food blog

Every once in a while I consider changing this blog into a food blog. But then I would just join the ranks of hundreds, maybe more, food blogs out there. Sure-mine would have a catcher, based here in Manjacaze, but it just seems over-done.

Plus, who would be here reminding everyone about bee justice?

With that said, this is a special blog post dedicated to a couple of the most delicious things that I have made in the last two years.

I should warn everyone reading this that if you try it at home and want the same delicious results as I have had, best to really go to town with the spices. If I say 5-6 cloves of garlic, I mean it! When in doubt – spice it up.

A word about buying things in Mozambique: take advantage when you see something out of the ordinary. There are some markets that just stock things that you do not usually see. For example, in Xai Xai you can buy ginger. Inhambane is the only place I have ever seen herbs for sale. Indian lojas tend to stock things like feta cheese, raisins, cooking chocolate, lentils, black beans, garbanzo beans, interesting spices, oatmeal, and the list goes on. I have convinced a man in Manjacaze to stock butternut squash and he sometimes surprises me with some red peppers. Other than that, at markets as nice as the one here in Manjacaze you can find staples like lettuce, garlic, onions, cucumber, green peppers, and sometimes eggplant. At smaller markets you will find onions, annoyingly small garlic, tomatoes, and maybe a variety of leafy greens. Sometimes you will find ladies selling wild mushrooms from their yards (which should be thoroughly cleaned as they are really sandy and chewing sand makes even the best dishes completely inedible).

Fruits are seasonal except for bananas and papayas (the latter you can only get from people with trees, they are rarely for sale in the markets) There are more kinds of bananas than you could imagine and each one has a different purpose. Monkey bananas are great in fruit salads (as are others but these are my favorite). The small finger bananas are what you should go for if you are looking to smear some peanut butter on it. The bigger bananas go brown fast and work great if you are making muffins or banana bread. Papayas come in short and squat, orange varieties and longer yellower varieties. I like the orange ones, but to each her own. Mango season is late December to March, and you should make your jam then cause you will miss them a lot come August when all you can find is imported, over-priced oranges. Pineapples are best around March and April. Avocados are huge here and ripe around March to May, unless you live in a cooler spot and you get lucky with a longer season. Passion fruits are usually available on the EN1 (the highway) most of the year. Tangerine season is delightfully long and starts around May and goes til August or so.

Grow your own herbs! Herbs are hard to come by and make a huge difference in your meal preparation. Basil, dill, rosemary, and cilantro are the basics. Mint, oregano, and parsley are also nice. They really do not like the heat of summer, so keep them in a shady place and give them lots of water and TLC.

Once you have your groceries, look at what you are working with, Usually, you can make something delicious from about 50 mets worth of produce (about $2). If you are entertaining Mozambican guests, be sure to serve your “caril” (sauce) with rice or xima. I tend to make tasty veggies and eat them with some fresh bread or Agua e Sals (crackers found just about everywhere in Moz, thicker and less salty than a saltine, and really delicious with just about anything). Pasta salads are also really easy and though my Mozambican friends first thought of them as an incomplete meal, they are growing to enjoy them, as I throw so much in there they like the variety of tastes in each bite. If you have a friend who grows rice in their machamba, keep them close. Fresh rice makes an ordinary meal extraordinary.

Okay so for some recipes:

Garlic Eggplant
2-3 small eggplants
5-7 cloves of garlic
2 small onions
olive oil
black pepper
rock salt
10 or so basil leaves
Cut up the onions pretty small and the garlic even smaller. If you are lucky enough to have a garlic press, use it! Cut the eggplant into pinky-sized cubes. In a pan, heat up the oil a bit. Toss in the garlic and onions. Let them get going a bit, but not too long since eggplant takes a good minute to cook, and then add the eggplant. Keep an eye on this as you want it to all cook evenly (which is tough if you are working with irregular electricity or even worse if you are on charcoal). Add a pinch or two of salt pretty early on and a lot of black pepper soon thereafter. I like to just cover the whole thing with fresh ground black pepper. Once the eggplants are soft, turn off the heat and add the basil. Enjoy with Agua e Sals like a dip of sorts or with pasta or rice. If you want you can add tomatoes or some greens if you have them. This is great with greens as well (add them just before the eggplant is finished). Some like the tomatoes but I think they take away from the integrity of the eggplant.

