Sunday, September 28, 2014

FOIL GRILLED BEEF WITH HERBS SAUCE



INGREDIENTS:

  • 1 cut of  T bone beef
  • 1/2 teaspoon of salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon of  ground black pepper
  • 1/2 teaspoon of  ground garlic
  • 1/2 teaspoon of fine white sugar
  • olive oil

SAUCE INGREDIENTS:
  • half teaspoon of dried mint leaves
  • half teaspoon of dried parsley leaves
  • half teaspoon of dried rosemary leaves
  • 1 table spoon of sugar
  • 1 teaspoon of fine salt
  • 2 tablespoon of  vinegar
  • 2 tablespoon of  powder milk
  • olive oil

PROCEDURE:
  • in a  small  bowl, mixed all the ingredients until  it is well blended.
  • place the  T bone beef in a plate and rub the  mixed  ingredients well to the beef. Make sure that the beef will be  totally covered with  the mixed ingredients
  • place the beef in the plate and   chill it in the  fridge for about 30 minutes
  • after chilling, place the  beef in a foil, then dress it with olive oil and covered  and sealed it very well with the foil 
  • then place the  foiled beef in a charcoal stove in a low heat and grilled it. make sure that the foiled  beef will be totally covered by  a slow burning charcoal. it is up to you if you want it medium or well done. 
  • remove the   beef from the  charcoal fire, unfoiled  it and place the beef in the big plate, topped it with  the prepared sauce. Paired  it with coleslaw,  sweet potatoes fries or avocado salad, the  serve.

PROCEDURE IN SAUCE PREPARATIONS:
  • in a small bowl, mixed all the ingredients  well.
  • then chill it in the fridge
  • when the beef is already cooked, place it  in the plate, then pour  the sauce  on the beef.

WARM HONEY LEMON TEA



Feeling bloated, having a sore throat, just wanted digest your food well or simply to make you relax , try this easy to prepare warm honey lemon tea.

INGREDIENTS:


  • 2 tablespoon of freshly squeeze deseeded lemon
  • 1 tea bag
  • 2 tablespoon of African wild  honey
  • warm water
PROCEDURES:

  • put the tea bag in the warm water in a mug
  • add the honey and lemon and stir it gently
  • then transfer the mixture into  a wine glass
  • garnish it with the lemon pulp and put a slice lemon in the rim of your glass
  • and viola, you have now a refreshing warm honey lemon tea to enjoy!

Sunday, September 14, 2014

SUFU YA MFUPA KWA NGOMBE (Beef Bones Soup)




INGREDIENTS:

·        1 kl. Beef bones
·        2 pcs potatoes, quartered
·        1 bell pepper, quartered
·        1 carrot, sliced diagonally
·        1 pc onion, quartered
·        ginger ( medium sized )finely crushed
·        1 green tamarind, crushed
·        2 big tomatoes, quartered
·        Salt to taste


PROCEDURES:

·        Boil one  4 cups of water in a pot
·   When the water boil, put the beef bones, ginger, tamarind, tomatoes, and onions
·      When the meat attached to the beef bones becomes tender, add the carrot and potatoes. Do not overcook the carrots and the potatoes, so that it will be crunchy.
·    Then add the salt, and three minutes before you remove the pot from the fire, add the bell peppers.
·        Advisable to serve your soup while it is hot and best pair with your steam rice!


NOTE: Somebody asked if I am using monosodium glutamate (MSG), popularly known as Vetsin in my cooking, my answer is no. As a substitute for MSG, I prefer to use sugar. 

