Bread Pudding

One of my new favorite desserts is bread pudding.  Mostly because it's extremely easy to make.

The main ingredient is stale bread.  I sometimes use regular bread from a loaf/baguette, but this time I used breads that were a bit sweeter to begin with (banana bread and mango bread).

Melt the butter in the milk.  

Mix all of the ingredients together and stick it in the oven.  

This bread pudding was particularly sweet and addicting because the bread I used already had a strong flavor.

Chicken and Beads

Back in February, a friend had his birthday party at the bead shop.  

He hired a guy to grill chicken for his guests. Inside the shop.  

There was pizza.  And jewelry of course.

It was probably the best chicken we've had in Kampala.  

Fresh Corn

There's an Indian grocery store here that always seems to have a surprise waiting for me in their produce section.  I've found okra, beets, and even delicious orange oranges.  One day some time back I also found the most perfect looking corn.  

I cooked a mix of corn, tomatoes, green beans, and mango.  

And chicken of course.  The man needs his meat.

Unfortunately I haven't seen corn in the store since.  

Back to Business: Pumpkin Smoothie

I've been away a while, but I'll try not to abandon the blog anymore.  Promise.

One of the nifty new things I got when we moved into our new apartment was a blender.  We have mango and banana smoothies every few days.  

But when I saw a pumpkin sitting on our counter (it magically appeared, because at the time I had no idea where it came from) I decided that pumpkin smoothies were in order.  So I boiled the pumpkin and mixed it with coconut milk and some other goodies like bananas, honey, and lime.

Thick smoothies are the way smoothies are meant to be.  And because of the pumpkin these were so thick they were better eaten with a spoon.  

Om nom nom smoothie :)

Mozzarella

I found cheese.  It turns out there is a "farmer's market" here, which is basically code for a market where vendors sell food white people like.  

All the markets here on the roadside selling piles of onions, pineapples, and carrots are technically farmer's markets, but we simply refer to them as The Market.  A farmer's market seems to take on the meaning of what we see in the U.S.  There is mozzarella, ricotta, fresh baguettes, and basil.  They even import fruits like orange oranges (Ugandan oranges are green), apples, and pears.  These are fruits that are simply not grown in Uganda.  

Ugandans know their audience though.  The money is where the foreigners are, so you should sell what foreigners like.  Even if that means importing fruits from South Africa to sell at the "local" farmer's market.  

Look, I love mozzarella.  No, it's not as good as what I can get in the U.S., but I wasn't going to turn it down.  I bought mozzarella made from a Ugandan cow's milk, and it was pretty good.  

Something I could turn down was the tortilla chips and salsa.  First of all, the label said "torttilo chips", and the salsa looked watery and just made me unhappy to look at.  Just as I hesitated to trust the east coast to make delicious Mexican food, I also mistrust Ugandans.  

This meal reminded me of summer in California.  I was pretty pleased with myself that I was able to eat this food in February, which would generally never happen in the U.S. at this time.  

Asian in Uganda

Uganda has a surprisingly yummy array of Asian restaurants.  

Arirang, the Korean restaurant, is one of my favorites.  I love that I can count on these places to get some flavorful and spicy veggie dishes.  

Whenever we go to this restaurant it's full of people, mostly Koreans, singing their hearts out to karaoke.  Best background music ever.  

Even though I've seen these restaurants jam packed with Asians, I have no idea where they go during the day.  

Last night was the first night I've had sushi since I left the U.S.  It definitely satisfied my craving.  

Paneer

Cheese in Kampala sucks.  Not only is the cheese overpriced, but it lacks all of the richness that makes cheese so tasty.  

There is one cheese.  One cheese to rule them all, one cheese to find them, one cheese to bring them all and in happiness bind them.

That cheese is paneer.  An Indian cheese with the consistency of tofu, paneer is salty, smooth, and mixes well with veggies in a stir-fry of Indian spices.  It's also the cheapest cheese in Kampala because it's sold in the Indian markets.

Of course I miss my mozzarella and ricotta, but paneer has a lot to offer.

What to take to the bbq

We went to a bbq a few days ago and because it was potluck, I had the opportunity to cook for more than my usual one person.  

When I found out I should bring something, my mind was going a mile a minute trying to decide what to take.

I settled on some basic stuff, green beans (which to me are always good) and a Moroccan salad.

Then came the fun/fried part.  For desserts I battered some bananas in a cinnamon, sugar, flour mixture and fried them. 

The bananas came out warm and gooey inside and slightly crunchy on the outside.  Do try at home.

I was going to make regular samosas that day, but since I had some pineapple jam I had made, I decided to make sweet ones.  I stuffed them with sugary, goopy pineapple and fried them as well.  When you don't have an oven, I think the next best thing for desserts is frying.  

The pineapple jam was sweet and tasty in the samosas, but I think I like straight pineapple best.  

Avocado Pasta

I've mentioned this before.  I love avocados.  So I decided to make avocado pasta.  

I mashed the avocados really well.  I should have used a food processor, but I don't have one.  I mixed in oil, water, salt, lime, lots of garlic, and some dried oregano.

This was definitely one of my more experimental meals.  

The final product was actually really good.  

Chicken Satay, Ginger Carrots, and Sweet Potato Fries!

I've been cooking a lot of Thai inspired dishes.  Probably because I'm completely absorbed with this Thai food blog.  

I always like to have a veggie with my meal.  It just feels right.  So we had ginger carrots with some of the crystallized ginger that DERRICK made.

This isn't the most attractive photo of peanut sauce used in satay, but it is actually really delicious. 

I also made a sweet and sour dipping sauce to go with the suite potato fries.  Soooo good.   

The sweet potatoes were ginormous.  

But I sliced them up real good.  

Oh yeah, sweet potatoes are white in Uganda.  So is corn flour.  I have no idea why.

The light in our room sucks, but this is the final product.  Chicken lathered in peanut sauce.  Yes!

Potato Chips!

Not much to show today, but this is a snack I made for a party we went to a while ago.

A mix of sweet potato and regular homemade potato chips.  Need I say more?  

Double Team

Derrick and I double teamed dinner the other night.  

I made a Moroccan salad, which is one of my favorite types of salads.

He made pomegranate chicken.  

Together we dominated dinner.

Pumpkin Chowder

Something I noticed almost immediately after arriving in Kampala was that a majority of the staples in a Ugandan diet are foods originating from other places, namely the Americas.  Sweet potatoes, regular potatoes, corn, and pumpkins are all widely eaten and grown in Uganda.  It makes me wonder what they were eating before these foods made it across the ocean...

I've never cooked with fresh pumpkin before, but I see it often sold in the markets and decided to give it a try.

So I made Pumpkin Chowder.

I enjoyed it, although I think pumpkin soup would taste great as a puree.  Unfortunately I don't have the equipment for that, but I do have my Kitchen Magician (the frying pan), which assisted with the toasted bread we ate with the soup.

Orange Chicken!

As many of you know, I'm not a huge fan of meat.  But on Orange Chicken night I scarf it down.  

Subconsciously I eat a lot faster on Orange Chicken night.  Derrick eats so fast that I'm afraid I won't get as much as I want.  He calls it the "multiple sibling syndrome", or something like that.

But there was enough chicken and our tummies were very pleased.