Poor Man’s Peace Corps Pesto

So this whole time that we’ve been cooking up random, resourceful recipes the lovely Peace Corps Guyana has had a volunteer cook book. We knew of this manuscripts existence, but out of pride and the fact that we all have Macs (and the book was in Microsoft Publisher format), we were not privy unto it’s contents. However, a benevolent benefactor at PCHQ , who shall not name (only because we really don't know who put it in our box) we now have in our possession. Do not despair, this will not end our culinary explorations, rather it shall deepen them. Here is our first adaptation and discovery. PESTO! I love Italians. I wonder if Columbus brought this to the new world too hmmmm...

2 cups of “Married Man Pork” (Which we have in garden! See photo below. Get the joke with the name? Eh, tough crowd.) Oh yeah, for those of you not Guyanese this is fresh basil or fresh thai basil...Bombness!




About a 1/2 cup of Olive Oil

About 3/4 cup of ground peanuts, walnuts, or cashews (How I miss pine nuts...) I think we even put some walnuts in it (Thanks, Oma for the Granola ingredients!)

6 cloves of garlic

Cut up the garlic and some of the married man pork, maybe ground some of the nuts if they are not ground yet.
Combine into blender (or food processor) and blend it up. I am even thinking about putting some fresh broad leaf thyme in here, but I haven’t tried it yet. Next time. Keep inventing!
-TT.

Chicken/Veggie Stir Fry

So the longer one cooks food, the less nutrients it has. Guyanese like to destroy their food. They pressure or fry their veggies until all semblance of color is dispersed. We try to tell them that when they do this it takes away the nutritional value, but I don’t think they like the hardish texture of not obliterated veggies. For example, we had a salad one time with fresh lettuce, tomato, carrot, cucumber, and a homemade vinigarette, and our Guyanese guest just looked at it and said, “Wha' that!?” Anyway, this is a nice little dish that is quite good and doesn’t destroy the veggies. One of our goals here is try and get some Guyanese to eat healthier and this could be one of our target dishes. However, there will be challenges since carrot is primarily for color, not nutrition here, and bora is rarely served when it’s not in fried rice or chow mein.

Bora (green beans)
Cabbage
Carrot
Tomato
Chicken
Salt and Black Pepper
Butter

If you want Chicken, saute it in some of the butter. Once the Chicken is cooked, take out of pan.
In another pan or cleaned kaharee, saute the bora, cabbage, and carrot in butter. After a few minutes, once some of those veggies have been cooked (you still want them to have texture), stir in Tomato and Chicken. Add Salt and Pepper to taste.

Guy-Nachos

Yes, more Mexican food. Its oozy, cheesy, refried- beany goodness. And as mentioned in the last recipe, Mexican food is one of god’s gifts. So, really, if it’s possible, it should be eaten at least once or twice a week like a church service, you know? My favorite part of this whole recipe is that its all baked! So there are plenty of ingredients on every bite!

Tortilla chips
Refried beans
Cheese
Did I mention cheese?
Tomatoes
Salsa
(Corn)

Make the refried beans, or just buy a can. Grate the cheese (as much as you think you’ll use). Cut up the tomatoes, open the can of corn. Make your salsa.

On a baking sheet (or as we do it in Guyana in a frying pan, sitting on a tawa and topped by a tawa (see enchaladas)) place chips and top with Cheese and Refried beans. (It is also possible if you have a baking sheet to top every chip with some cheese and beans)

Bake for about 10 minutes. Until cheese is melted.

Top with tomatoes and salsa. (you can add other stuff too if you got it like sour cream, guacamole, etc.)

Comfort from the Gods: Mac and Cheese

Comfort food. These two words take on a whole different meaning now. They mean warm bellies, a particular hidden, satisfied smile, and a happy cow shattered silence ( When the consuming silence around the table is broken by occasional “mmmmoos” of pleasure). This is a Tony recipe and its pretty bomb. It’s mac and cheese, man! It’s glorious, for cheese was, of course, the gods’ gift to mankind. I mean it must be up there with fire, creation, mexican food, and pizza, right?

Elbow Macaroni
1/2 lb of Cheese (or more)
Milk
A whipped egg.
Salt
X (Variable Ingredient)

Prep your pasta, boiling it.
Drain pasta, put it pack in the pot. Slowly stir in half of the cheese, watch it melt.
Stir in some milk and the egg. Continue stirring
Finish up the rest of the cheese. Stir until melted and sticky. Heat pot if necessary.
It is also possible to stir in other things, we’ve added pumpkin (thanks Sara!), another time it was bacon. We put some shallot in there once, and even red onion. Use what you think and what you like. It’s mac and cheese! So easy!
-TT

Hummus

As we’ve mentioned so many times before, Guyana has a lot of chick-peas, a.k.a. channa. We’ve dreamt of creating hummus for a while since channa is the primary ingredient, but never really took the steps to make it happen. Until now. We were feeling the slump; a proverbial culinary one. It took several conversations with current volunteers, a few looks at the Internet, and a desire for change to make it happen. And it did. For the betterment of men and womenkind...well, at least, for the Linden 4. Since there is no worse slump than one of culinary proportions.

Channa (Chick Peas either in a can, or as we do it, dried, that have been soaked for 8 hours.)

