"All In!" Summer Fresh Salad

Ingredients:
Romaine Lettuce Chopped   1 head
Dried Cranberries  1/4 cup
Dried Blue Berries  1/4 cup
Walnuts Chopped   1/2 cup
Onions fined diced  3 tbs
Red, Yellow Green Bell Peppers diced 1/4 cup total
Cucumbers diced 1/4 cup
Tomatoes diced 1/4 cup
Vinaigrette of your choice 1/2 cup

Directions:
Combine all ingredients in a bowl and toss until combined.
Serve and enjoy!

Serves 4

Simply Delicious "Chicken and Mushroom Soup"

Ingredients:

Button Mushrooms - 8oz sliced
Onion - 1 large diced
Garlic Cloves - 3 minced
Cooked Chicken Breast - 1 cubed
Chicken Stock (low sodium) - 3 cups
Butter - 2 tbs
Salt/Pepper - to taste

Flour - 4 tbs
Cold Water - 4 tbs

Steps:

In a medium sauce pan melt butter over medium heat. Sweat butter for 2 minutes and then add garlic. Cook for 1 minute before adding mushroom. Saute mushrooms until soft. Add chicken stock and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and add chicken. Allow to simmer for 10 minutes. While simmering combine flour and cold water in a small bowl. Combine until smooth. No flour lumps. Set aside. Return heat to medium. Spoon two heaping spoons of liquid from the soup and add it to the flour mixture. This is to make the flour mixture the same temperature as the liquid in the pot. Once the temperature in bowl is hot add the flour mixture to the pot slowly stirring simultaneously. This will thicken the soup. Reduce heat and simmer for 5 minutes to allow soup to thicken.

Serve and enjoy!

New Year's Day Lunch

I decided to let someone else do the cooking. It's my first week back in Rwanda and I decided to visit a familiar restaurant on New Year's Day. It's Bourbon Coffee. It's an African Coffee House and Restaurant. They sell the most delicious coffee. Their food is good too. There are two in the United States. My favorite is the one at the MTN Center in Nyarutarama (Kigali, Rwanda). The special for today was a spicy chicken cooked "grandmother style", which is slow cooked with vegetables. For a starter, it was accompanied with a leek and chicken soup with a fresh buttery role. The spicy chicken was served with basmati rice. It was great.

Chicken is not eaten often in Rwanda. Most people eat beef if they can afford it. Beef costs much less than chicken or fish, which seems strange to me, but it's normal here. I've yet to see a turkey, but when I do I'll let you know. Vegetables are in abundance and very cheap. Rice and beans is a staple meal here. It's commonly eaten alone, but I'm about to take the rice and beans to another level. This week I'll be doing the cooking and it will be all vegetarian.

Happy New Year!

A Bahamian Holiday

The month of December is a very exciting time in Nassau. There is more than enough food to eat. Every where you go there is someone offering you a bite to eat. It's only the 11th day of December and I already feel like I've gained a couple of pounds. Maybe I'm just paranoid, but as we would we say "I've been eating like food going out of style!"

Today I baked a spiral ham along with mushroom baked pollock, jasmine rice and steamed cabbage. We started with an apple, raisin and mixed nut salad drizzled with sweet balsamic vinaigrette. We washed that down with Bahamian fruit punch, which is really a Bahama Mama without the alcohol. The icing on the cake was chocolate cake with raspberry filling and vanilla ice cream. That's just today. Yesterday I attended a party and there was unlimited food and an open bar. Wow wee! Friday night, out for "real" Bahama Mamas while listening a fabulous band. Fish Fry was the night before with conch fritters, conch salad and sky juice. Like I said, the month has just started and I don't know how much more my jaws can take. There's more food and fun to come!

Pork? Noodles? In a soup!

As the temperature drops soup just sounds like something good to eat. Now I know it's not really cold here in the Bahamas, but it is cooler than it was in the summer. Yesterday I wanted to make chicken souse, but I didn't have any chicken. So I made a noodle soup with diced picnic pork shoulder. It was so good! Lucky for you I got a picture before we all dug in.

