Mandazi

Morning guys! I've had an on and off relationship with these little things. There are days I'll eat so many of this and there are times when just the sight of them makes me sick.
Mandazi is one of the types of snack that you can experiment with all ingredients known to man.
The only ingredient I have probably never added are stones...tihihi.
Onto serious matters. This was one of those lazy Sundays where you literally drag yourself around the house dreading Monday, so I did it real simple. I'll start by listing all the ingredients I have worked with before milk, eggs, sugar, strawberry essence, cinnamon, cardamon, dessicated coconut, lemon, cocoa, coconut milk, vanilla essence and more to come.

Note: The recipe for mahamri is the same as mandazi except for one thing though, we use Yeast and not baking powder for mahamri.

In this, I only used Flour, Baking powder, Milk, Cardamon powder, oil for frying. PS: If you use 'All purpose baking flour', you need to add baking powder but if you're using 'self raising flour',  there's no need to add baking powder as it already contains raising agents.

Method:Sieve the flour into a bowl, add baking powder and cardamon powder in a bowl and mix well. Next, slowly add warm milk in small quantities, remember you are not constructing a swimming pool. Knead the flour until you make soft but not sticky dough. Sticky dough will stick to your hands. Sometimes I do add some cooking oil to my dough. When done, cover the dough and let it sit for an hour or more. I use cling film or foil to cover my dough.

When ready to start cooking, make small balls from your dough and roll them to circular shapes. For those who make square rolled out dough, don't worry, no one will know they were not circular unlike chapos where you can spot a shapeless one from a mile away. Use a knife to cut your dough into your preferred shapes. I cut mine in fours.

* Keep in mind that if you roll out very thin dough, your mandazis will turn  out like biscuits or crisps. So let it have some body.

Next, heat oil in a deep pan. Note that very hot oil will only cook the outside and not the inside. To know whether the oil is hot enough, I usually dip a wooden cooking spoon into the oil; if bubbles form, then I know it is hot enough. But if you see your oil producing smoke, it is too hot, reduce the heat and let it cool for a minute or two. I said reduce, not turn off.

Put your dough into the oil carefully to avoid spilling or you'll be eating your mandazis from the hospital bed. You can put as many pieces your pan can hold.

Another point to keep in mind. If you put too much oil in your pan, it is going to spill from the pan and into the fire when you add your dough pieces. I've seen mini bonfires when that happens. I must admit it is a beautiful sight but it's not meant to happen like that. You could suffer from burns as bad as third degree.

Manadazis cook very fast so this is not the time to dash to the television to watch your favorite commercial ad. I prefer  mine just slightly browned which takes a few seconds. When one side is cooked, turn to the other side.

After they've cooked I cover them with a cloth to cool and later put them in a air tight container.


                   

Home made Ice Cream

Who doesn't love ice cream?! I would swim in it!! I would make it my second name!!
Home made ice cream is so cheap to make, you won't believe it. I already had the other ingredients so I only bought the eggs and the milk. That cost me Kshs. 69 only!I made enough to last me a couple of days.
Anyways, there are soooo many recipes for making ice cream. I used the easiest and fastest.
I rarely measure my ingredients; for no good reason really, I just find myself doing estimations. But I'm slowly learning to. But I did measure this.

What I used here is: All purpose home baking flour- 2 tbsp
                                 Sugar-1 cup (which I found too much for my sensitive tasting buds)
                                 Milk- 1/2 Litre
                                 Strawberry Essence - 1 tsp
                                 2 small Eggs

Start by heating the milk or boiling if it's not the pasteurized milk. The reason for this is so that you can use it to beat the eggs separately. The eggs are beaten in warm milk to avoid them from cooking when added to the other ingredients in the pan. We are not doing scrambled eggs here now are we?!

