Soft Nigerian Beans - Eat With Fried Plantain

I posted a picture of this beans and plantain in Instagram as one of the best dinners I've ever had. It was that good. Atala cooked the beans, I made the plantain, but as you can guess, the beans was the best part of the meal. I had to pry that secret recipe from Atala.

Breakfast Idea - Bacon Strips without all the Fat

Bacon is one of those guilty pleasures one knows they shouldn't make a habit of, yet you can't stay completely away. I just love the salty, smoky, and crispy taste and texture of bacon. Even the fat makes the meat product a comfort food sometimes, but most times I want to get rid of that.

Spinach Egusi Soup With Stockfish and Shrimp

This is my usual egusi soup recipe, somehow like this first one, with spinach but with the egusi cooked in the soup. This time also, I had just been to the African store, and had a new supply of stockfish, aka okporoko or panla.


Ingredients

3 cups Ground Egusi
5 pounds of your choice of beef, cut
1 pack of cut-up dried cod (okporoko/panla)
1 medium onion, chopped
1 large tomato, diced in large pieces
2 tablespoons of ground crayfish
3 teaspoons of ground pepper
1 cup of palm oil
2 cubes of maggi
2 packs of frozen chopped spinach
1 Pack of frozen large tailed shrimp
Salt to taste

How I Make Palm Oil Bitter Leaf Soup

I would have titled this Banga soup but I've noticed that the people to whom these named soups are supposedly native to are quite touchy when the soups are made from creative recipes different from the ones they're used to. When I was growing up, my mum would make something similar to this recipe and we would call it palm nut bitter leaf soup in Igbo which I later found was quite similar to what is called Banga. In this recipe, palm nut is replaced with palm oil.

Ingredients

5 pounds of beef
3 fresh peppers
1 medium sized onion
3 heaped tablespoons of crayfish
1 pack of frozen shrimp
1 pack of dried bitterleaf
1 teaspoon of mixed native soup spices
3 ladlefuls of cocoyam flour
5 ladlefuls of palm oil

Healthy Salad Dinner

Roasted chicken drumsticks with shredded green leaf lettuce, tomatoes and lima beans topped with hickory bacon dressing. Surprisingly filling.

How to Make Okra with Tomato Stew - Eat With Amala

There are the usual draw soups that I grew up with, Okro cooked into a sauce with vegetables, like the one I made with Ogbono, here. And then there's the okro I discovered when I was a bit older, and more common with southwest or Yoruba cooking. You prepare your tomato stew as usual [see recipe], and then you cut or blend your okro, and then mix both into a soup.

I am lucky to get very good okro at our local grocery store where it's cut and frozen fresh. So for a change of menu, I use it with tomato stew every once in a while.

Ingredients

Cut or blended fresh Okra
Broth if you have some
1/2 of a small sized onion
1 Fresh pepper
1 Knorr chicken cube
Salt to taste.

How to Make Tomato Stew in Pictures

Tomato stew is one of those meals all Nigerians are supposed to know how to cook, and it is a base to a lot of popular foods like white rice and stew, with dodo, with okro for swallow foods, among others. I find it one of the easiest to prepare as it doesn't need much attention, except when it does.

Yes, I've had some of my stew burn at the bottom of the pot because I forgot it for about five minutes or so. But if you pay attention towards the end, and remember to keep the heat low, it should not be too hard to get it just right.

How to Make Fried Rice With Peas and Sausages

For variety, each time I make fried rice, the ingredients and the method of preparation differs. On this occasion, I used sliced sausages as the meat accompaniment, and peas for the vegetable.

Ingredients
3 cups of long-grain rice
2 ladles vegetable oil
1 pack of frozen peas
Defrosted Sausages - Diced
4 small fresh tomatoes, chopped
1 medium size onion, chopped
2 Teaspoon of dry pepper
4 Knorr Chicken cubes
Salt and Spices to Taste


Directions

A - PARBOILING THE RICE

1. Set 5 cups of water to boil, or enough to cover your rice twice.
2. When it boils, pour the rice in and allow to boil again.
3. Reduce heat and simmer for 10 mins.
4. Remove from heat and pour the rice into a colander with small sized holes.
5. Turn the rice into a container filled with cold water, and sieve again.
6. Repeat this, rubbing the rice lightly between your fingers until it feels starch-free.