Pork Noodle Soup

Recipe:
2 tbs of vegetable oil
1/2 lb of diced picnic pork shoulder

1/4 cup of chopped onions

2 garlic cloves minced
1/4 cup of white wine
4 cups of water
3 tbs of lime juice
12 oz package of tri-color pasta
2 cups of frozen mixed vegetables
salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Season pork with salt and pepper. Heat saucepan and then add oil to hot pan. Add pork. Cook pork allowing it to brown lightly before turning on other side to brown. Once pork has browned on both sides add onions. Allow onions to become translucent and then add garlic. Stir to ensure onions and garlic do not burn. Deglaze pan with white wine. Then add 4 cups of water and lime juice. Season with salt and pepper. Allow mixture to come to a boil. Once boiling add pasta. Allow pasta to cook for 8-10 minutes. Then add mixed vegetables allow to cook for 5 minutes. Serve hot.

Quick & Easy Pumpkin Soup

Winter is approaching and nothing says winter better than a great soup. This pumpkin soup is sweet and tangy at the same time. It will keep you warm and satisfied. 

Pumpkin Soup

Ingredients

1/2 of small onion (minced)

2 tsp butter

1 tsp garlic (minced)

1 tsp curry powder

1 tsp ginger powder

2 cups pumpkin puree

1 1/2-2 cups water

salt and pepper to taste

Directions

Mince onion and garlic. Set aside. Heat pan. Once pan is hot add butter to hot pan. Then add onions. Cook onions for one minute. Then add minced garlic, curry powder and garlic powder. Cook for two minutes, while stirring. Add pumpkin puree and water. Stir. Add salt and pepper to taste. Allow soup to come to a boil. Then simmer for 15 minutes on low heat.

Serves 6

Truckin'

I've heard the saying for years, "When America sneezes the Bahamas catches a cold!" It's definitely true when it comes to our eating habits. You'd be surprise to know how many fast food restaurants are in Nassau, the capital city of The Bahamas. They're a number of Wendy's, Mc Donald's, KFC, Burger Kings, Domino Pizzas and countless Chinese take-aways, just to name a few.  You can visit a different one each day of the week. My grandmother called going out to buy fast food "truckin". Growing up we'd do a lot of "truckin" because my mother worked full-time. So we'd eat out almost every evening.

Now a days I don't care for fast food as much, but I do get the occasional cravings. Today was no exception. I just had to visit one of my favorite Chinese restaurants for fried rice and honey garlic chicken wings. As I was thoroughly enjoying my meal I began to think about the food I ate on my trip to China. I was amazed that there wasn't any pork fried rice, kingdom ribs or fortune cookies. Then the thought came to mind, "Does anyone really know what Chinese food is?" because the food I grew up eating and loving wasn't real Chinese food. That made me realize something else my grandmother said about "truckin". She said we should stop "truckin" and start eating "real food". Fast food to her wasn't real food. She preferred cooking and eating at home, and would always cook special dishes for us. Our favorite was her Peas Soup and Dumplings. I didn't want to accept it, but what she was saying was true. As years went by there were rumors that KFC didn't serve real chicken and Mc Donald's chicken nuggets were ground chicken feet. "Real food" I think not! I keep these things in mind when I encourage myself to eat "real food", home cooked food and stop "truckin". I give in to the temptation less as time goes by and I truly enjoy the creations that are manufactured in my kitchen. I encourage you to do the same.

Guava Cupcakes

Baking is so much fun. I wanted to do something a little different today so here's what I came up with. Guava Cupcakes with a Rum Butter Glaze. 