Tuesday, September 9, 2014

VEGETARIAN MACARONI PASTA IN PEANUT BUTTER SAUCE


INGREDIENTS:


  • 1 /4 kl  grams of macaroni pasta prepared al dente
  • 1 cup of sweet green peas
  • 1 cup of dice carrots
  • 1 cup of  dice unseeded tomatoes
  • 1/2 cup of dice onions
  • 1 cup of button mushroom sliced
  • 1/2 head of  freshly crushed garlic
  • olive oil

Sauce:
  • 1 and 1/2  cup of fresh peanut butter
  • 3 cups of water
  • black pepper
  • 1/2 cup of  black  soy sauce
  • oregano
  •  parsley
Sauce preparations:

  1.   Heat  the sauce pan and put the peanut butter   and slowly pour the water while constantly  stirring it
  2.  The add the  black pepper, black soy sauce, oregano and parsley until it is smooth
  3. Do the procedure in low flame heat.
Pasta Preparations:

  • In the big sauce pan,  sautee the garlic,  then onions, and the tomatoes in olive oil
  • Add the green peas, carrots and the mushrooms
  • Constantly stir it until the green peas and the carrot becomes tender
  • Add a little salt and sugar  according to your taste
  • then, finally add your  pasta and mixed it with the veggies
  • After the pasta and sauteed veggies were mixed, then add your  sauce
  • Viola! serve your pasta now.

Sunday, August 24, 2014

SWEET CREAMY AVOCADO SALAD

 

INGREDIENTS:
  •      1  medium size firm but ripe avocado (preferably the evergreen variety)
  •      3  spoonful full cream milk powder
  •      2 table spoons of honey 
  •       leaves of celery finely cut
PROCEDURE:
  •  cut the avocado in halves and remove the seed
  •  after cutting into halves, cut the avocado into cubes
  •  put  the avocado cubes into the serving plate
  • sprinkle  the full cream milk powder  on the top of the cubes until it is almost completely covered with milk powder
  • glazed  the sprinkled avocado with  powder milk with  honey
  •  let it chilled for 10 minutes, then place the leaves of the  celery on top to add a sweet aroma and as a garnished.

Friday, August 1, 2014

MATAMU YA MFUPA NA NUNDO YA NGOMBE

After making your beef stock, you can keep your beef stock in the fridge but  you can still turn your beef bones and fats into something delicious  viand especially for your dinner or lunch when you are busy but need to prepare a  comfort  food for your weary soul.


Ingredients:
·         Meat bones   and meat fats of beef
·         ½ cup of  lime and lemon juice
·         1  big tomato  diced
·         1 small  onion diced
·         ½  small cloves of garlic  minced
·         2 cups of water
·         3 spoons of soy sauce
·         2 spoons of  wild honey
·         2  dry crushed leaves of  vanilla

Procedures:
1.    Put the meat bones and fats in the pot under low flames.
2.    Pour the lime and lemon juice to the meat and stir it until it simmer and turn browned and start to produce its on fats.
3.    Add the garlic, tomatoes and onion until they blend with the meat bones and fats.
4.     When add the soy sauce and wild honey and stir it slowly until it seeps   and covered the meat bones and fats.
5.    Then add the crushed dried vanilla leaves and cover it for a while.
6.     Best serve while it is hot and with hot steam rice.


Thursday, July 31, 2014

BEEF EGG NOODLE SOUP




Ingredients:

1/2 cup of fresh beef, chunks
1 small pack of noodles
1  fresh eggs
I small piece of  carrot, julienne
1 small onion, cut into quarter
2 inches long of leeks leaves, strinps into pieces
1 small piece of ginger, finely pounded
1 medium size tomatoes, finely chopped
1 teaspoon of  olive oil
leaves of corieander
salt to taste


Cooking Procedures:

  • Heat the olive oil in the small pot
  • Sauteed the onion, ginger, tomatoes and beef  together until the beef is golden brown the tomatoes and ginger blended well.
  • Pour the water into the sauteed ingredients and wait until it will boil under low heat flame.
  • When the beef become tender, add the julienne carrots and the noodles
  • When the noodles becomes tender, add the salt and leaves of the leeks and simmer it for few minutes
  • Remove the pot from the heat and transfer the contents in the serving bowl
  • Once  the ingredients in the, cracked the fresh egg on the town and add the coriander leaves.
  • Serve while it is hot and stir the  fresh egg first before eating.
Now enjoy your hot bowl of beef egg noodles.





