Pepper soup.

Oh my God. It has been way too long and I have neglected my blogger duties. I apologize. Lol.

OK so. PEPPER SOUP. This is basically like any other soup there is. But what makes it special to me is that it is a traditional Nigerian dish. And what makes it even more special is the amount of traditional spices used. Given the name “pepper soup” it’s no surprise that it’s spicy.

It’s also called assorted meat soup because one can use different types of meat like, beef, fish, lamb meat, goat meat. In the picture above I have used smoked goat meat, hooves, and bones. Which are highly nutritious because of the bone marrow. Another thing which is required and is an absolute necessity is using tripe,or as Nigerians call it “towel”. It has a very chewy textur.

What you would need is

• 1kg Chicken or Cow Foot or Assorted Beef

• 4 seeds nutmeg

• Chilli Pepper (to taste)

• 2 teaspoons crushed Dry Uziza(optional)

• 2 medium onions

• Salt (to taste)

• 3 stock cubes

• 1 teaspoon of Thyme (for chicken pepper soup)

You woukd have to blend the Uziza seeds. I’ll put up pictures showing the things required.

1. If preparing Chicken pepper Soup, it is preferable to use whole chicken instead of drumsticks. The different parts of the chicken will bring variety to the pepper soup. So wash and cut up the whole chicken and set aside.
2. If you want to prepare Assorted Beef Pepper Soup then you should buy different parts of beef – best cut, offal (shaki, round-about, liver and kidney). Wash the offal thoroughly especially the round-about which should be turned inside out during the washing. Cut these into medium pieces, just big enough to be chewed in one go.
3. For Cow Foot Pepper Soup, just wash and cut the cow foot into medium pieces. In this case also, make the pieces just big enough that it can be chewed in one go.
4. To make the ehu seeds. Just put it in a frying pan and when it’s ready you can tell by the smell
5. You will also need cumin powder, fennel seeds

Chop the onions into small pieces and start boiling the assorted meat, then add the onions, fennel seeds, coriander and other spices. Make sure that they all boil together with a suffeceint amount of water for a long time so that the meat can absorb all the ingredients. Let it boil for about 30 minutes while constantly checking the water levels. Then your pepper soup is ready.

In our house whenever we eat pepper soup we always gave a side of boiled UNRIPE plantain. We never use ripe plantain because it’s sweet and clashes with the flavor of the pepper soup.

Unripe plantain

Cooked unripe plantain

OK. That’s it. It’s done and ready and can be eaten with rice and anything actually.

Bin appetite.

Stay hydrated folks.

Homemade fries and egg sauce.

HELLO MY FELLOW POTATO LOVERS.

I had this in my archive for some time now. But voila. Here’s something I came up with.

There wasn’t exactly anything at home and myself being too lazy didn’t want to take use whatever energy I had left to go grocery shopping and damn. Your girl was hungry. So I looked around the house and I saw 3 larger potatoes and 4 eggs.

So I put my mind to work. I wanted to start with the egg sauce. So I chopped 2 large onions. Now some people might not like this but for me I enjoy them in my meals. It’s always good when you fry and caramelize them. And I used red onions not white because red has a good color and it’s more flavorful than white.

Then after that I got chopping at my potatoes. I decided to cut them like fries. Now if you fry potatoes a lot. You will notice that frying them just like that and frying them after boiling or soaking in ice cold water.

So while your onions is frying, soak the potatoes in salted ice cold water. To the onions add chicken stock cubes, turmeric, curry powder, garlic powder, coriander and fennel seeds, chilli powder or you can even chop your own chillies and add to it.

Then you whisk 4 eggs in a bowl and add it to the mixture.as soon as you add it, keep stirring to avoid it burning too muhh. Then for about 3 minutes leave on low heat, then add half a cup of water. Then stir again and leave to boil on high heat.

Drain your potatoes off the water and dry them off. And then you fry them. Now I didn’t deep fry, because I think the potatoes soak up a lot of oil and at the end it because too greasy. And since it’s home made, one has control over just how muhh oil is used.

Because it had been soaked in ice cold water, they don’t come out soggy and have a nice brownish yellow color.

In the above picture, you can see a bit of red and brownish black, that’s the caramelized red onions. It gives the egg sauce a sweet flavor in combination to all the spices that have been used and doesnt make it too boring.

I mentioned fennel seeds earlier.

They’re actually a lot smaller than they seem and are not quite noticeable when you add them to food. The sole purpose of using them is to eliminate smell. In order to eliminate the eggy smell, especially for those that can’t tolerate it, fennel seeds are used. They can also use it when boiling chicken and making chicken soup to eliminate the “damp chicken smell”. It also has loads of health benefits. One of which I know is it helps greatly with weight loss. Just toss a few in green tea and you’re good to go.