Guava Cupcake with Rum Butter Glaze

Guava Cupcakes:

1 1/2 cups      Flour

1/8 tsp            Nutmeg

1/8 tsp            Cinnamon

1/8 tsp            Cloves

1/2 tsp            Baking Soda

1/2 cup          Butter or Margarine (softened)

1 cup             Sugar

2                    Eggs

3/4 cup         Guava Puree

Makes 12 cupcakes.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line cupcake pan with cupcake liners and set aside.

Combine flour, nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves and baking soda in a bowl. Set aside. In another bowl cream butter and sugar. Once light and fluffy add eggs one at a time. Alternately between flour mixture and guava puree, combine with butter and sugar mixture. 

Spoon cupcake batter into cupcake liners until it is 2/3 filled. Bake at 350 degrees F for 20-25 or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. 

Cool 5 minutes in pans then remove and place on wire racks to cool completely. Once cupcakes are completely cooled, frost with Rum Butter Glaze. 

Rum Butter Glaze:

2 cups        Powdered Sugar

1/4 cup       Butter

1 tbs           Nassau Royale (or whatever rum available)

1 tbs           Vanilla

1 tbs           Guava Puree

In a mixing bowl mix all ingredients until smooth. 

Cinnamon & Raisin Pancakes

Cinnamon & Raisin Pancakes

1 cup   Flour
3 tsp    Baking Powder
1 tsp    Cinnamon
3 tbs    White Sugar
1          Egg
3 tbs    Vegetable Oil
1 cup   Milk (approximately)
.5 cup  Raisins
3 tbs    Powdered Sugar


In a mixing bowl combine flour, baking powder, cinnamon and sugar. Set aside. In a 1 cup measure cup add egg, vegetable oil and milk, filling it to 1 cup measure. Add to another mixing bowl and beat lightly. Combine with flour mixture mixing lightly with spoon. Set aside. Heat non-stick skillet to medium heat. Using a tablespoon cookie scoop spoon mixture into skillet. Once bubbles start to form in pancake sprinkle a few raisins on pancake and then flip pancake over with spatula. Cook for about one minute or until done completely. Remove from heat. Sprinkle with powdered sugar. Repeat the process until all pancake mix is completed. Adjust temperature as needed. Makes approximately 6 large pancakes.

Potato Salad?

I spent a lovely afternoon on the beach today with two of my best friends. Salt water, in my opinion, makes you hungry, so I couldn't wait to get home to get dinner started. Keeping with the sea theme, whole fried fish was on the menu. I accompanied that with potato salad and mixed green salad. For dessert, banana donuts dusted with powdered sugar.

After dinner we always get together to watch our daily fix of local and international news. Then it's time for the food network. As I was watching "Sweet Genius" I started thinking about one of my visits to Africa, Rwanda to be exact, where I introduced potato salad to some of my friends. I couldn't believe that they had never heard of it. My friends would prepare French fries and boiled potatoes, but that's as far as their cooking with potatoes went. The thought of mayonnaise with boiled potatoes was foreign to them, but they would only eat fried potatoes with mayonnaise, no ketchup. So I proudly taught them Bahamian potato salad which has finely diced onions and bell peppers, chopped hard boiled eggs, mayonnaise, mustard, salt and pepper, and of course boiled potatoes. For them I even added a diced cucumber. That gave it an additional cool crunch. It became a new phenomenon, but then they wanted me to cook it all the time. LOL!


Recipe:

4 medium    Potatoes
2                  Eggs
1/4 cup        Onion (finely diced)
1/4 cup        Red, Green, Yellow or Orange Bell Pepper (finely diced)
4 tbs            Mayonnaise
1 tsp            Mustard
                    Salt and Pepper to taste
                    Paprika

Wash, peel and dice potatoes. Add to pot along with eggs and fill with water until it covers potatoes and eggs. Set range on high under potatoes and allow potatoes to come to a boil. While potatoes and eggs are cooking dice onions and bell peppers. Set aside. Cook potatoes until tender. Check by cutting into potato with a fork. This takes about 10-15. Eggs usually boil in about 12 minutes. Immediately remove from heat, drain water and add potatoes into a bowl and place in freezer for approximately ten minutes allowing potatoes to cool. Put eggs in small bowl of cold water and put in freezer for ten minutes allowing eggs to cool and stop the cooking process. Once potatoes and eggs have cooled remove from freezer. Peel and slice eggs. Set aside. In a mixing bowl combine potatoes, onions, peppers, mayonnaise and mustard. Season with salt and pepper. Adjust to taste. Remove from mixing bowl and add to serving bowl. Decorate the top with sliced boiled eggs. Dust with paprika.