Tuesday, June 10, 2014

JUAN'S PUMPKIN LEEK GINGERED SOUP

·         Ingredients:

o   2 cups   pumpkin, boiled and smashed.
o   1 medium size ginger, skinned, crushed and finely chopped.
o   2 inches long leeks  trunk,  finely chopped
o   Salt to taste
o   5  cups of water

Procedure
v  Put the pot in  stove  and boiled the 5 cups of water
v  Add the  smashed pumpkin and  stir it slowly
v  Then add the ginger in the  boiling pumpkin and the salt to taste
v  Add  the leeks, continue to stir it for another five minutes

v  Serve   while it is hot in a soup bowl, it  is goof for four servings.

Tuesday, May 6, 2014

AVOCADO SALAD

It is avocado season and due to the health benefits of avocádo it is highly recommended  for everyone. There are many ways of preparing the avocados from simple to the most sophisticated avocado dish like avocado ice cream  or guacamole. below, I will share with you how to prepare avocado salad in 5 minutes!



INGREDIENTS:

1 pc  ripe evergreen avocado
1 pc onion
2 pcs lettuce leaves
2 pcs ripe tomatoes




  • Cut the avocado in halves and remove the  seeds and the skin  and cut the halves avocado diagonally
  • Chop the onions thinly
  • Slice the lettuce leaves into strips
  • Cut the tomatoes 
  • Arrange  the ingredients in the platter
  • Set it aside, then prepare your dressings.


Dressing

2 tbl spoons honey
3 tbl spoons lemon juice
1/2  tbl spoon  salt
1/2  tbl spoon black  pepper crushed
1 tbl spoon of extra olive oil


  • Mix all the ingredients in the bowl until the salt is melted and integrated with honey, lemon and the black pepper.
  • Then add to the mixture the olive oil until it is blended with the mixture
  • Pour slowly and spread evenly on the top of the ingredients on the platter.
  • Then serve it on the table








Sunday, April 27, 2014

HOT SWEET PILI PILI PASTE

One of the thing that I learned to  love in Tanzania is to eat pili pili mbozi, the Swahili hot chillies. I love it in  my  kachumbari, supo,  pasta, nyama choma, and almost in anything that I eat including in my green mango  enchilada (salad) and chipsi mayai. Pili pili ho ho is available all year round  in parts of the country from the  Isles to the Mainland.  Economically, when you make your own chili paste it is 80 percent cheaper that the commercially produce  ones that you will buy from the supermarkets. So, it is more economical. Health wise, it contains  an alkaloid compound , capsaicin, which gives strong spicy pungent character. Early laboratory studies on experimental mammals suggest that capsaicin has anti-bacterial, anti-carcinogenic, analgesic and anti-diabetic properties. It also found to reduce LDL cholesterol levels in obese individuals. Chili peppers have amazingly high levels of vitamins and minerals.
African winter is fast approaching and to keep  us warm, I am sharing you  my  hot, sweet pilipili paste.


Ingredients:
¼ kg of pilipili mbozi (hot pepper), thinly sliced
3 table spoon of brown sugar
2 table spoon of crystal salt
4 table spoon vegetable oil


Procedure:
·        Pour the vegetable oil in the sauce pan until it is hot.
·        Put the pilipili mbozi in the pan and cover until the skin of the pilipili separate.
·        Add sugar and the salt together until it is dissolve under low flame.
·        Continue stirring it slowly that it will start to thicken  for 10 mi it minutes
·        Let it cool and transfer in a sterilize glass jar and cover it.

·        Viola! You have now a hot and sweet pilipili mbozi paste for your salads, cookings, and snacks!

