Monday, December 14, 2009

Jollof Rice

Jollof rice is one of my favorite foods when it comes to Nigerian meals. There are different variations of jollof rice but all I care about is the pepper seasoning and small amount of oil. Below is a recipe of jollof rice


400 g chicken
Salt and ground red pepper
Vegetable oil for frying
1L (1-3/4 pt) stock or water with 3 crushed maggi cubes
2 large onions, finely chopped
4 cloves garlic, peeled and finely chopped
2-3 chilies (hot peppers), finely chopped
5 large tomatoes- grounded
45 g (3 tablespoons) tomato paste
250 g (8 oz) each of assorted chopped vegetables, e.g. carrots, green beans, 
sweet corn etc
500 g (1 lb) long-grain rice

Cut chicken into small pieces and season with salt and pepper. Cover and allow to stand for 1-2 hours.
Heat oil in fry-pan and fry chicken until brown. 
Heat up 2 cooking spoons of oil and add the onions, garlic, chilies and fry until golden. Add the blended tomatoes and tomato paste to mixture. Stir, add seasoning and simmer for 7 minutes. Wash the rice and stir in uncooked rice into the mixture. Add the stock and simmer on low heat for about 20 minutes. Add the assorted chopped vegetables and continue to cook until rice softens. Serve hot and garnish with lettuce or any garnishing of your choice.


Courtesy of Afrolems blog http://afrolems.wordpress.com/

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

México


My trip to México was remarkable: “haga usted dice el espanol” was the number question I was asked (I had to Google this to make sure what I was been asked).I went to Matamoros and Reynosa in Tamaulipas. The stories and warnings about kidnappings besmirched my mind that I didn’t want to interact with the locals or go to places where there were no tourists. However, there were some safe places to go to for food like Garcia’s-tourist haven. There were lots of typical places like pizza hut, subway, burger king, chili’s  and the likes. The malls were fun to glance around, some items cracked me up but when it comes to leather sandals and accessories they got it hands down. One annoying peeve was the infrequency of their network, it was horrendous. My Blackberry messenger friends (especially in Nigeria) had to make fun of my situation-I got messages 2hours after it was sent, how pathetic. Overall, México is a culturally enriched place if you are bold enough to go to the local places. 



Tuesday, December 1, 2009

To wax or To thread

Which is better waxing or threading? I remember the first time I waxed my eyebrows, I felt like it was the best thing that happened to me because I have thick long eyebrows and now it was nicely shaped. One thing I disliked after waxing was the tweezing; I could not tolerate the pain. Also, the fact that women came just to tweeze their brows was frightening to me. As years past, waxing was my thing till a trip to Montréal. After Sunday brunch, my friends were going to thread their eyebrows so I tagged along. I watched as each friend got their brows shaped, so in my mind am like I have to try this even though I just waxed my eyebrows two weeks ago. Well it got to my turn, the woman went so fast and it was painful. The skin around my eyebrows were swollen and red, I told myself I would not thread my eyebrows again. My adventurous mind would not let that happen, a month ago I was looking for where to wax my eyebrows so my friend took me to a lady that does wonders with threading eyebrows. At first I looked calm but as soon as I saw her bringing the thread close to my face I started panicking. The lady got tired after two tries so she tells me to go wax. After waxing, then the lady tries to tweeze and am like no so she tries the thread which worked because I was relaxed and less tense. However, I finally overcame the fear of the thread by threading my eyebrows last week. I love the fact that it is just one step and not a two-step process with waxing. I don’t think I will go back to waxing my eyebrows.