Sweet Treats!

I absolutely love desserts. I believe you should have one everyday. Making desserts are fun to me and I can dabble in flour all day. Here are a couple of desserts I made last week. Enjoy!

Bread Pudding with Raisins

Bread Pudding with Raisins

 Oatmeal and Raisin Cookies

Oatmeal and Raisin Cookies

Guava Duff

Guava Duff

Guava Duff with Rum Butter Sauce

Guava Duff with Rum Butter Sauce

Late Night Snack

It's 1:30 am, I'm wide awake and I'm hungry. Most nights I am awake around this time. I like to watch the cooking shows that I've missed during the evening. That's enough to make a person hungry and in need of a late night snack. I guess for some reason I'm filled up by what I see on the show that I never need a late night snack. Tonight I am not even watching the Food Network, but boy am I hungry. I'm not one for snacking, but I'm so tempted to head to the kitchen.

Food that I would like to eat started popping in my head. What could I whip up in a flash? I didn't come up with anything quick. So I don't know if this snack is going to get off the ground, but here's what I've been thinking about.

Just the other day I cooked a delicious Jamaican meal: jerked chicken, bean and rice, steamed cabbage, and tossed salad with a homemade thousand island dressing. I'm wishing there were some left overs!

What I really like is French fries and coleslaw. Here's another take on fish and chips. Deep fried whole jack fish, golden French fries, coleslaw and biscuits. Delicious!

I don't think any of these are really fit for a late night snack, but boy I feel really good thinking about them.

I think I'm going to bed now. In a few hours it will be morning and I can prepare another fabulous breakfast!

Good Night and Good Morning!

It's Chicken Week!

     Enjoy the menu! I'll be cooking along with you!

Surviving Irene

Last week the islands of The Bahamas and the eastern United States were hit hard by Hurricane Irene. On the island of New Providence, right before the storm traffic was heavy on the roads as everyone hurried to the supermarkets to stock up on canned goods and whatever else they considered to be hurricane supplies. I went to the supermarket as well, but while people were buying canned tuna and canned soup I was purchasing raw chicken and ground turkey, cheddar cheese and fresh vegetables. Now I knew the power would go out, but I've managed my way through quite a few storms so this time I was going to prepare my way. I turned my back on traditional hurricane preparedness and I know everyone in my home was glad I did.

By sunset on Wednesday the storm shutters were down and we were ready for Irene. The power went out around 8 p.m. The outage lasted four days, but that was o.k. because we had quite a few activities planned to occupy us while the winds and rain rumbled outside. We played monopoly and scrabble. We watched movies on my well charged laptop. We listened to music on a battery operated boom box and we ate great.

Late Wednesday night as the storm approached we ate delicious grilled cheese sandwiches and drank homemade ginger lemonade. Thursday morning while the storm was in full effect, for breakfast, we ate banana pancakes, scrambled eggs and bacon. We washed that down with orange juice and coffee. No can food here! Tasty snacks throughout the day and for dinner fried chicken, peas and rice, coleslaw and plantains. Friday we had hamburgers, vegetable medley and macaroni and cheese. I laughed to myself when I heard what some of my other family members had to eat during the storm. Maybe next time I'll invite to them weather the storm at my house; if there's a next time.

