Creamy Calaloo & Sweet Potato Hash Brown

I really want to make yummy food with the fruits, vegetables, and ingredients found in Guyana. With that being said, I tried to tackle calaloo yet again. I'm pretty sure it comes from the spinach family, although, in my opinion, regular spinach is much better. I had the idea to make creamy calaloo by using milk when cooking the calaloo.

So this is what I did:
Bought 2 steams of calaloo and cut the leaves and placed in the kahari with a little water to steam. Once it started to wilt I drained the water and added milk (just a little, maybe 1/2 cup) to the calaloo and brought to a boil, added garlic, onion and ginger. It was a little too watery still so I added chunks of pumpkin.
It was yummy and I thought it would be good over pasta or with roti however, I was not really hungry after I made it so I put it in the fridge to eat the next day.

I knew I was going to make sweet potato hash brown and scrambled eggs for breakfast but then I remembered my creamy calaloo!
So I made sweet potato hash browns topped with the creamy calaloo. It was so good.
I grated 1/2 of a sweet potato and because I love pumpkin I grated a small piece of pumpkin and mixed with the sweet potato.
I heated my tawa with a little margarine and placed the sweet potato/pumpkin stack, I love the sizzling sound it made.
In my kahari I heated up the creamy calaloo and scrambled one egg. I placed this on top of my hash brown.

Sorry the picture is a little blurry

I definitely want to make more things with calaloo, after all it's full of folic acid and iron!

~Sara

Pumpkin: It's What's for Dinner...

...& lunch & breakfast, & even dessert.

I've had pumpkin in every meal today I love it! (Bare with me if you're not a huge pumpkin fan).

Lunch

Tuna mixed with celery, garlic, onion, tomatoes, carrots and pumpkin, a little salt & pepper & and lemon juice
I just threw everything together in the kahari. I enjoyed it a lot!

Dinner:

Pumpkin, Carrot, Ginger, Coconut Soup

So with all the pureed pumpkin I have sitting around I was just going to make a pumpkin-banana smoothie but I wasn't craving that I was craving more roti. What goes well with roti? Soup. And I got to make something new!

1 cup pureed pumpkin
1/2 cup grated carrots
2 t. grated coconut
2 cloves garlic (diced)
1 inch ginger (diced)

That's it!

I placed everything in my blender to mix and chop things more finely.


Then threw in a sauce pan to heat.

So easy & delish!

I added wheat germ in my flour to make roti


Dessert:

NO Bake Oatmeal-Peanut Butter Pumpkin Topped Cookies

Sugar
Butter
Milk
Pinch of salt
1 Tbsp Peanut butter
½ t. Vanilla
Oats

Heat milk, sugar, butter, & salt bring to a boil for one minute.
Stir in peanut butter, oats & vanilla. Let it thicken and then scoop rounds out on to cookie sheet or cutting board.

Pumpkin topping:
Heat sugar with a very little bit of butter
Stirring well until mixture turns to a liquid and brown, add a little pureed pumpkin and mix. I even add a little shredded coconut.
Top over cookies and place cookie in the fridge to settle.

This little guys are yummy!

~Sara

Pumpkin Spice Oatmeal

Pumpkin Spice Oatmeal with Bananas & Candied Peanuts

Oatmeal is a huge breakfast staple but lets be honest, it can get boring fast. So I've been experimenting with different, fun, and flavorful options to dress up our dear oats.
I love pumpkin and I make it at least once a week. I buy one pound and lately I've been cooking it and pureeing it to add to smoothies, or to bake pumpkin cookies or adding it to my oatmeal.

1/2 cup pureed pumpkin
1/2 cup oats (or how ever much you want)
pinch nutmeg
pinch cinnamon
1/2 t. vanilla
salt & sugar optional

I put a little water in my pan just to cover the bottom and add my 1/2 cup pumpkin, bring to a slight boil. Add oats, nutmeg, cinnamon, vanilla, salt & sugar, stir well for about 2 minutes.
You could also use milk if you like it creamier.

Top with 1/2 sliced banana and candied peanuts (late last night I made candied peanuts and they were so good in today's oatmeal)

Enjoy!

~Sara

Spicy Beans

I found a recipe for spicy bean dip but being hungry and not having enough patients with the blender I settled for spicy beans.

