Hello friends! Sorry for the week-long hiatus. There are circumstances that are just unavoidable! Anyways I hope you had a great week. So lately I have been craving kim bap…so much that I wish we had seaweed here! I realize I am digressing.

I am a veggies person, at least I think so (ha!) but there are times when eating a certain kind of food the same way over and over again starts to somehow get boring. I feel that is my relationship with kale/collard greens (By the way I went online, Wikipedia to be exact, to search for the difference between kale and collard greens and surprisingly after reading the articles, the lines were still blurred! So for now, let us just call these darling greens collard). So I set out to find a different way of enjoying the greens and so this recipe happened. I am really glad they turned out amazingly than I expected since this was the second trial. The first trial was without rice and this time I wanted to experiment with rice. So basically this is my recreation of kimbap but with a Ugandan twist because Collard greens(A.K.A Sukuma Wiki) are readily available…sort of!
What you’ll need:
6 large collard leaves
1 large carrot
1 large purple onion
1 Egg
2 C rice (cooked)
Salt
Method
First off, we will whisk the egg till frothy and then fry it. Make sure you add salt and any other seasoning you would love to have in your roll. After the egg has cooled down, cut it into strips of about one inch’s size in width.
Next blanch the collard leaves in boiling water for two minutes. Remove from hot water and soak in cold water for another two minutes. They should be having a bright green color. Pat them dry with a kitchen towel (or a paper towel).
Next cut the carrot and onion into thin long strips and set a side.
Now to assemble the rolls:
Using a sharp knife, cut the collard leaves (one by one) in the middle to remove the stalks. This will give you two sheets from each leaf. Make sure not to tear the leaves.
Lay the sheets inside out (with the veiny part facing up and the smooth part down).
On the sheet arrange a tablespoon of rice as a thin base. Leave an allowance at the beginning of the sheet and at the end to make rolling easier.
On top of the rice layer, add the strips of onion, two strips of carrot and one (…or two depending on your taste) strip of egg. Sprinkle with salt.
Carefully roll the arrangement firmly starting from one end of the sheet making your way to the other end while making sure nothing falls out( it can be intimidating at first but after much practice perfection will be achieved…I still think mine are messy!)
After rolling the arrangement, using a sharp knife, cut the roll into small bite size rolls.

Another labor of love! As you can see some of the rolls’ shapes and sizes vary but that’s cool because they are tasty (seriously!). I have more practice ahead so that the perfectly round shape can be achieved. Go try this  and let me know how it turns out by commenting below. Isn’t it a wonderful feeling to realize you have conquered the sukuma wiki? Hi5!

Have a great week

🙂

Sophie

PS: Short grain white rice is advised

Hello lovely people! ‘Another rice dish’ you say, but this one too has a story. There are those times when you just happen to have random ingredients around. This was the case with this pineapple rice. And as I collected all of them…you know the pineapple, soy pieces, the carrots, the cashews, I realized, hey a pineapple rice dish can happen right now. Seriously! And it happened! This tends to happen –more than—a lot in my cooking process. Cooking from scratch can be fulfilling because you create a dish out of random things and at the same time it can be frustrating because you are sure the same dish won’t happen again(ha! story of my life!). Since I was very alert while making this, I noted everything down. So here we go. First of all, before we go any further, this is purely from scratch. This means that you can add or subtract anything. That’s the joy of cooking. Right?…No?

 

What you will need:

3C Uncooked rice

1 kg diced pineapple (roughly one whole medium pineapple)

1C Ground (Read: crushed) soy pieces

1C Julienned Green beans

1C Chopped tomatoes

1C Diced carrots

1C Chopped onions

1C Chopped spring onions

½C Crushed Cashew nuts

3 cloves of Garlic

½ Tsp. Rosemary flakes

3tbsp cooking oil

1 Tbsp. Sugar (optional)

Salt

Method

Precook the rice the day before and keep (preferably in a refrigerator). In a large pan, add the oil and after 10 seconds add the garlic. Wait for it to slightly become brown and then add the onions, salt and half of the spring onions while stirring briskly. Make sure the fire is neither too low nor too high. Add the tomatoes. Note: If you want the carrots and green beans to have a crunchy effect add them after adding the rice but if not add then right after the tomatoes so they can cook longer. Add the pineapple and soy pieces and stir for 2 to 3 minutes. Add the rice and keep mixing till everything is thoroughly mixed. While mixing add the rosemary flakes and sprinkle the sugar. Continue stirring. Remove from fire and lastly sprinkle in the cashew nuts and the other half of the spring onions while stirring. Let cool and serve. Note: Serves a lot!

Hard work eh? Well, I call it a labor of love. A secret to make the work easier is by loosening the rice (with either your hands or a fork) before you add it into the fried mixture that way it will not be lumpy and it will still remain in flakes. Happy cooking y’all. Let me know how it turns out in the comments below.

Have a great week.

 

🙂

Sophie

PS: Happy September