Tag: food

Honeyed Sweet Potato Balls with Simsim(Sesame)

~ Sophie ~ 2 Comments

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There are days when food is in season (and those are the best days) that we find ourselves stocking up on fresh produce. For example, there was one time when sweet potatoes were in season (and incredibly cheap) that we bought half a sack for only 5000 shillings. After sometime though, people started complaining since we had exhausted all methods of cooking sweet potatoes known to us. But then there is this cookbook that resides in a corner somewhere and I remembered flipping through it and bookmarking all the dishes I want to try out when the time is right(I am still waiting for the time to be right!) and these sweet potato balls were high on that list. So I set out to experiment with everyone skeptical on how it will turn out since sweet potatoes, sugar and milk are an odd combination. I’d like to say I was not disappointed. These balls turned out great. They are a little bit on the radical side and it would take a real food enthusiast to love the flavor and texture. Nevertheless, they are really great and can be cool fancy desserts to impress your guests.

What you will need:

4C. Sweet potatoes, boiled and mashed

2Tbsp. Margarine(blue band)/butter

500gm Bread crumbs/ 4 slices of bread)

1/2 C. Milk

1/2 C. Honey

I cup simsim(sesame)

Method

Peel sweet potatoes, cut them into medallions and boil them till tender. Let them cool completely. Using a glass, mash the potatoes in a bowl. Add the margarine and mix well. In a separate bowl, mix the 1/2 cup of milk with the 1/2 cup of honey and stir till a syrup forms. Pour the syrup in the sweet potato mix and mix well. Next add the bread crumbs and mix till the mixture forms a firm dough. Using your hands, form small bite-sized balls and roll them in the simsim. After all the mixture is formed into balls and rolled in simsim, chill for 30 minutes in the refrigerator. Serve

Apart form steaming, how do you prepare your sweet potatoes? Let me know in the comments section below.

Oh and by the way, head over to AfricanWoman to get a recipe on how to prepare Sautéed Irish Potatoes.

Have a great week.

🙂

Sophie

 

PS: This recipe is adapted from Tickle Your Taste Buds Internationally.

Banana Ice-cream Parfait

~ Sophie ~ 3 Comments

I have been shying away from making desserts in general because I think (and believe) they are a lot of work. Seriously! Until I came across a parfait. I used to feast my eyes on picture perfect Pinterest parfaits. Thinking, ‘who has time to do this elaborate dessert anyway’? Then someone simplified it by saying you just layer things in a tall glass. I was sold. I wrote it down on my list of foods to make because I was itching to make this supposedly easy parfait. Usually a parfait calls for yoghurt and as much as it is cheaper than ice-cream, I wanted this dessert to be fancy.

 

Funny story. One day we set out to create an ice-cream cake and we prepared everything. When it was time to arrange the biscuits and the ice-cream, we discovered the ice-cream was mostly foamy. How disappointing. Whenever we spooned it on top of a biscuit, it would just melt to the side and instantly become liquid. After that experience, I decided a parfait might as well be the right thing to do with ice-cream until I find one best suited for an ice-cream cake.

What you will need:

200gm Biscuits

500ml Ice-cream

1 Banana, fully ripe

A handful of roasted groundnuts(peanuts)

 

Method

In a bowl, crush biscuits till coarse and set aside. Peel the banana and thinly slice it crosswise then set aside. Coarsely crush the groundnuts and set aside. Prepare two tall glasses. Spoon ice-cream in (one spoon) the first glass. Next add a spoon of crushed biscuit on top of the ice-cream. Next add banana slices. Repeat the process till the glass is  full. Finish with a generous amount of ice-cream  then top with crushed roasted groundnuts. Repeat the process for the second glass. Chill the parfaits in the fridge for 5 minutes. Garnish with mint(or anything else) and serve.

 

What you get is a mixture of flavors and textures. It’s really good! Its basic but i am excited to try out new combinations in the future. The ice-cream melts fast so it soaked up all the other ingredients in the photo shooting moment. I realize this is way past valentines but, hey, you can still make this for your loved one(s).

Have a great week

 

🙂

Sophie

PS:I used strawberry flavored ice-cream and coconut flavored biscuits.

Katogo

~ Sophie ~ 2 Comments

This week, I would like us to talk about katogo . What do yo love most about it?  I googled katogo and found a Wikipedia page dedicated to it. That is good news. I’m sure we all have grown on eaten katogo at one point in our lives.  Katogo is one of the dishes that define Uganda. But then the thing is that you can absolutely customize it to your preference. It is also quick food. You know, chopping up things and throwing (not literary) them in a pan and letting them boil, right? When I made this katogo, people were hungry and needed to eat thus the simplicity though they still bore with me as I took a few snaps of it before it was devoured.

What you will need:

Irish potatoes, peeled and halved

Tomatoes, diced

Onions, sliced

Groundnut powder

Salt

 

Method

In a pan, add all the ingredients with enough salt and water and let the food boil. Stir occasionally to make sure it does not burn (because groundnuts burn easily) while checking the water content. Let it boil till the Irish potatoes are tender. Remove from fire and serve hot.

What katogo combination do you prefer or like cooking the most? What totally radical combination would you like to try or make? This is a basic recipe but I would like to make tilapia, cassava, sukuma wiki and whole roasted groundnuts in beef stock.  That is still edible. No?

Comment below to let me know.

 

In other slightly related news, there will be major changes to the blog from now on wards. There will be rebranding, a change in the domain name and other small things to improve the blog. The changes are for the greater good.  The content will still be the same though. I wanted to mention this beforehand so that you are all aware. Thanks for reading.

 

🙂

Sophie

 

PS: I did not put any measurements on this katogo recipe because I believe we have different serving sizes and the number of people we are cooking for varies greatly.

PPS: You can use groundnut paste instead of the powder.