I will most definitely make this again, hopefully I'll have a potato masher and make actual bean dip. When I do make it again this is the recipe I'll follow:

1/2 pint cooked beans (preferably black beans) (or one can beans)
2 1/2 Tbsp curry paste (curry powder mixed with water)
1/2 small can tomato sauce (or I'll make my own)
4 cloves garlic
1 onion
juice from 1/2 lemon
pinch of salt
a few dashes of cinnamon
olive oil

Pre-heat pan with olive oil saute garlic and onions. Add curry paste and tomato sauce, stir. Add beans salt and cinnamon, mix well. Lastly add lemon juice.
You could also add hot sauce or hot peppers depending on how spicy you want it.
To make a dip mash or blend everything until you get the consistency you prefer.

I think if you don't make it into a dip it would be good over rice and/or with chicken.

Doesn't that look delicious?

I ate mine with carrots and celery. Yes, that's celery...it's very small. It's not meant to be eaten raw it's used as seasoning.

~Sara

Sara's Homemade Frozen

One of my favorite treats during training was Frozen. My host mom made it and every afternoon I had one. I'm pretty sure it was just whole milk, sugar and essence (vanilla) mixed together and poured into Popsicle (or icicles as they are called here) bags and placed in the freezer to get frozen.

With some very ripe bananas, shredded coconut, a little coconut milk, and vanilla I made my own Frozen!

2 ripe bananas
1/2 of a coconut (grated)
1/2 cup coconut milk (or use the liquid from the grated coconut)
2 pinches of cinnamon (optional)
1 tsp vanilla
*I decided not to add sugar to mine but you most certainly could

Use a blended to blend everything together. You want it smooth and creamy.
I didn't use Popsicle bags instead I used small plastic containers and placed in my freezer.
I prefer to eat it before it gets completely frozen.

I couldn't resist it's just so light, delicious and healthy!

"Pone"

There's this yummy, delicious treat here in Guyana known as Pone (whenever I say it people look at me like I'm speaking the most foreign language, that also happens when I say "pawpaw").
Anyway, It's this sweet, spicy, gooey, bread type thing, BUT, it's not made with any flour. When I found out it's just casava, coconut, butter, cinnamon, nutmeg, sugar, and black pepper (Yes black pepper, that's the kicker!) I was dying to try my hand at it.
I went out and bought all the ingredients and was so excited for get crackin'...



Here's my list of ingredients:
1 lb Cassava
1/2 coconut
1 egg (not sure if an egg is really necessary?)
Cinnamon
Nutmeg
Black pepper
Butter (maybe I used 1/2 cup?)
1 tsp vanilla

*Grate coconut & cassava, place in a big bowl
*Add all other ingredients, sorry I didn't measure the spices (this was not as peppery as the 'real' one I had) maybe add a little to begin and taste to see if you like it and add as necessary. You should taste the cinnamon and nutmeg more than the pepper but you definitely want to be able to taste the pepper.


Ok, now the difficult part (for me anyways) since we don't have an oven I just figured I could "bake" it on the tawa, I was wrong! They came out like sweet, cinnamon hash browns, I'm not saying they are bad, I actually think they taste good but they are very far from the bread type of pone that the locals make. I don't know what I did wrong, besides not having an oven...
So if anyone out there knows about pone or tries this in an oven can you please let help me out?!



I think I need to watch someone who knows what they are doing make this before I try it again. But at least I know what's for breakfast tomorrow!

~Sara

Update:
I found a Guyanese recipe for pone. The only thing I did wrong was not beat the egg first and I didn't use an oven.

Chelsea gets Soupy

Yo, Soup's Up!

So you would think that on sweltering hot, Guyana nights you would not want to eat hot foods, right? But for some reason, I have been on a serious soup kick recently. Soup is just so easy to make. Usually you only need one pot and sometimes a blender and it is a great way to use up some of those random items sitting on your shelf. A while ago, I was way too tired to go shopping and so we decided to make soup from whatever we had in our house. This is what my Oma used to do with her leftovers and it used to freak me out. Does this mean I am getting old? Anyway, it was delicious!

And so this week, Tim and I made two new soups: Black Bean and Chicken Potato Peanut. These soups are inspired from recipes on EatingWell.com and modified to use Guyanese ingredients. Enjoy them with something cheesy for us, like quesadillas or grilled cheese sandwiches.

Oma-Inspired Left Over Soup (plus homemade Chicken Stock)

For the ingredient list I will not give you measurements, since we didn’t measure. We just used about equal portions of everything that we had in tupperwares in our mini fridge.