Boy I'm glad I prepared in advance. Before the power went out my meals were prepped so that I would have little to do once the power went out. I kept the food in the freezer so that it stayed cold longer. Then when the power went out we already had ice for our coolers so our food would last for up to a week with no power. I also have a gas range. So cooking is a breeze without electricity.

There was no traditional storm preparation in Caribay's kitchen. That's why I survived Irene!

Old English Pound Cake

As a child, growing up, every time a birthday came around I looked forward to going to Kelly's Bakery with my parents to order a cake. It didn't matter if it wasn't my birthday. All that mattered is that I would be getting a piece of cake. My parent's loved the Old English Pound Cake and I love sweets!

Although there was nothing light or fluffy about the cake, it was probably the best pound cake every created. It was firm. You could hold it in your hand like a piece of bread and didn't have to worry about it falling apart. I realized just how heavy it was when I decided I wanted to change up the usual family order. I wanted my birthday cake to have chocolate cake on the bottom and pound cake on the top. The baker said that I can have both, but I needed to have the pound cake on the bottom because if it goes on the top it would crush the chocolate and sink the entire cake. I understood and agreed. Wow! What a heavy cake I thought.

My Dad celebrated his birthday just a few weeks ago. Kelly's Bakery is no longer in existence, but the taste of those cakes still register in my family's taste buds. So I thought to myself, why not recreate "the cake". I don't know their recipe, but I am pretty good at tasting food and then recreating it. My cake is much smaller than Kelly's Bakery, but it was enough for five and for a fabulous Happy Birthday.

Here's the recipe:

Ingredients

• 1 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup butter
• 2 eggs
• 3 tablespoons of almond extract
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 3/4 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 cup milk

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour a 9x9 inch pan.
2. In a medium bowl, cream together the sugar and butter. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, then stir in the vanilla. Combine flour and baking powder, add to the creamed mixture and mix well. Finally stir in the milk until batter is smooth. Pour or spoon batter into the prepared pan.
3. Bake for 30 to 40 minutes in the preheated oven. Cake is done when it springs back to the touch.

Caribay Approved!

After seeing my recipe for Chicken Souse, my sister goes ahead and follows my recipe step by step. Here's the result. It works! The proof is the pudding... no I mean picture. 

Chicken Souse & Johnny Cake

Breakfast was great!

Saturday Morning

I've been up now for about two hours. The first hour I spent fighting to get out of bed so that I can begin breakfast. I grew up having a hot, homemade breakfast and that's something that has stuck with me from my child hood. I guess the fighting to get out of bed was passed on from my dad as well as the hot, homemade breakfast. He would get home from work sometimes as late as two in the morning and still get up to take my mom to work at 6:30 am. Then when he got back home it was time to get the me, my sister and brother ready for school, which always included a hot breakfast. Sometimes we'd have French toast or "panny cakes". All I know is that once you told my dad you liked something he was always delighted to prepare it for you... over and over and over again until you decided you liked something else. Thanks Daddy! Now I'm excited every day I get to make your breakfast. It's true in life you reap what you sow.

In a few minutes we'll be having breakfast together, my mom, dad and I. We're having Chicken Souse and Johnny Cake. Can't wait! I just finished checking the Johnny Cake in the oven. It's almost ready and it's smelling great. Oh I hear the timer going off! I've gat to run...

Chicken Souse

I can't wait until breakfast! I am looking forward to cooking my chicken souse. If you were following this week's menu you'll see that I saved this for Saturday, which is usually the day that most Bahamians eat souse. I don't know why, but it's almost like it is some type of ritual. It doesn't have to be chicken souse either, so long as it's souse. Some people like pig feet souse, turkey souse or even sheep tongue souse. I love chicken wing souse and not chicken foot souse, which I know some people run after. Ew! Chicken foot?

