. One thing that is really great about their recipe is the suggested addition of turmeric to the bread crumbs for color. Kids love colorful food. (I'm looking at you, Rainbow Goldfish.) I took that suggestion, and they did turn out with great color. Another secret to the success this time, I think, is that we had a very mild flavored fish (Nile Perch), which also had a great texture for the small pieces.

Note that I did not measure anything, so the following recipe is true Ken-Tex family style cooking.

It's hard to get a good picture in our house at night. The lights are not very bright.

Fish Fingers

2 servings of fish, filleted (It's usually enough. We didn't know the boys would eat.)
flour, about half a cereal bowl
1 egg
breadcrumbs, same amount as flour
garlic powder
paprika
salt
black pepper
turmeric
oil for frying

1. Cut the fish into thumb-sized pieces. I aimed for similar thickness to the ones my mom served them in Texas - the frozen ones they adore.
2. Place flour in a small bowl. Add some (1/2 tsp, give or take) garlic powder and paprika, 2 pinches of salt, and a few shakes of black pepper. Mix thoroughly. Beat the egg in a separate small bowl. Place the breadcrumbs in a third small bowl. Add some turmeric. Mix thoroughly.
3. Coat the fish fingers in flour, then egg, then breadcrumbs.
4. Heat oil in a frying pan, < 1/2" deep. When the oil is hot, add the fish and fry until golden brown. The original said 3-4 min per side, but I didn't think they were golden brown enough yet. I did about 10 minutes total. Remove from oil and drain on a towel or paper towels.

There are none left. At all. And I bet we would have kept eating if there had been more.

no shortage of grated cheese

When we moved here, we searched and searched for good kitchen gadgets and tools. I had brought very important things (like my garlic press) with us. We found a really awesome peeler/scraper, but we still needed a cheese grater and slicer. We found a small one of each. They were rather pricey, but necessary. Cheesy pasta and veggies would be very difficult with only a knife and a block of cheese.

After several months, two new big Super WalMart style stores opened up. A new Tuskys and a Naivas, which we'd never seen before. With them came more western stuff and better prices. One day I found a big 4-sided grater! It has a side for slicing, a side for zesting, and sides for coarse and fine grating. And it's so much bigger than the hand-held ones we already had. It was also cheaper. Of course, we bought it. The problem was, we didn't have a good place to keep it. It ended up on a top shelf and forgotten.

It's bigger than it looks. This is a weird angle.

When we got back from Texas, I made some cheese crackers and grated the whole 2 cups of cheddar using the tiny hand-held grater because I'd forgotten about this nice big one way up on the top shelf. I also made some carrot snack sticks, which required even more grating. The next time we bought groceries, there was an abundant selection of graters. I picked a 6-sided one. It has an extra, different slicing side and grating side, in addition to the 4 sides on the red one. As we were driving home, I suddenly had déjà vu...

It's also bigger than it looks. I can't be bothered to take new pictures at a realistic angle.

We could have returned it, but I like it better than the others. We kept it. Soon we'll need a whole shelf for our graters.

toaster

When we moved here, we had to furnish our home from scratch. Honestly, it was fun getting to pick out everything, but at the same time, we were in a rush to buy necessities. And then we would keep forgetting to buy things like spoons.

We decided that we didn't really need to get a toaster. After all, we could always just eat plain bread or toast the bread in a skillet or in the oven. Then, we realized that we hate the oven. The temperature control is a big flame on one end and a small flame on the other. I have no idea if the things I want to bake are big flame, small flame, or somewhere in between. Plus, we don't have an outlet to plug the stove into, so we can't use the (electric) self-lighting function. We have to light it with matches. The whoosh that happens when you light the oven scares the pants off me, so I am definitely not lighting it. (I do work up my courage to light the stove burners, though.)

One day (ironically during the week we had no electricity, but we didn't know it was going to last for a week yet) we decided to try to find something like a slow cooker. What we found has such a wide temperature range that it can also be used for steaming, stir fry, deep frying, and more. I roasted potatoes in it in under 20 minutes, but we have also used the lower temps to slow cook beef stew. While we were shopping, I noticed there were toasters for 1000 shillings.

That's like $12.50.

The boys had been enjoying/requesting skillet toast for 2 or 3 weeks.

I said, "Rodgers, we need this."

And now we have a toaster.

We use it almost every day!

cabbage

I don't really like cabbage that much. It's not like mushrooms or olives, which I would pick out if I can to avoid eating them. I can tolerate it. It's just...I don't enjoy it. But anyway, a good friend brought us a big bag of fresh veggies, fruit, and potatoes. Included was the biggest cabbage I have ever seen.

I'm not just going to waste food, so I had to do something with it. I asked my group of e-friends what I should do with it. Stuffed cabbage and pickled cabbage were the top 2 suggestions. I've had pickled cabbage as kimchi. It's not for me. We tried stuffed cabbage. Rodgers really liked it. As a non-lover of cabbage, I can say it was alright. It only used 12 leaves of cabbage. Now what do I do with the rest?