Thursday, April 24, 2014

SWEET AND SOUR TUNA IN LEMON SAUCE

Pemba, the northern Isles of the Revolutionary Government of Zanzibar is one of the places that I consider home.  Its location in the western side of the Indian Ocean in the East Africa Coast is blessings to us Pembans  (being an adopted son of the island), we the availability of  sea foods catch fresh from the sea. Privilege enough  I was given a house in between the wet market and fish market  both only three minutes walk frommy house  and I can easily avail and buy the anything that I like fresh from the sea daily base on a VSO volunteer’s allowance.

One of my favorite fish  is the tuna. In Pemba, all year round you can enjoy all sort of tuna from the yellow fin to the  blue fin species. One of the best thing about tuna is its flavor and the texture of its meat. Today, I will be sharing to you my  sweet  and sour tuna tuna in a lemon sauce.

Sweet and Sour Tuna in Lemon Sauce 


Ingredients

¼  kilo of tuna, cut in chunks
1   pinch of black pepper
1   pc. tomato, slide and dice into small quarters
1   tbl spoon Olive oil
¼  cup of honey ( sugar will do )
3   cloves garlic, freshly crush
½  cup of  lemon juice freshly extracted
½  onion, freshly chopped

PROCEDURE:

·   Marinate the tuna chunks  with  black pepper, salt and the lemon juice and chill it in the fridge for twenty minutes
·    Prepare your sauce pan in medium heat
·    Put the olive oil until  it becomes hot
·   Sautee' in the hot olive oil the garlic until it is brown, then add the tomatoes and the onions.
·    Add the marinated tuna on the pan, covered and simmer in a low flame
·  After five minutes, add the honey and stir it and cover it again for another ten minutes.
·   Take it from the pan and  put in a platter and viola!


It is best to serve it with a hot steaming white rice.

Tuesday, April 22, 2014

SPICY UYOGA

One of the privilege of living in Tanzania, particularly in Southern and Southern Highlands is the availability of food from the wild. During the onset of the rainy season, mushrooms sprouts almost anywhere in the fields. Here  in Tanzania, you will find here one of the world's tastiest mushroom edible species, the Termitomyces species. 
Living in a volunteer’s meager allowance, still I am fortunate enough to prepare a dish considered luxurious and only available in world’s finest and expensive restaurant in my own kitchen. Privilege enough to have it in abundance, it is sold in the fresh market by the vendors fresh. Below I will share with you, a very simple dish of preparing a mushroom dish that will cost you only less than dollar and can be prepare in a very short period of time. Less than the hassle of waiting a food prepared by a celebrity chef’s in your fancy restos in Paris, New York or Tokyo! Living in a volunteer’s meager allowance, still I am fortunate enough to prepare a dish considered luxurious and only available in world’s finest and expensive restaurant.  
            In Swahili, mushroom is known as ugoga. Thus the recipe that I share with you today is call Spicy Uyoga.

Spicy Ugoya



INGREDIENTS

·         1 bowl wild edible mushroom (uyoga)
·         1 pc  small size hot pepper ( pili pili hoho)
·          1 pc  small ginger (tangawizi)
·         5 pcs garlic
·         1 2 long  inches stalk of leeks
·         1 cup amaranth (mchicha)


Readily available in the sokoni (fresh market)

Edible mushroom, they call it in swahili as uyoga.

Amarath, locally known as mchicha.



Cooking Procedure

1.    Heat the sauce pan and  pour a  the cooking oil.
2.     Sautée the garlic until brown, then add the ginger, until it will become golden brown also.
3.    Add the tomatoes until  the skin start to separate, remove the  skin.

4.    Then add the mushroom, stir and mix and then add quarter of cup of water and cover it until it boils. Add the salt to taste. Simmer it for 10 minutes and then add the amaranth and cover the pan for another five minutes.

     Serve it with steam white rice (wali) or the famous local food ugali,  enjoy your rainy dinner.