After you are done with the eggs, put the mixture aside and now work on the rest of the ingredients.
On low heat, in a thick based pan, mix the sugar and flour then add some milk slowly stirring to get a smooth paste. Add the egg/milk mixture and keep stirring THROUGHOUT your cooking to avoid formation of lumps. Yes I know, I was bored to my neck too.
I cooked mine for around 30 minutes on very low heat occasionally adding some milk when the mixture started to thicken. The reason I cooked it for that long was to ensure the flour cooked. Believe me, the last thing you want is uncooked flour taste in your mouth. Happened to me with the same recipe; I was too impatient to let it cook.

When almost done, add the strawberry essence, pour in a bowl, let it cool, cover your air tight bowl and put it in the freezer. Make sure to move away from the refrigerator and let it freeze in peace.Voila!

Tumbukiza

Yes, that's the name of this dish and no, I'm not the one who named it; I don't even know it's origin. To be precise, for all those numerous times that I cooked this, I didn't even know it had a name until someone mentioned it.
The advantage of this dish is that so  little effort and attention is required. I actually do get time to take a shower as it cooks mind you, I am those people who spend ages in the shower. In short, you can do your chores as this cooks without having to keep running to and fro the kitchen after every two minutes.
What is needed here is beef, potatoes, and veggies of your choice. In this, I put onions, beef, potatoes cut in half, carrots cut in half, green capsicum (green pepper/hoho) cut in fours, cabbages cut in fours (sometimes I alternate with whole spinach) and water or beef stock.
I will start with how I have seen other people cook this dish.  Most of them put everything in the cooking pan and cook on low heat until everything is cooked. I don't know about you but I tend to think that with this method, the potatoes might end up looking like mashed potatoes or the beef might not cook very well, but that's just my opinion.

Anyway, let's now go to my way. I start by putting the beef pieces in the cooking pan. Note that I have left out cooking oil; I don't add oil to this. Stir the beef pieces to prevent them from sticking in the pan and cover. Let them cook on low heat. I prefer starting with the beef so that it cooks evenly. Let it cook for like 10-15 minutes. You can add VERY LITTLE water to prevent it from burning as it cooks. Add the potatoes and cover. Don't stir. Again let them cook until they are just almost cooked. You can add some little water if the water from the beef has dried up. The level of the water can be half the level of what is cooking. I love my veggies crunchy, so when my potatoes are almost cooked is when I add some water for soup and the remaining ingredients and let them boil for 5-7 minutes on low heat.Serve!
This can be accompanied with ugali, chapati or good old loaf (my favorite).

Chips Masala (Fries)

I don't know about you guys, but the first time I saw Chips Masala, I thought this was a sky rocket kind of recipe but you can breathe easy, it's as easy as it gets. Being a lover of spicy food myself, I do find myself eating this a couple of times and the fact that it's so easy to cook almost makes it a staple food in my house. Okay, what you need for this are cooked fries (you can choose to buy or make your own), crushed tomatoes, tomato paste ( I add this for colour but you can use tomato ketchup as an alternative), sliced onions, crushed garlic, chilii powder, and chopped coriander leaves.

Start by frying the sliced onions in a frying until they slightly brown, add the crushed garlic, crushed ginger and stir for a while. Next, add the crushed tomatoes and cook on low heat for 5-10 minutes stirring occasionally. Once, the tomatoes are cooked, this is where I add the tomato paste, coriander  and chilli. Stir and add the cooked fries. Stir thoroughly but carefully to avoid breaking the fries and  turn off the heat. Let the contents sit for like ten or so minutes so that the paste and spices can set in. Serve hot and eat like the world is coming to and end.

Sour porridge

For those who have not yet been able to make lump-free porridge, don't worry, there's hope for everyone. I bet my porridge was the worst in the history of mankind, no matter how many times I watched mum do it, it either looked like water straight from the tap or something close to ugali. This is not the traditional (original) porridge we saw our grandmothers put away for days in containers to ferment, this is cooked in ten minutes.
Buy your 'Sour Porridge Flour' from the supermarket. This is my favourite.

