Sunday, December 05, 2010
Two Weeks Until Village Life...
Written by
Tana
Hi Everyone! Here's what's new with us in Burkina...
Today I am going to play tennis with my host family. Haha. This week we will meet our counterparts who will act as professional advisors to us in the next two years in our village. It will be really cool to finally get some concrete details about our village and start thinking about how we will be able to collaborate with our counterparts. On Friday, I will pick up some more exciting outfits from the tailor. No shrimp this time, but I'm excited just the same. Saturday Dec. 11 is one of the independence days of Burkina Faso, so that should be fun, but I'm not sure if our host family is planning anything yet. Then on Dec. 16 we will have our "swearing-in" ceremony where we will become official Peace Corps volunteers. We will spend some time with the US Ambassador to Burkina, take an oath, and several trainees (including me) will give short speeches in local languages. Then our move to village begins! Because we're going so far south, our move will take about 2 days, but we'll be traveling with some friends.
We need your help! We will be moving to our own house in two weeks, and we would like to make some delicious meals once we are there, especially for Christmas. We are looking for recipes for the following dishes and sauces, so please post them as a comment if you know them! Also, feel free to add any other recipes that you think would benefit us, but keep in mind that we have no refrigeration, a very small Dutch oven (think large pot on a stove), and limited access to meats and cheese. Still, we'd like to try to create the following things:
Grandma’s rolls
Dad’s fried chicken strips
Leslie’s deviled eggs
Sherry’s fried green tomatoes
Papa Chester’s French toast (ok I know it’s a secret recipe so you can send it to me by email and I promise not to print, forward, or otherwise publish it in any way)
Eric's homemade mozzarella sticks, if they turned out ok when you made them
Pickles
Potato soup
Pickle relish
Basil pesto
Italian dressing
Cole Slaw
Potato salad
Croutons
Carson’s chili and/or sesame chicken sauce
Thanks to anyone who can help us out! You will get full credit if we prepare something you suggest and our friends and neighbors like it!
Keep in touch! We like hearing from you as much as you like hearing from us! (Or perhaps more...)
PS-Happy birthday Britni, and happy almost birthday Jamie!
Today I am going to play tennis with my host family. Haha. This week we will meet our counterparts who will act as professional advisors to us in the next two years in our village. It will be really cool to finally get some concrete details about our village and start thinking about how we will be able to collaborate with our counterparts. On Friday, I will pick up some more exciting outfits from the tailor. No shrimp this time, but I'm excited just the same. Saturday Dec. 11 is one of the independence days of Burkina Faso, so that should be fun, but I'm not sure if our host family is planning anything yet. Then on Dec. 16 we will have our "swearing-in" ceremony where we will become official Peace Corps volunteers. We will spend some time with the US Ambassador to Burkina, take an oath, and several trainees (including me) will give short speeches in local languages. Then our move to village begins! Because we're going so far south, our move will take about 2 days, but we'll be traveling with some friends.
We need your help! We will be moving to our own house in two weeks, and we would like to make some delicious meals once we are there, especially for Christmas. We are looking for recipes for the following dishes and sauces, so please post them as a comment if you know them! Also, feel free to add any other recipes that you think would benefit us, but keep in mind that we have no refrigeration, a very small Dutch oven (think large pot on a stove), and limited access to meats and cheese. Still, we'd like to try to create the following things:
Grandma’s rolls
Dad’s fried chicken strips
Leslie’s deviled eggs
Sherry’s fried green tomatoes
Papa Chester’s French toast (ok I know it’s a secret recipe so you can send it to me by email and I promise not to print, forward, or otherwise publish it in any way)
Eric's homemade mozzarella sticks, if they turned out ok when you made them
Pickles
Potato soup
Pickle relish
Basil pesto
Italian dressing
Cole Slaw
Potato salad
Croutons
Carson’s chili and/or sesame chicken sauce
Thanks to anyone who can help us out! You will get full credit if we prepare something you suggest and our friends and neighbors like it!
Keep in touch! We like hearing from you as much as you like hearing from us! (Or perhaps more...)
PS-Happy birthday Britni, and happy almost birthday Jamie!