Bin Appétit folks. Stay hydrated.

Tomato fish dish

I love calling these type of meals a concussion. You know… Because it looks complicated with a crazy mixture of stuff and the taste and burst of flavors sort of just knocks you out(in a good way). But it’s actually not. It’s pretty simple.

Although I think it might have been simple for me because the fish I used was already pre-prepared. Keep reading to find out.

Most of the time when I make things like this I usually start to boil my rice first. But this time I didn’t. Because instead of using Thai rice (they’re short grained and take longer to cook), I used Basmati rice. (they’re longer grained rice and take less time to cook. And I figured out it’s actually softer. Or is it just me)

Short grained Thai rice

Long grained basmati rice

And I realized that some basmati rice have an aroma. It’s quite addicting. So much to the point u catch yourself sniffing the steam from the pot.

So I started with the sauce. Chopped up 2 large tomatoes, a large onion and fry them until the onions turn golden brown.

Then add chilli powder. Now I added about 3 spoons of chilli powder because 1) I LOVE spicy food and 2) these kind of meals I feel one would enjoy these kind of meals with a bit of sharp spiciness.

Then after that add Maggi chicken stock. About 2 cubes would do. Then curry powder and garlic powder. Notice that when you use garlic powder to cook there’s a good smell. But it’s stronger when you use fresh garlic so you have a choice there.

I think what I want to highlight the most here is my use of Turmeric powder. You notice in the picture above how the rice looks a bit yellow and the sauce also has the yellow color. It’s all because of turmeric.

Turmeric is a cooking ingredient, a natural condiment and medicine, a natural dye and even finds itself in the field of make up when you talk about making face masks and lipsticks. It doesn’t have a very particular taste but its got a smell and gives food an attractive color. You don’t exactly get the taste on your first try but believe me once you start cooking with it it just naturally occurs to you that “oh my God. Where is my turmeric”. It helps in cleansing the body off its toxins there fore its also called and antioxidant.

Ok so you add about 3 spoons of the turmeric powder to the mixture and just leave on medium heat to let it simmer for about 10 minutes. In the mean time you can start with the rice.

I usually wash my rice first. And then after that, you add water till just above the durfsce of the rice. Then, especially for basmati you add salt and butter or ghee. It gives it good aroma and makes it very rich. Let it cook and it should be ready in 10 to 15 minutes.

Back to the tomato sauce mixture. You add about a cup of water and let it boil on high heat for 5 minutes.

After that I added fish. Oven rosted and dried fish. In my family we buy fresg fish in bulk and oven roast and dry them and then store them in the freezer because fish has a tendency to break and scatter while you cook and doesn’t make the food pleasant to eat or even look at. So I added 2 pieces of fish and continued to boil it for about 5 minutes. Then you’re good to go.

When you taste the tomatoe sauce especially when u try the tomatoes in it you will notice how all the ingredients and flavors seep into the tomatoes.

The same for the fish. The fish also takes up the color of the turmeric and each bite results in a burst of flavors(especially spicy).

You have a choice on what type of meat you want to use. You could try it with beef also but I think these type of sauces go very well with fish or seafood although I’m not a fan of fish and I have a terrible shellfish allergy.

Bon Appétit. Stay hydrated folks.

Cheesy eggs or eggy cheese. You decide.

So the idea of me throwing in cheese slices in my omelet came when I had very sudden guests well not exactly guests but friends who show up randomly at my place as if they own it. And I didn’t know what to make them. So I did what first came to mind was eggs

One can make almost ANYTHING when they’ve got eggs.

Step one. Make your omelet. Crack your eggs in a bowl. Add an onion and a tomato and a pinch of salt and pepper and whisk so completely mix together.

Now notice that I used only 2 eggs. Now 2 eggs might not be filling to some people but it depends on what you put in it.

You’ll be making 2 sets of omelets. Just grease your pan or skillet with butter and pour a bit of the egg mixture and let it fry for about 30 seconds on medium heat.

The next part is a crucial part. It’s the cheesy part.

I used cheddar cheese because I gives the eggs a creamy peculiar flavor. The choice of cheese is yours. Could try mozzarella too. So anyway I used only 2 slice sof cheese.

While your omlette is cooking take a slice of cheese and divide into 2 and put it on the side of the omlette that’s facing up. Then cover the pan/ skillet and let it cook only low heat until the cheese melts but at the same time looks whole.