You start by making a paste with the flour and water. This is where the confusion comes in sometimes. I actually never measure anything when cooking (Just like my mama did) but I did in this to put it down better for you. I took one and a half heaped tablespoons of the flour into a cup with half full water and mixed it to a smooth paste. The paste plus the water that will be used to cook is what determines the thickness of your porridge. Too thick a paste will give you thick porridge and vice versa if you use very thin paste.Look at the paste, not too thick, not too thin either. I put this paste into two cups of boiling water. Again, this is where you can make it or lose it. Before you put the paste into the boiling water, make sure you stir one last time, in case there's any flour sediments at the bottom of the cup. Immediately you put the paste into the boiling water, stir CONTINUOUSLY without pausing until the mixture starts boiling. If you do this, no lumps will be formed. Too much boiling water results in thin porridge, little water results in thick porridge. Once it starts boiling, simmer for ten minutes and voila, your porridge is ready to eat! (Yes I said eat. Porridge is eaten, not drank) 

French fries, fried eggs with colslaw salad

This is not what I had planned to have for Sunday lunch. My idea was to make coleslaw salad with apples and sultanas but as you can see the coleslaw salad here is just the  kawaida one. My mama always taught me to buy ingredients a day earlier if you already have plans to prepare something but I kept postponing since Friday. So I get to the market on Sunday and I find enough mud to swim through, conveniently cutting me off from the other half of the market where the apples are sold from. I had three options, to either swim through the mud, take a different (longer) route to the other side of the market or do away with the apples. The 'one minute prima donna in me' settled for the latter. But don't be disappointed dolls, we shall do coleslaw salad with apples soon. Since I really really wanted to have the salad I decided to have fries.

I love my fries a little crunchy but as you can see from the picture, they are a little brown as a result of running from the TV screen to the kitchen and back (don't try this at home).
Coleslaw salad is the creamy looking salad that you might have had in your favorite restaurant served with fries. This includes shredded cabbage, grated carrots with mayonnaise (I'm currently addicted to this salad). The mayonnaise used in this is Homemade Mayonnaise (recipe for this will be put up in a few days)

As I said earlier I loooove eggs (yes, even my ka local supermarket made a note of that, they should honestly give me a 'customer award' for that). When making mayonnaise, we only use the egg yolk and NOT the white part, so the eggs here were cooked from the egg white and spruced up   a little as seen in our previous recipe on fried eggs with veggies.

Fried potatoes, with pork and pineapples

In this, yes, you cook the pork with the pineapples. I love my pork with the fatty bits so I never discard them, again, this is optional. If you chose to use cooking oil, you'll want to go easy especially on this. Personally, I rarely use cooking oil when cooking any type of meat, I let them cook in their own fat, and you'll be surprised at how oily they appear sometimes.
When cooking pork, it is best to cook the fatty parts first to ensure they cook through and then add the rest of the meat later. When the water is about to dry up (note that this is water from the pork itself) is when I always choose to add my seasonings, these will include fresh ginger, garlic, rosemary, black pepper (I love spicy food, my mum says I should tone down my love for spices hehe). In this, I put the pineapples and onions together with the seasonings and let them cook for about 5-7 minutes and then added the green pepper just before I removed them from the fire.

As for the potatoes, I fried them just like you would with fries.

Carrot and pineapple salad

A few weeks back, I attended a wedding that had this salad served to the guests but I never got to taste it as I got there late and my cousin couldn't stop telling me how sweet it was. I decided to prepare it just to see what I missed.
Just as it's name suggests, the ingredients used are grated carrots and diced pineapples. For a little twist I decided to add some raisins. You can use the canned pineapples from the supermarket. Alternatively, you can buy your pineapples from the market.
Next time I prepare this, I'll be sure to keep the pineapples as far away as possible until I need to use them as I ended up eating half of them in the first five minutes.
Mix the grated carrots and the diced pineapples in a bowl, sprinkle some raisins on top (this is optional) and let them sit for a while to enhance the flavors.It is always best to cover salads as they sit. You can use a cling film for this.