Ginger Black Bean Dip
an inch or so of ginger root
7-8 garlic cloves
1-2 onions
2 cups of black beans
3 or 4 piri piris
olive oil
juice of 2 lemons
Soak the beans overnight. If you are looking to save energy, soak them in hot water. Cook them until they are nice and soft, breaking open a bit. Once they are finished drain any extra water. Put them into a bowl and add chopped ginger, garlic and onions. Mash it all together until its dip like. Add some lemon juice, olive oil, and piri piris (hot peppers). Enjoy with home-made tortillas or good ole Agua e Sals (who at this point should really be sponsoring this blog). I usually also chop up some carrots and cucumbers to dip in there.
You can also add an egg and a little flour to the mix and make some killer bean burgers.

Brushetta
5 tomatoes
5 cloves of garlic
2 onions
basil
olive oil
lemon juice
black pepper
salt
When tomatoes are cheap (June – August) take advantage of them! Make gazpacho, salsa, and brushetta. Cut up the tomatoes, garlic, and onions. Mix together with olive oil and the juice of a lemon. I, obviously, like to put in a lot of black pepper and a little salt. Fresh basil is key, I would say double the number of tomatoes and that's how many leaves of basil you should chop up and add (or more si quiser). Enjoy with fresh market bread. If you want to make this a full meal, boil yourself an egg. The juice that you are left with once you have eaten all of it makes an awesome salad dressing, but it will not keep more than a couple of days.

Veggie Stir Fry
4-5 garlic cloves
an inch of ginger
soy sauce
2 tsp spicy mustard
1 onion
¼ cabbage
2 carrots
a handful of green beans
1 green pepper
cashews
spaghetti pasta
olive oil
piri piris
Get the onions, garlic, and ginger going in the olive oil. Add about 5 tablespoons of soy sauce. Cut the veggies in medium sized pieces and add them all at about the same time, last for the green peppers, green beans, and piri piris. Add a little water if it seems to be dry or more soy sauce if you can afford it. Add in the mustard and make sure it gets really mixed in there, it will make your sauce thicker and give it a nice kick. Add cooked pasta in as well as a handful of cashews and mix it all up so the pasta really looks like real Chinese take out. Enjoy. If you are getting fancy you can get yourself some fresh camarão (shrimp) and add that to the mix. Also, all of these veggies can be substituted for whatever else you have on hand; I just do not recommend tomatoes. Something about soy sauce and tomatoes does not go well together.

Creole Butternut Squash
one butternut squash
olive oil
Tony's Creole Seasoning (to be sent in a care package from home)
Skin the squash and get the insides out. Cut it into just bigger than bite sized pieces (or whatever you feel like really). Put it in a pan and cover with olive oil and Tony's. Put in the oven (read: dutch oven) and cook until its soft. Try not to eat the whole thing in one sitting-one squash is really a lot for one person. Plus this is delicious cold or thrown into a salad the next day. This recipe also works with wild pumpkin and is a great way to impress your neighbors that you know how to cook abobora (pumpkin).

MSG Popcorn
cooking oil
popcorn
Benny's Caldo
This is not really a recipe, just a really great idea (thank you J-Mills). Add caldo (chicken stock) to your popcorn instead of salt. It might be bad for you (research is very unclear on this), but it tastes so good.

Granola
butter
sugar
oats
vanilla
cinnamon
cashews
raisins
This is stove-top granola, for all of you out there without ovens. Melt butter (about 4 tablespoons for a small box of jungle oats, I think 500 g, of oatmeal) and sugar (depending on how sweet you like it, I do about 2-4 tablespoons for that one box of oats). Add oats. Stir constantly so that the oats get all sticky and coated and delicious looking. Add some vanilla (I only get the cheap imitation kind so I use a lot), it will make a nice sizzling noise and make the room smell awesome. Add some cinnamon (about a tablespoon). Add raisins and cashews if you have them. Substitute roasted peanuts if you rather. Shredded coconut is also a great addition. I like to also add a little salt once it is all said and done.

I hope this gets you all thinking about the delicious food I am currently eating and a little jealous. Tonight, I made a really tasty salad with carrots, apples, raisins, cucumbers, and dill. I could probably have a whole blog just about salads, but I think now I should return to writing about justice for those with not voice beside their buzz.