· Homemade chicken broth

· Macaroni noodles, cooked

· Black eye beans, cooked

· 2 carrots, cut into bite sized pieces

· 4 small sweet peppers, chopped

· ½ can corn

· 1 small yellow onion

· dashes of salt, oregano, basil, chili powder, Spike, and sugar

· you can seriously add anything else in here; chicken, potato, milk to make it creamy…you are

only limited by your creativity and supplies in your pantry. The challenge is though to use only left

overs…

First you need a broth. So, never in my life did I think I was going to be boiling left over chicken parts in water every 6 hours to make a homemade broth but I found that it was a great way to use the bones and skin of the chicken that we would otherwise have thrown away (I miss boneless, skinless chicken breasts by the way…). And you can’t exactly find premade chicken or vegetable broth in the stores here. Either way, you’ll need some broth. Here’s what we did:

Start with left over chicken parts in a pot of water. Use a bit more water than you want to make broth, since it will evaporate. Add some salt, black pepper and seasonings and bring to a boil. Cover and leave on the stove. Bring to a boil about every six hours or so, until you are ready to make soup. I usually boil it once in the evening, early the next morning, right when I get home from work and then lastly when I make the soup. Strain out yucky chicken bits and fat and, TA-DA you have a broth!

Bring the broth to a boil and add all of the above ingredients. Simmer for about 5 minutes and enjoy your left over soup! Thanks Oma!

Black Bean Soup

• 1 tablespoon cooking oil
• 1 small onion, chopped
• 1 tablespoon chili powder
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1 pint black beans
• 3 cups water
• 1 small can of Hernanz hot salsa sent from home by Mom
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 fresh squeezed lime

Soak beans for at least 6 hours. Put beans in pressure pot with enough water to fully submerge beans and pressure for 25 minutes or until soft.

Heat oil in kahari. Add onion and cook until beginning to soften. Add chili powder and cumin and stir for about another minute. Add cooked beans, water, salsa and salt. Bring to a boil; reduce heat and simmer for 10 minutes. Remove from the heat and stir in lime juice.

Transfer half the soup to a blender and puree (umm, don’t hold the blender lid without a towel on top to protect your had from freakin’ hot liquid. I learned this the hard way). Stir the puree back into the saucepan.

Chicken Potato Peanut Soup

• 1 small yellow onion, chopped
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 teaspoon cooking oil
• 1 can v8 tomato/veggie juice
• 2 teaspoons minced fresh ginger
• 1 dried habanero chile, minced
• a dash or two of Spike seasoning
• 1 vegetable bullion cube in 1 ½ cups hot water to make broth
• 1 cup smooth peanut butter
• 3 chicken breasts, cut into bite sized pieces

Peel potatoes and cut into bite sized pieces. Boil until soft. Set aside to cool.

Prepare broth by heating water and adding bullion cube. Put broth, half the cooked potatoes and peanut butter into blender and puree until smooth.

In your kahari (because by now you have this Guyanese stew pot like we do, right?) heat oil and sautee chicken, onion, garlic, ginger and habanero chile with a dash of Spike until chicken is almost cooked. Add can of V8 and bring to a boil. Add half the cooked potatoes into the kahari then slowly mix in the peanut, broth, potato mix from the blender. Enjoy your delicious soup.

Sara's Masala

I had a bunch of eddo leaf left over so I fingured I would just cook it and eat it with channa but then I had an idea....blend it....

Wilted eddo leaf + blender = masala?

Ok, I’m not really sure if masala is even the right word for the dish I’m thinking of…an Indian green, paste, spicy dish that’s really good over rice or with naan?

sorry our pictures don't look appetizing :(

The definition of masala is “mixture”

Anyway, I’m calling this Masala…

Eddo leaf

1 inch Ginger

Carrot

Olive oil

1 tsp curry powder

pinch of salt

I cooked the eddo leaf until it was wilted with water and diced ginger (the ginger smelt so good cooking).

Once it was wilted enough I placed it in the blended along with grated carrot and olive oil (I would have put a lot more olive oil if I had more and I would have added garlic and onion but I was out)

I blended until smooth (I had to add a little more water)

Then I added the curry powder and salt, along with a few chickpeas (channa) and blended some more.

I was so surprised how good it tasted!!

Although, I’m not sure why Eddo leaf scratches your throat…

I topped my day old greens rice with my masala and I’ll have it tomorrow for lunch with chickpeas (channa).