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11 comments:
Hobson's Hot Potato Salad
6 slices of bacon
1 1/2 lbs boiled potatoes (red)
2 onions
4 hard boiled eggs
1/2 c. vinegar
2 chopped carrots
Pepper, salt
Combine all including bacon drippings
I can't wait to get Carson's chili recipe!! Yum!!!!
Much love,
Janice
I forgot 2 T sugar too.
Janice
Hey guys Pesto comes from the word pestal and just means crushed or ground. Usually people crush basil leaves but you can use any green leafy veggie or herb like spinach or mint; of course the flavor will change.
2 cups packed fresh basil leaves
2 cloves garlic
1/4 cup pine nuts (or any nut you have except peanuts)
2/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil, divided
salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
Crush the basil cloves nuts and salt and pepper
Slowly add oil as you keep crushing
Add cheese last.
This is easy with a food processor and pretty labor intense without so consider just rough chopping the dry ingredients and tossing them all with the pasta. Then pour oil on that and top with cheese.
We call this the un pesto pasta salad.
Love-Janet
What is your access to canned goods & spices? I can provide you with Man Chili supplies via mail as a holiday gift but want to see what you have access to. No sense in mailing over heavy cans if you can get the same stuff over there. Let me know! Carson PS I have never made sesame chicken but will provide you with my "Asian" chicken recipie asap...
My world-renowned Daddy's special chicken is often imitated, but never duplicated ....
equal parts all-purpose flour and italian bread crumbs (if can't get italian bread crumbs, let me know and I'll give you list of spices to mix with dried-up bread)
2 tbsp salt
2 tbsp paprika
mix breading ingredients together in bowl (or hollow rock)
cut chicken into strips (kill and pluck chicken before cutting into strips)
fill pan with oil and heat to pretty hot
dip strips in breading and place in pan of hot oil cook until golden brown or same temperature as outside air
Good luck
Love Dad
Leslie's deviled eggs:
get some eggs before you kill the chicken for my recipe above.
put eggs in pan, cover with (clean drinkable) water and boil for 10 minutes.
remove from water, crack shell and peel off carefully.
slice in half longways and don't drop yolk
put yolk in separate bowl.
into bowl add the following:
2 parts miracle whip, 1 part mustard, pinch of salt, sweet pickle relish to taste. Use the Pickle relish juice (don't drain off)
Whip yolk mixture until thoroughly mixed and fluffy with fork
fill center of eggs with yolk mixture and then eat.
Love, Leslie
Fried Green Tomatoes
you need:
green tomatoes (duh)
flour mixed with a little bread crumbs if available
egg
salt N peppa
oil
Very easy...slice about 1/2 inch thin. Dip in egg, then dip in flour mixture (flour breadcrumbs satlnpeppa). Fry in a nice layer of oil med high heat until brown.
Enjoy!
Sherry
Absolutely no cooking advice from me...I almost caught a cup on fire in the Goddard microwave a couple weeks ago! But I can tell you how to make tea...boil water, put in tea bags, put in lots of sugar....enjoy! Emily says formula rocks, and oatmeal cereal would be better with sugar!
Does Eric refer to my Eric? :)
Well, we did make mozzarella sticks and they were pretty good. Just eat them quick after they come out of the oil so that it's warm.
String cheese (or mozzarella cut into stick shapes)
Flour
Bread crumbs (season to taste with salt, pepper, spices, etc)
1 Egg beaten
Enough hot oil to deep fry
Dunk the mozzarella sticks in the flour and shake off the excess.
Dunk the flour covered cheese in the egg.
Roll the egg covered cheese in the bread crumbs to coat fully.
Throw into hot oil to deep fry. They will probably not turn brown. It only takes about 2 mins to fry if your oil is hot (350 degrees-ish). Don't over fry them. We left ours in for more like four mins and they started spewing cheese out the sides!
In our experience they got cold quick. I don't know how restaurants make them so hot!
Happy Feasting! Have fun in your new place!
April
These comments are hilarious.
Thanks, Mom, Dale, Janet, Ken (we will try to often imitate it, but never duplicate it), Leslie, Sherry, Stacy.
Carson - I'll be able to definitively say what spices are available after Christmas. You are a very kind gentleman to offer to send the provisions, but you should just save up your dinero to come visit us. Also, see if you can take air force one.
And yes, April, you and Eric make one mean mozzarella schtick. Sometimes
...Tana has dreams with dancing mozzarella sticks.
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