Chicken Souse is very simple, yet absolutely delicious. Here's what you need for four persons:

2 pounds          chicken wings (cut into portions)

1 large              onion (peeled and chopped)

2                       carrots (peeled and diced)

2 medium         potatoes (peeled and diced)

2 large              limes

1                       bird pepper minced or 1 tsp of crushed red pepper

2 tbs                 allspice

                        salt to taste

Prepare onions, carrots, potatoes and peppers as described above. Then set aside. Wash and clean chicken wings thoroughly. Add them to a large pot. Then add onions, juice of limes, pepper, allspice and salt to pot. Add enough water to the pot to cover chicken completely. Set range on high and allow ingredients to come to a boil. Once boiling allow to cook for 20 additional minutes. Adjust seasoning at this time to desired taste. Then add carrots and potatoes to pot. Continue to boil for 15 minutes. Then reduce heat to low and allow souse to simmer for an additional 15 minutes. 

So there you have it, chicken souse. Easy isn't it?

Now if you get up early enough, I know it's Saturday, we can make breakfast together. Besides I'll know by then if I am really going to make Johnny Cake to eat along with the souse or am I going to cop out and make biscuits. 

Johnny Cake 3 cup   Flour 1 tbs    Baking Powder 1.5 tsp Salt 4 tbs    Sugar 1/2 cup Shortening/Margarine/Butter 2/3 cup Milk  Preheat oven 350 F. Lightly grease a 9x9 pan. Combine dry ingredients in bowl. Then cut shortening in flour until mixture is sandy or flaky. Add milk gradually. Knead dough and then rest for 10 minutes. Put in pan and bake for 25 minutes. Remove from oven. Sprinkle with water lightly. Continue to bake for additional 5 minutes.

Chicken Souse

Johnny Cake

Cookie me kindly

A cookie is like an omelet, but I would say for some it would be a little easier to make because there is no need to flip a cookie. Think about it for a moment an omelet has a basic ingredient an egg, but then you can put just about anything you can think about in it. Now you may say well what if it doesn't taste good, but that's totally up to you. If you don't like tomatoes then don't think you're going to like it in an omelet.

Ok so the cookie has a basic ingredient, which is sugar. You may say well I thought cookies have flour, but I've had a very delicious cookie that was flourless. You may say cookies need butter or shortening, but that's not true either. There are some cookies that use oil or peanut butter. Then many of us make the traditional oatmeal and raisin cookie or the infamous chocolate chip cookies, but there are endless possibilities when it comes to the cookie. Be creative!

Just the other day my mother wanted some cookies. I am always baking something and now I believe she expects homemade dessert every day. Her favorite is my oatmeal and raisin cookies. I didn't have any oatmeal and I wasn't about to make just a raisin cookie. So what am I to do? I stood in the kitchen thinking about what I had in the pantry and what I liked. I took out pineapple juice, raisins and coconut flakes. I said to myself, coconut and pineapple works well together in a pina colada so why not in a cookie. I mixed the batter, added in the coconut and then I said why not some raisins for my mom and some white chocolate chips for myself. I liked it so much I decided to call it "Juicy Fruit". Why not? It has three different fruits in it.

Now what creative cookie can you come up with? Cookie me kindly!

Oatmeal and Raisin Cookies

2 1/4 cup        Flour
1 tsp               Baking Powder
1 tsp               Baking Soda
2 cups            Rolled Oats
1 cup             Coconut Flakes
1 cup             Raisins

1 cup             Butter

1 cup             Brown Sugar

1/2 cup          White Sugar

2                    Eggs

2 tsp              Vanilla

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. 

In mixing bowl combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, rolled oats and coconut flakes. Set aside.

In another mixing bowl cream butter and sugars together with mixer on medium speed for two minutes. Mix in eggs one at a time and then mix in vanilla. Mix dry ingredients with wet ingredients until cookie dough is fully combined. Mix in raisins. 

With 1 tsp cookie scoop, scoop cookie dough on to cookie sheet leaving about 1 1/2 inch between cookies. Bake for 13 minutes. Remove cookies from cookie sheet on to cooling rack. Allow to completely cool before serving.