Congolese Cuisine: Rib meat

Salt and season the ribs and fry with a little oil over high heat or let simmer in water for at least an hour (this is Congolese style).

Enjoy!

Goodbye Aunt Sharon

Sharon had a brief clinical rotation in the lab and now she’s heading back to finish her last year of school in Gemena. We will miss her and we’re glad that Aunt Clavie isn’t leaving us yet.

I made a cake using the “Dutch oven” method for Sharon to take to her fellow hospital workers on her last day at the lab here.

Here we are at the hair salon where Clavie has been doing an internship.

In her spare time these last few days Clavie has been doing intricate braids in Sharon’s hair so she’ll be ready for her return to school. Here’s a picture of the progress (not finished yet)

To wrap up the events of our last day with Sharon, we stopped by the hospital, visited some friends and got a peep at a baby.

Congolese Cuisine: Roasted Peanuts

Cook the peanuts over a charcoal stove and stir frequently. When they are hot through then add a little salt water and keep cooking them until all the water is dissolved and they are crunchy. That usually takes about an hour after adding the salt water. Here I am with the sisters doing peanuts:

My absolute favorite snack here!

Congolese Cuisine: Makoso and Ndunda

As my few faithful readers may have noticed, this month I have been doing some random posts about Congolese food. I’ve posted about food in the past but I’ve doing it more often recently. This is for two reasons, one being that my sisters in law are staying with us right now and cooking lots of different things, and the second reason being that I’m learning to make new Congolese dishes along with my cooking partners!

Today we prepared makoso, otherwise known as makolo ya ngolu, or “pig legs,” with ndunda as the side dish. This meal is prepared with black pepper, nutmeg, garlic, green peppers, salt, tomatoes, onions, bay leaves and baking soda.

First wash and cut up the meat and add chopped green peppers, crushed garlic, black pepper, nutmeg and salt. Let this sit.

Fry the onions and tomatoes in a little water and oil over high heat (preferably a charcoal stove outdoors).

Wash the greens and cook over low heat until wilted and soggy. Add a pinch of baking soda (I think that’s what it is although I’m not totally sure) to prevent the greens from losing their color. Add salt and “cube” seasoning which is like boullion. The greens do not have to cook for very long.

When the tomato mixture is done cooking, remove from heat and cook the meat over high heat with a little water in the pot. Add bay leaves and add more water as needed as it evaporates.

When the meat is thoroughly cooked, add the tomatoes and onions mixture into the meat and mix well.

By this time the greens should be done (assuming you have two cooking places). Make mfufu (or buy kwanga) to serve with the food and your meal is complete. The greens can also be mixed in with the meat dish as an alternate method of serving this meal... see photo below:

Congolese Cuisine: Caterpillars

Celebrating our October Babies

I wanted to use a post to share pictures from the girls birthday party. We did a joint party this past Sunday for friends and neighbors to celebrate Molly turning 2 and Eileen turning 1.

There were around 65 guests (invited and uninvited) and it went quite well with cake, games and balloons enjoyed by all. We did have a bit of rain toward the end but the dedicated kids stuck it out for more dancing and candy prizes after the rain subsided.

The kids came over the day before and made pictures for the party

We had a very dirty and trashy yard to clean up for the party but we did our best to hide the mess our neighbors left and we decorated as best we could with paper and balloons and fabric. The yard prior to decorating:

And after the decorations were up:

Getting ready doing hair, blowing up balloons and listening to music... We also had a Curious George movie playing on the computer to keep stray kids entertained.

The cakes were on the edge of disaster as most cakes I make here are, but as usual they walked the line between failure and success and despite the ghastly decorating attempts due to supply shortage, everyone loved the cakes.

Brothers: Papice and Amada

Sisters: Mariam and Maimuna

Daddy with the birthday girls

I made matching clothes for us as well as Orcxance’s sister but we forgot to get a photo with all of us together, probably due to the fact that we were too busy!