DO NOT FLIP THE OMELTE. I REPEAT DO NOT FLIP IT. Otherwise your cheese will also cook and burn and leave everything messy. It’s not a pretty sight. After a minute or 2. Slowly and carefully transfer it into a plate. Then have a go at your second set of omlette.

When that’s done. Or while it’s going on. Heat up half cup of corn and add a bit of Tabasco sauce and lemon and sweet soy sauce. Lemon and soy sauce is really important here because it gives it a savory and sweet flavor. When it’s cooked it has this brownish looking color and smells… Well… Amazing.

The next thing you see in the first picture is a grey looking paste. It’s called hummus. It’s an Arab kind of spread and dip. Which can be homemade. All you’re gonna need is chickpeas boiled and blended , sesame seed paste, lemon and oil.

So add that to the side and tadaaaa. It’s cheesy, eggy, sweet, savory and everything else above all VERY simple.

And I turned this into wraps using kabus. It an Arabic bread. It’s very light and easy to use. Kinda like tortillas

Your you could also turn it to a breakfast sandwich. Or lunch sandwich or even dinner. Anything goes.

Bon appetite. Stay hydrated folks

Not spaghetti and meatballs.

This definitely looks nothing like spaghetti but it will do.

CARBS, CARBS, AND CARBS. When it tastes so good there’s no way around it unless you have a crazy ass self control. I don’t. I know the feeling.

RECIPE

• prepare the sauce

• Fry onions and garlic in olive oil until golden brown.

• Chop up one large tomato and add it to the onion and garlic along with one can of tomato sauce.

• Add salt, chilli powder, ginger powder, turmeric, cumin powder 2 tbs each. Then add Maggi chicken stock

• Let simmer on medium heat for 15 minutes.

• In the mean time get your meat balls ready. Now you have a choice whether to use store bought frozen meatballs or you can be traditional and prepare your own. (I used frozen. Your girl was tired)

• Fry the meat balls for about 10 minutes according to your choice

• Put the meatballs into your prepared pasta sauce and bring to boil for 10 minutes.

• While you’ve got that going get your pasta ready.

• Add pasta to already boiling water and put a pinch of salt and boil for 15 minutes. Then drain it in a seive.

• Add the pasta to the meatball sauce and simmer for 10 minutes.

I refrained from using any cheese like mozarella and cheddar to make it less heavy.

Potato stuffed with mozarella balls.

ALERT. THIS IS NOT FRIED CHICKEN.

POTATO BALLS STUFFED WITH MOZZARELLA.
Ps. It’s a very heavily meal. Completely filled with carbs.

Sleep guaranteed after devouring this.

RECIPE

1) Boil 3 large potatoes until very soft
2) mash the potatoes completely
3)Add curry, garlic powder, powdered chilli pepper, and salt.
4)Cut the mozzarella cheese into bite sizes and cover completely with the potatoe mixture.
5)make your balls😏
I went a bit crazy on the size. I like big things don’t come at me.
6)Then put it in the freezer for about 45 minutes to one hour.
7)In a bowl mix together flour, baking powder and a bit of salt. And crack 2 eggs into another bowl.
8)Dip the potato balls first in the flour mixture then the egg and then again the flour mixture (in this order)
9)Fry until golden brown.

NOTE.
I did chose not to use breadcrumbs for the coating and relied mainly on flour and egg wash.
Thus giving it a crunchy KFC typa look. (it is very crunchy). Bon appetite.

HEALTHY BOWL

HEALTHY BOWL

I call this the healthy bowl because well you can see the colorful veggies making themselves quite known.

I make sure most of my meals have got eggs in them… Because why not. There’s so many things you can do with eggs.
So I decided to scramble them.

And finally. Because too much healthy food can be a bit boring. I decided to fancy it up a bit by adding beef frankfurter sausages.

It’s a healthy bowl, colorful, interesting. Not hard to make.

R E C I P E
1) In a pan, drizzle about 2 tbs of olive oil and stir fry the veggies. Here I’ve got green peas, carrots and sweet corn.
2) Add seasoning (salt, pepper, garlic powder, curry powder) and most importantly the MAJOR ingredient SWEET SOY SAUCE. I used @sambalindofood sauce.
3) Take out the contents of the pan. And in that same pan chop up the beef frankfurter sausages. It’s fine to use anyone but I used @sadialife.
4) then you take those out and then u scramble your eggs. No seasoning should be added for this part. Get the eggs to a browning stage and then you’ve got your HEALTHY BOWL.

PS. Arrangement matters. Could’ve just mixed it all up. But it’s so pretty this way.

The Journey Begins

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton