Pan Sweet Potato MeatPie

You can call this the 'lazy' style of making the Nigerian Meatipe.

I used a combo of Dooney's Kitchen Meatpie Recipe (For the filling) and All Nigerian Recipes 'Nigerian Meat Pie as a Dessert' Recipe (For the dough) and i got awesome results. Only thing i did differently was use Sweet Potatoes onstead of Irish Potatoes 'cos i prefer them.

It's basically meatpie in a pan and way faster and simpler than making individual meatpies. I might try my hands at Shepherd's Pie next since they are quite similar. I'll let you guys know how that goes if i do.

I cut my meatpie dough too low after setting it in the pan so i did not have enough in some areas to pinch it closed with the dough cover and have that nice edge crust effect, i'll do better next time. 

This Pan Meatpie is part of my Christmas Menu for this year. Keep an eye out for my post on how i manage the Christmas cooking by myself, with enough prep it's not tootedious and my neighbours lurrrvv me.lol.

Enjoy the pics of the prep process &final results of my Pan Meatpie :

Filling made with sweet potatoes

Filling 

Flour for dough prep

Worked dough resting

Dough prepped and in pan

Dough cut to pan size (i cut it too low)

Dough cut and filling spread in

Pan Meatpie is Ready

Pan Meatpie in Pan

Pan Meatpie served

Sliced

Juicy Tasty Slice

UPDATE- 2ND ATTEMPT(Christmas Eve 2016). I think it came out better and it definitely had more filling. Yummyyyy.

 

Check out my other cooking related posts and i hope it inspires you to whip up some easy tasty meals, snacks, etc.

Toodles!XooX

Garden Egg Stew

This post was inspired by my good friend Ejura. I went to her house and had her version of this stew with fried yam, i had to ask her how she made it. If you don't know by now i'm a food (self-proclaimed) and i quite enjoy cooking every once in a while and moreso loooveee eating what i cook. You are gonna see more cooking related posts on here and i hope it inspires you to whip up some easy tasty meals. 

If you are Nigerian you most likely heard/experienced the tomato scarcity due to many factors but mainly the tuta absoluta virus. 1 basket of Tomatoes i used to buy in Utako Market for #600 suddenly skyrocketed to #8,000 KILODE!! Honestly i can't wait to own my own house 'cos i must have a mini fruits and vegetable farm in it and i still wanna have a proper big farm at some point in my life, dunno what i'll plant yet sha. I digress.

Sooo as tomato turn to gold, my frugal sef turned my back on red stew and jollof rice for the time being o, best believe! I embraced native rice(a.k.a palm oil rice) and palm oil stew (btw red palm oil is a very healthy oil)with open arms! Tatashe (Romano pepper) and Rodo (scotch bonnet) became my best boos and i know some other Nigerians took this route too and also started experimenting with different types of red stew (Carrot stew, Tomatoless Stew, etc.)and ingredients to replace tomato, btw tomato cannot be fully replaced sha.

Next thing i know Tatashe sef turn Diamond o! we no see am for market and if u see am the price no go make sense o na the bad looking one u go see. Warrisallldis! When the family haff embrace palm oil stew with joy. 

Na so i come try this garden egg stew oo, i'v made garden egg sauce in the past but it was a totally different technique and the garden egg would be boiled and mashed not pureed, it was made with vegetable oil plus and u'll still get a tiny bit of a bitter taste from the sauce so it wasn't popular with the fam.
When you make this garden egg stew ehn! choi! especially if you use the combo of fish,jisox! Dem go just dey ask you wetin be this stew. Only someone with a very sharp sense of smell & taste will be able to decode its garden egg stew. It does not smell or look like the one they are used to.

Oya see the recipe below oo, forgive me as i'm an 'eye measurer' when cooking. I just taste as i go so i cannot give accurate measurements for the ingredients. Try to use similar measurements to when you are making your regular stew or taste as u go and add what you need to as per the recipe. Enjoy.

Recipe for Garden Egg Stew

Ingredients

• Garden Egg (Eggplant.Variety-White with green stripes)
• Sardine or Smoked Catfish or Dried catfish/Sawa (roasted herring fish)or a combo of all
• Onions (i love onions so i used a good no.) 
• Tatashe a.k.a Romano Pepper (optional)
• Green Bell Pepper (optional)
• Rodo (red or yellow scotch bonnet) Qty depends on how spicy u like ur food
• Palm oil OR Vegetable oil (2-3 cooking spoons) depending on the qyt of stew u r cooking or how oily u like ur food
• Crayfish (Grounded) Qty depends on you
• Iru (fermented locust beans) Qty depends on you, also optional
• Pombo (cow skin)
• Preferred protein-Boiled/Fried or Grilled (optional)
• Meat stock
• Knorr cube (to ur taste)
• Adobo spice (optional)
• Yaji (optional)
• Other preferred seasoning (optional)

Method
Slice your onions or Blend with your tatashe, green pepper and rodo with lil water to a somewhat rough or smooth texture depending on ur preference and set aside

 

Rinse your garden eggs thoroughly with water and a lil salt, cut off the stem and dice the garden eggs into your blender.

Add just enough water for it to be able to blend and Puree your garden eggs in the blender, it should be thick.

Heat up palm oil, add sliced onions, lightly rinsed iru grounded crayfish and meat stock to the hot oil and allow to fry for about 3 mins - (This is my fave kitchen aroma btw)

Iru (fermented locust beans)

Add your sardine or smoked catfish or dried catfish or a combo of all and allow to fry for about 2 mins

Sawa & Smoked Catfish

Add ur blended tatashe and rodo mix to the pot, stir it in and allow to fry until its a thick paste

Add your knorr cube, adobo, yaji (depends on how peppery you want the sauce) and other spices to the pot
Add your pureed garden egg

Stir it all well, cover the pot and allow it cook on medium heat
You can add in your cleaned pombo and boiled/fried/Grilled protein (beef, chicken, turkey, goat meat,etc.) at this point

Check and stir the stew once in a while, till you have a thick mix
Taste the stew and add more spices if needed

Stir again, remove the pot cover/lid and allow the stew fry till its a bit burnt (it gives it a nice Char flavour). Cooking time depends on the quantity of your garden egg stew and how much water you used in blending.

Voila!
Your Garden egg stew is ready to be eaten whatever you like-rice, beans, yam, bread, etc.

The fam don't even miss regular tomato stew, they wiped out this garden egg stew in 2 days and started requesting i make another batch asap. I obliged them 'cos me sef dey enjoy the thing wella and i made a huge batch this time.
This is our current staple stew.
The next experiment is Carrot Stew, Onion Stew and some other varieties of stew from DooneysKitchen (as a true Triber) i know will be really tasty.

Necessity is the mother of invention/improvisation/innovations &Curiousity is the mother of experiments

Stay Curious & Experiment.

Toodles!XooX

New Small Chop Alert!! Deep Fried Gizdodo Dumplings

Hallo ma lovelies!! Hope everyone is having a great July so far. My life as been pretty hectic due to a new project at work but thankfully my schedule is slowly stabilizing.

My lil sis' birthday was on June 28th, she's staying with us while doing her corps service (NYSC) so hubby and I spoiled her a bit. She's like our adopted daughter afterall. 

She's made me get more into making small chops, pastries and experimenting while she's been with us because she learnt how to make them after university and of course i love eating *wide grin* and we all know small chops (puff puff, samosa, spring roll) are za best!

She wanted me to make gizdodo (Gizzard + Dodo in fried sauce) as part of the birthday menu and although i had a super busy week, I indulged her and made it. 

Okay enough of my story and back to how this 'chop' was inspired by Afrolems & the recipe..

You all know by now that i am a plantain lover and while surfing the web for new plantain recipes i stumbled on Afrolems dodo gizzard dumplings recipe (Check out their other plantain recipes). I was very interested in trying it out and having made a fresh batch of gizdodo this was the perfect opportunity. 

I discussed it with my sis and we were gingered to experiment, she was to make the dough for the dumplings as the expert but we did not read the recipe properly nor follow the instructions to make the dough and we somehow also missed the point that the dumplings were to be steamed!! (Mistakes and Omissions don't always result in a disaster afterall. yayy!!)

My sis made the dough and showed me how to roll it and put the fillings, na so we do the 1st batch of dumplings, they were on the big side but we just went with the flow. I had the water already boiling on the cooker and once i felt it was hot enough, i put the dumplings in a sieve and dunked it in the boiling water. After about 10 mins it did not look transparent and glossy like Afrolems recipe pics, we assumed it was because we made the flour mix in a different way or we 'cos did not roll the flour thin enough. 

Boiled Gizdodo Dumpling

We tasted it and though it tasted ok, it had a floury chewy taste/texture. We discussed on how to salvage the dumplings and decided to drain and deep fry the boiled dumplings and voila!! Crunchy yummy new small chop is born!! 

Batch 1

We made another batch of smaller gizdodo dumplings (4 pieces), the dough was rolled thinner this time as we hoped for a better result, similar to Afrolems. We boiled 2 pieces and deep fried the other 2 pieces. The fried option was still the winner, our boiled version tasted better with the dough rolled thinner but not as good as the fried one. 

We will still give it one more attempt, following Afrolems instruction to the letter, fingers crossed it'll come out looking like hers and taste real good.

After all my long tori, below is the recipe for the yummy deep fried version, i'll also be back to let you know how the fried version of the Afrolems recipe turns out. Enjoy!

Recipe for Deep Fried Gizdodo Dumplings 

Ingredients

• Ready Made Gizdodo (I use DooneysKitchen Recipe)
• Flour (1 cups)
• Oil (1 tablespoons)
• Sugar ( 1/4 cup)
• Water

Method

Prep your ready-made gizdodo, it should be at room temperature

In a bowl mix the flour and sugar together thoroughly then add the oil and mix together until the flour looks like bread crumbs. Add a little water and mix into the dough, keep adding the water until you get a soft dough. 

Knead the dough thoroughly then put in a bowl, cover with a napkin and leave it to rest for about 15 mins in the fridge. 

Take a little portion of the dough, knead on a floured surface (i used oil on the surface as i had run out of flour) and roll out thinly and cut with a round object,

Cut rolled dough with a circular object

Put a little portion of the gizdodo in the centre of the cut dough and bring the edges together pinching them with the ball of ur fingers to close it. 

Add filling to center  (we overdid d filling)

Pinch to close

Option 1-Put your prepped raw dumplings in an iron sieve with handles 

Raw Dumplings

Boiled Dumplings

and place the seive with the raw dumplings in hot water boil in, drain the boiled dumplings and then Deep Fry till golden brown

Option 2- Deep fry your prepped raw dumplings till golden brown

Both fried options came out crunchy and yummyyyy!

Batch 2 (unsliced) Boiled & Fried

Batch 2 (sliced) Boiled & Fried

You can Google or check YouTube for different cool/stylish ways to wrap your dumplings. You can also choose to bake, steam, boil,etc. your dumplings.

Big Shourrout to my sis for doing most of the work on this recipe dough-wise and hubby for being our willing taster. I lurrr u both.

Our next experiments are the Pinwheel samosa/springroll with regular Nigerian samosa filling and Steamed samosa/springroll, we'll let you know how it turns out. 

Barka da Sallah in advance to all my muslim readers. I hope everyone enjoys the upcoming hols and get to chill, rest, eat, etc. as i plan to and  also hope you will try out this recipe and enjoy it. IMO its a great new addition, that will become a fast fave, to the small chops range and hope to see it being sold or at served at weddings real soon. Stay Curious & Experiment.

Toodles!XooX

STORYTIME! I Washed rice with OMO!

Before we get into the story lemme tell y'all about my plan. I've been watching a YouTuber of recent 'HeyParis' and her Storytimes are absolutely entertaining, hilarious and ridiculous!! I swear y'all need to check her out and come back and thank me. That being said, her storytime vids have inspired me to start something similar on here. I love to tell stories and i have quite a few stored away, this way i can segment my stories under the Storytime Titles, 'Tales by Moonlight' things but obviously this is more of a 'Tales by Screenlight' since y'all are gonna be reading my stories outta some type of screen. I hope you enjoy this new segment and i'm super-excited to get into it and also have this 'on record' for the future. So shall we?

Yup. You read the title right. I indeed washed rice with OMO a.k.a detergent. 

I believe i was about 10 or 11 years old (Year 2000/2001) and i was still in Junior Secondary School when this incident happened, we lived in 1004 estate at the time and although i had a very early on domestic training, somehow cooking was skipped. I hated cooking and being in the kitchen but i loved baking and experimenting if that makes any sense. 

I would always be outta sight whenever it was time to cook, either go visit my cousins and friends that lived in the estate or hide in my room or toilet and act like i can't hear my mum yelling my name from the kitchen. The most i ever did whenever serious cooking was going on was to unwrap Maggi/Knorr Cubes and crush them and after that wash up everything in the sink. I actually enjoy washing up till date. 

Anyways back to the story, on this particular day, my mum was not having any of my hide and seek routine and forced me into the kitchen, she said i should 'wash' some white rice and warm stew for lunch. I had heard of them washing rice before cooking but i had never seen the process. I asked the maid if i was supposed to use detergent to wash it and she sarcastically said 'yes'. How was i to know it was sarcasm??!! I put the rice in a bowl, put some water over it and added detergent (it was either, OMO, Ariel or So Klin) while my mind wondered on how dirty rice must be for it to require this kind of serious washing! I had no idea 'washing' basically meant rinsing out the starch in the rice. I washed and washed and washed this rice but because of the detergent it just kept foaming. I eventually called the maid into the kitchen and told her i was tired of washing the rice and the detergent wasn't going away. Boy did she laugh her head off!! I couldn' understand what was so funny till she said she was just joking about using the detergent. I was too tired and scared of how my mom would react to this huge blunder to even be angry at the maid. We had to thrash the rice and she showed me how to 'wash' a fresh batch. Thankfully my mum (typical Nigerian Yoruba mum) never found out, she would have rained words of fire and brimstone on my head and forced me to be in the kitchen everyday of my life as penance.

That's my story! Hope y'all enjoyed it. Check out my other cooking related posts, thankfully i'm a much better cook than back then and my mum is very proud.

Check out a list of some EPIC COOKING DISASTERS that i had a good laugh on from a Twitter thread featured on Zikoko. I had a good laugh reading this and it kinda made me feel better knowing other people have made mistakes and become better. I hope you have a good laugh off this and if you have had any cooking disasters, don't be discouraged. 

Practice makes Perfect and we all make mistakes. It'll be a good funny story to look back on in the future.

Toodles!XooX

MEN; Learn to cook!!

Years of women taking care of the household, cooking and raising the kids has over-conditioned the mind of most men (especially the majority of Nigerian Men in this scenario) to believe it is their entitlement for a woman to cook for them. Most of them believe they have no business being in the kitchen and that is the 'wackest' thought process ever!!

Food is necessary for Life and Energy. Go on a Fast and you'll testify.

It is therefore a no-brainer that every HUMAN BEING (male and female) acquire this survival skill moreso after attaining the age of independence. Most Bachelors learn how to cook especially if they are broke and  don't have a nice housemate/girlfriend cooking for them every other week.

The worst bunch of entitled men are Married Men (the majority); The wives DO EVERYTHING! Hold down a 9-5 job, cook, clean, do laundry, garden, look after the kids, etc. the list is endless; and we honestly wonder why married women look worn out so fast, of course they'll age when all the load is on their shoulder. The married women who look good with all this stress on them are those that take out a lil time to pamper themselves and get some help.

The kitchen is not meant for only Women and Male Chefs/Cooks. Cooking does not make you any less 'macho'! Check out these 'Macho hotties' throwing it down in the kitchen. Men, you will not die if you cook.

The Kitchen is for everybody.

I did not learn how to cook properly till i was out of Uni and living on my own; i had to learn because i had to eat and also spare my pockets daily restaurant trips. I HATE when guys/gals say 'oh i wasn't raised cooking'. Everyone was raised differently and we all learn and change as we grow so that is not a valid excuse. I wasn't raised being in the kitchen either, i learnt the skill, so anyone (male/female) can learn especially in this 'Internet Age' (Google,YouTube, Blogs, Pinterest etc.) where all the resource (recipes, etc.) you need is available online. Check out this post for more tips on easy cooking and more.

Here's a list of EASY meals all men should at least know how to make:

• Boiled yam
• Egg sauce
• Pancake
• Fried egg
• Toast
• Sandwich
• Boiled White rice
• Spaghetti
• Stew
• Stirfry (Chicken/Beef/Veg)
• @least one kind of Sauce
• Yam porridge
• Beans porridge
• White Beans
• Fried chips/yam
• Fried plantain
• Boiled Plantain
• Grilled chicken
• Oats
• Custard
• Pap
• Peppersoup
• Swallows-Poundo,Cemo,etc.
• @least one Soup-easiest i can think of is Okro soup

Why MEN (and Women) should learn how to cook:

1. You are responsible for your welfare
2. Its a BASIC survival skill (not having to depend on someone or a place to get fed)
3. Starvation hurts. Food is essential to life
4. A Hungry Man is an Angry Man
5. Saves you money (eating out is expensive)
6. EVERYBODY loves a man that can cook.
7. Women find it sexy, oh yes we do!! You're saving us stress and feeding us a tasty meal-it don't get no better. Total libido booster
8. Your significant other/spouse is a human being and deserves a break too
9. You can fend for your significant other/spouse when ill
10. You can fend for your kids when necessary

Baby Steps to getting Comfy in the Kitchen:

1. Start by warming ready made meals (by microwave or on fire)
2. Keep your significant other company in the kitchen and Watch her cook n prepping ingredients. You can even ask questions. (if u feel the kitchen is too hot, newsflash-she's feeling hot too)
3. Help out- with prepping ingredients for cook, do the dishes, serve urself ur food,clean the cooker,etc. wen u r done.
4. Learn where the cooking ingredients and utensils are stored
5. Go to d market with her and see how she bargains and what she buys-a few trips later you will know ur way around.
6. Check out cooking blogs and YouTube vids and start practising with simple recipes-dere's soooo much resource online
7. Practise, Practise, Practise 
8. If you come across any issues or things that scare you in the kitchen, Google it or ask someone. There is always a solution, food/cooking hack, etc. Other people have faced such problems and most likely found a way around it. Check out this Twitter Thread Guys made of what they hate about cooking and solutions provided in the replies.
9. We have all had cooking disasters at one point or the other, its a learning process. Check this Twitter Thread hopefully it will ease your mind.

Most men will break down if they were to switch roles completely with their Significant Other/Wives/Mothers/Sisters and DO EVERY SINGLE THING they do for just one weekend .

I'm glad to have brothers that do not see household chores and cooking as strictly a woman's job, i happily give them recipes and take up their offers to help out around the house. Their future wives will definitely appreciate it. I pray to have a partner who helps out with regards to this and raise even better sons & daughters that can fend for themselves without feeling they are entitled to having anyone(especially Women) cater to their every whim.
The men that get on my nerves are those that want fresh food cooked 3-4 times a day but cant even fry an egg. Its just wrong mehn and in most cases even their mums never did that so i dont get the acquired taste except their owned an eatery or there was no way to store/preserve food. If your wife likes to cook fresh food all day errday, that's her prerogative and totally fine but to DEMAND that from her is just slavery. Some men wont even enter d kitchen to keep their gf/wives company talk less of doing other stuff.
I know there are women out there who do not want to see men in their kitchen, i also feel this is wrong, if a guy wants to cook please let him. It is not a taboo.

Dear Most Men(i know there are exceptions), 

Women are also human beings. We get tired, frustrated, resentful, exhausted, etc. having all the load, cooking included, solely on our shoulders. We would like to hear 'What would you like to eat dear' instead of 'What am i eating'. Please do the needful and treat us right as fellow human beings, It is not too much to ask that you at least learn this basic skill. Quit taking us for granted. You don't want to imagine how this world will be if all women go on STRIKE. Please follow the example of other good men. Thank you as you make amends from today. The women in your life will definitely appreciate it. 

I personally enjoy cooking but honestly only when i'm not under pressure or have other people's stomach's depending on me otherwise its just one of my daily chores. I will still touch on this subject when i write the post on 'MEN and House Chores' so watch out for that post.
This was a bit of a Rant but very necessary. "Women are the foot-soldiers of Patriarchy" and its about time that changed.
When men say "women go through a lot. Let's appreciate them". That's nice, but what are you doing to make the situation better?

Toodles!XooX