About a 1 1/2 cups of either the canned channa water, or your water from when you boiled the channa.

4-5 cloves of garlic, cut up a bit

1 Red or White Onion, cut up

Olive oil (round about 2-3 tbsp)

1-1.5 tbsp of Peanut butter (better if it’s natural flavored as opposed to artificially sweetened; better yet if you have tahini sauce. We don’t. But if you want to send us some. Please do!)

Geerah (or as you Am-ER-icans say Cumin.)

X (What is X, you ask? Well it's what you want. We’ve used some green olives the storekeeper near us bought, but we’ve also put some pesto in here. Maybe if you’re feeling it..some curry powder (hmm I’ll have to try that). Basically experiment, I know we will!)



Soak and boil your channa (or just open the can, and put them in the blender)
Combine the ingredients in a blender (or food processor if you’re so lucky). Blend on a lower speed to make sure it’s flowing. You can even switch it to a higher gear if you’re feeling it. Anyway, eventually all will be blended and all will be good.
You can even salt to taste.

-T & C

Roti

Roti? Whaaaa? When I first came to Guyana I didn’t have a clue what this wonderful morsel was. However within the first night at our host families house this atrocity was quickly rectified with our first Guyanese, home cooked meal: Roti and Curry. It looked delectable: these warm tortilla looking things steamed next to a heaping helping of curry. I grabbed my fork and dug in-- well I tried, our host mom quickly stopped me from sullying her food by using a fork, she explained that when Roti is on the plate we don’t use forks. Nice one. I sure did my cultural studies. Not. Anyway, I put the fork down and scooped up the curry with this flat bread and it was delicious. Roti, who woulda thought? So how does one make this delicious treat which we have found can also stand in for our California-centric desire for tortillas? Let us explain.* However, it should noted that this is the short cut way to make roti taught to us by a younger Guyanese generation. A Guyanese elder watching this process would suck their teeth, shake their head, and then do it for you in their own more complicated way with the exact, same result.


Flour
Salt
Baking Powder
Water
Margarine

Put your flour in a large aluminum bowl, the amount depends on how much you want to make we use about 1 to 2 cups. Take a couple pinches of salt and baking powder and sprinkle it onto the flour mixing it all together.
Slowly add water to the flour mixture, kneading it and making it kinda sticky. Once most of the flour has been used keep kneading until its smooth and has the consistency of chewed bubble gum.

Piece the dough into blobs that are a little bigger than golf balls. (don’t worry about making them perfect spheres)

Smear a little butter (margarine), about the size of a pinky nail, over the entire top of the blob. Dust buttered blob with dry flour.

Take blob, stretch it out and then fold it towards you two or three times. (hot dog style for those used to folding paper in classrooms) as seen below.



Rotate blob 45 degrees, and roll folded blob up like a tortilla, or a cinnamon roll. Stand on end, with spiral roll facing the ceiling. See pictures below.




Dust a flat surface, like a cutting board or a flat counter, with flour. Place the rolled dough in the middle. Dust a rolling pin. And then roll the dough flat, like a tortilla.



Heat up the Tawa (or frying pan) Place the flattened dough on the pan, heat for a minute, then flip it, rubbing the slightly cooked side with oil (or butter), flip again, rub the other side with oil (or butter) let it sit on each side, flipping it occasionally until its cooked through. If you want to eat the roti like a tortilla you can stop here. However, if you want to make roti for eating with say, curry, you should place the cooked roti in a pitcher and shake it until it starts to fall apart slightly. The old school Guyanese use their hands to accomplish this stage, clapping it hence the name, but that is way too freaking hot for our little hands!

-T & C

*This if for Clap-up Roti, which is the flat, tortilla-like roti. But there are other versions like Sada which is a roti that puffs up as you cook it, but we couldn’t recall the recipe.

*Cook-Up Rice

*Tony and Sara’s version

Cook-up is rice, beans, coconut milk and lots of other stuff pressure cooked. I must say, it's one of my favorite Guyanese dishes.
However, mine and Tony's version is so much better!! I could eat this multiple times per week.

I dare you to try it!

1 cup rice
1 can coconut milk
1 Tablespoon curry powder
½-1 Tablespoon cumin
1 can beans (whatever you prefer: black, kidney, navy) or dry beans (cook first)
Veggies (bora, eggplant, sweet peppers is what we mostly use) get creative
1 onion
3 cloves garlic
2 small hot peppers
1 inch ginger
A little more curry and cumin and pinches of salt
Olive oil

Rinse rice if needs be and put in a cooking pot. Add the whole can of coconut milk and a little water. Add 1 Tablespoon curry powder and ½-1 Tablespoon cumin, a few pinches of salt, stir well and place lid on top of pan and cook. You can stir occasionally, you know it’s done when the liquid has been absorbed, if it’s soupy let it cook longer or you can add the beans. Either way stir in your canned/cooked beans when rice is almost finished.

In a separate pan heat a little olive oil then add diced hot peppers and garlic stir for a few minutes. Then add diced onion and ginger and stir a few more minutes. Add all your veggies and when everything is lightly coated in olive oil sprinkle a little more curry powder. Stir well and cook for about 5 minutes. After that mix the veggies with the rice and beans. Mix well and enjoy!
This dish is full of bursting flavor and oh so yummy!