How to Make a Smoothie - Apple, Pear and Yoghurt

Some days you'll have so many fruits you don't know what to do with. Or you just feel too lazy or tired to chew your crunchy fruits. One way to enjoy eating such friends is to make them into a smoothie. I find that I consume twice as much fruits when in a smoothie, than not. You could juice the fruits, but with a smoothie, nothing gets lost. One evening, Atala and I did just that to some apples and pears we had.


Ingredients
1  cup plain low-fat yogurt
2  meduim size Bartlet Pears, cored and cut up
2  Fuji Apples, cored and cut up
1 cup of orange juice
1/2 cup ice cubes

Directions
1. Blend the yoghurt, cut up apple and pears, with the fruit juice on high speed. Add the ice cubes slowly till you get the consistency you want.

These fruits can be replaced with others of your choice. Enjoy!

Menu Ideas - Boiled Potatoes and Chili Beans

One of my favorite foods is yam but it is so hard to get them here, either they're not available at all, or they are too expensive. I do get them once in a while, but for the rest of the time, I make do with potatoes, either sweet potatoes or the local ones we have here.

On this occasion, I had some chili beans left over but it wouldn't do for a meal for both of us, so I quickly boiled up some potatoes, and then mixed them together. Reminded me of our Yam and Beans back in boarding school. Loved it.

Stewed Goat Meat and Asparagus topped with Cheese

I've never bought asparagus before this venture, it's one of those vegetables that I only eat when we eat out, or at a friend's but never thought to prepare myself. Somehow, I think about it in connection with those who are starving themselves in the name of losing weight, or just something out of my network.

Well, last week, our grocery store had huge signs all over them, it was an asparagus sale! LOL... So I got one bunch and looked up ways to cook it online.

Actually, asparagus is a very healthy vegetable, and good for those of us trying to keep the love handles at bay. It is low calorie, and a good source of folate and potassium for women, and very high in antioxidants. Well, it was one of my no-carb dinner nights and so I brough out my goat meat and a tomato stew I had made earlier and set to work.

Roast Beef Ribs with Fresh Lettuce and Tomato Salad

A. THE BEEF RIBS

All you need for this one is your pack of beef ribs from the store, and the spices you have for preparing meat.

1. Defrost the ribs in the fridge
2.  Cut into single pieces and rub all over with the spices
3. Put cooking spray on your oven-proof tray and place the ribs side by side
4. Grill in the oven on low heat for 15 minutes on each side.
5. Your meat is ready.

Picture Tutorial - How to Make Gizzard and Mushroom Sauce

At the beginning of starting my food blogs, I didn't think I could take pictures while cooking. I'm usually very fast and functional whenever I'm in the kitchen, but I was on my phone the other night while making dinner and thought, hey, I can do this picture tutorial thing, you know? It was a bit touch and go, but I think I got the most important steps :)

Let me know what you think, picture tutorial or step-by-step description recipes?

How to Make Curried Chicken Gravy Sauce

Most of the time, I cook tomato based or vegetable sauces to go with rice, pasta, potatoes or whatever carb we're having for dinner. It wasn't until we went to a friend's recently for a meal that I remembered gravy sauces. So after many years of not making it, this was the recipe I came up with.

Ingredients
3 cups of long-grain rice
1 pack of Chicken drumsticks
2 tablespoons of flour
1 teaspoon of powdered curry
2 Teaspoon of dry pepper
4 Knorr Chicken cubes
Salt and Spices to Taste

Egg Plant With Gizzard in Tomato Sauce

This was one of our no-carbs dinner nights. I replaced the carb with aubergine, also known as egg plant and boiled it  for a few minutes in the back. Gizzard is like a delicacy to me, I just love it and can munch on a it all day when well cooked and spicy :)

Depending on the size of the egg plant, one or two should be enough. Wash thoroughly to avoid sand or any debris and cut into pieces of your choice. Put in a pot with just enough water to cover the pieces, add a pinch of salt and boil for 10 minutes. Remove from heat and drain immediately.