Fried eggs with veggies for breakfast.

I could eat eggs on a daily basis and never feel 'yuky'. The only sad thing is that I have an allergy but it really doesn't bother me.
Anyway back to cooking, there's no excuse for doing boring fried eggs for breakfast. There are soooo many ways on how you can cook your eggs including adding them to salads.
This here is very simple. The only veggies I put were onions and tomatoes. What you do is to beat your eggs together with the veggies and fry just how you do your kawaida eggs. Sprinkle  dhania as it fries.

Turn to the other side till it's cooked and serve with or without any other accompaniments.

Githeri

Funny how I would get mad anytime mum cooked githeri even when it was very nice githeri. It has turned out to be another of my favorites.
This one only consists of boiled beans and maize but there are other ingredients that can be added  to this like peas, french beans just to mention but a few. Those are recipes for another day.
If you have your reliable Mama Mboga, it is a super fast way of whipping out a meal on those days  you get home too tired to cook time consuming foods. This here takes less than fifteen minutes to prepare and cook.
Together with the veggies the only seasoning used in this was fresh garlic which was fried together with the onions.

Fry the onions, add the carrots and cover with the githeri for 3-5 minutes (I prefer my veggies nice and crunchy), stir, add the rest of the veggies except the coriander (dhania), put very little water just to ensure it doesn't burn and cover to cook for an extra 3-5 minutes. Remove from fire and add your dhania leaves. Serve.

Rice, pan-fried liver with vegetable salad

The best thing about this meal is that it actually takes a very short time to prepare and cook though it doesn't appear like it. I added turmeric to the rice, it is always said, we eat food with 'the eyes first'. Turmeric adds a vibrant color to rice plus it has a lot of health benefits which we shall look at later.
The liver, cut in strips was pan-fried. All you have to do is add a little oil to the pan, any seasoning of your preference, your liver strips and cook till ready on both sides.
When just about to remove from the fire, I always add onions for added flavor. Adding them at this particular leaves them a little crunchy too.  To check whether the liver is ready, use a knife to slice part of the liver to see the inside. Well cooked liver is pink on the inside. If you see any blood then it's not ready yet.  

Ugali, Sukumawiki with fruit and vegetable salad

Another of my favorites is ugali, so expect to see more of it :-) As featured, this is Ugali and sukumawiki with fruit and vegetable salad. For a little twist and color, you can always add grated carrots to sukumawiki as seen here. The salad was a first time for me. I initially wanted to prepare Mango Salsa (that's a recipe for another day) but I couldn't get mangoes in the market so I opted for oranges and like we said it's always about experimenting with anything and everything edible in the kitchen and surely it did not disappoint. It actually turned out to be very sweet. 
The salad consisted of tomatoes, cucumbers, green pepper and orange. I added some white vinegar into this for some flavor.

Pasta, fried liver and veggies cooked in soy sauce and vinegar.

This is one of the fastest meal you can make!
This was a different brand of pasta bought from my local supermarket (I had my doubts but I still bought it after much debating with myself).True to my instincts, it didn't cook as well as my kawa brand. The good news is that it was edible. The bad news is that I still have the remaining pasta which will eventually have to be cooked. But as they say, we learn from experience.

The veggies here are actually partially cooked. These were cooked in soy sauce and vinegar (Like i said I am just your average girl having fun in the kitchen. I love playing with the ingredients). That was the first time I was doing that and well, I must say I wasn't disappointed. Crunchy sweet sour veggies.

Fried beef with steamed spinach.

I'm a sucker for any type of meat. Most of us are :-)
To start with, I never use meat tenderizer not for any specific reason, I just forget to include it in my shopping.
What I prefer to do, is to let the beef cook alone without adding anything on very low heat. Cooking on low heat, which equals to cooking for about 30 or so minutes, I believe is the secret to tender meat.
Just before all the water is dried out, that is when I add any spices like garlic, ginger, and anything else except for the onions which I put just when I'm about to remove the beef from the fire.