GIZZARD IN TOMATO SAUCE

Ingredients - store bought gizzards, vegetable oil, onions, tomatoes, pepper - all chopped, 1 maggi cube and salt to taste.

1. Put 2 teaspoons of oil in a sauce pan, and heat till lightly smoking.
2. Add the washed small pack of gizzards, the maggi cube and salt.
3. Saute on low heat for 15mins, stirring intermittently.
4. Add the chopped onions, tomatoes and pepper and keep stirring for another 10 mins.
5. Check that the seasoning is enough, and add more if necessary.
6. Remove from heat once it starts to simmer.

How to Make Lasagna with White Sauce

Lasagna is one of the more complicated meals I prepare, and one which I'm still learning each time I cook it. Generally, I always make the white sauce myself, but sometimes I just buy Alfredo sauce from the store. This particular recipe with eggs and mozarella cheese is the best of my aresenal.

Ingredients

8 sheets of lasagna pasta
250g of lean ground beef
1 meduim sized white onions diced
2 cloves of garlic - chopped
1 tin of tomatoes sauce
Salt
Nutmeg
Garlic pepper
Spices
Mixed Vegetables

How to Make Nsala Soup - also called White Soup

Ofe Nsala is one of the soups I believe that is native to Asaba, it is also prepared in other parts of Nigeria and called White soup in general because most times, it is cooked without palm oil. The pale greenish color comes from the utazizi leaf and maybe some of the spices.

Nsala is sometimes made for new mothers, and should be usually liquid enough to be sipped from a spoon, but some also prefer the thicker version. There are probably as many recipes for cooking Nsala as there are people who have ever cooked it, but this is just my simple recipe.

Ingredients

5 pounds of your choice of meat, here I use Chicken Drunsticks
6 Cafish Filets
1 medium onion, chopped
1 large tomato, diced in large pieces
2 tablespoons of ground crayfish
3 teaspoons of ground pepper
2 cubes of maggi chicken
2 tablespoons of ground dry Utazizi or Utazi
3 teaspoons of Nsala spices mixture
5 Ladle spoons of poundo yam powder for thickening
Salt to taste

How to Make Chili Con Carne with Vegetables

See this other recipe too for thick chili

Ingredients:

1 pack of 85% ground beef
2 packs of kidney beans, rinsed and drained
3 ladlefuls of vegetable oil
2 large tins of tomato puree
5 medium sized fresh tomatoes, chopped
2 large chopped onions
1 tablespoon dried garlic or to taste
1 tablespoon dried ground cumin or to taste
1 tablespoon dried oregano or to taste
2 tablespoons chili powder or to taste
1 pack of frozen mixed vegetables with carrrots, sweet corn, peas, string beans, etc...
Salt and other spices to taste

Plantain Porridge with Shrimp and Spinach

I love unripe plantain and cook with it more than the ripe one because I tend to stay away from fried foods and ripe ones mostly lend themselves to dodo. Like I said in this plantain with Afang soup post, the sugary sweet taste of ripe plantain means they don't play too nice with most sauces, in my opinion anyway.

For this meal, you cook it just the way you would yam porridge, or is it pottage?

Ingredients

3 Fingers of unripe plantain
2 tablespoons of palm oil
1 pack of frozen shrimp
Four medium sized tomatoes, blended
Half a medium sized onion, blended
1 tablespoon of ground dry crayfish
Ground pepper,
Salt and other condiments to taste.

How to Cook Thick Chili Con Carne - Serve with Pap

Chili is what we call beans porridge in Nigeria, beans stewed in oil, tomatoes, pepper and other condiments. Chili Con Carne is when you add meat to the equation, in this instance minced beef. There are various ways to cook this, as usual, but mostly kidney beans are used more than black-eyed beans. The way I cook this one, you'll have a thick outcome, best served with pap.

Ingredients:

1 pack of 85% ground beef
2 packs of kidney beans, rinsed and drained
3 ladlefuls of vegetable oil
2 large tins of tomato puree
5 medium sized fresh tomatoes, chopped
2 large chopped onions
1 tablespoon dried garlic or to taste
1 tablespoon dried ground cumin or to taste
1 tablespoon dried oregano or to taste
2 tablespoons chili powder or to taste
Salt and other mixed spices to taste