This is the time of year when I find myself drawn to hover over the stove, to brew colorful stews and roast root vegetables while I breath in the revitalizing steamy scents of stock and spices. I have felt especially inspired lately to try out some new African recipes from these two excellent cookbooks:
Back in December I gathered, ground, and mixed spices together for Samuelsson’s recipe for berbere:
Indian grocery stores are a great source for a wide range of spices. The one I currently frequent is Desi Foods in Eagan, MN. I used a coffee grinder to grind up the fenugreek and cardamom for this spice mix, which worked great but left cracks in the plastic lid of the grinder. So I have since treated myself to a dedicated spice grinder that I look forward to using for future cooking projects.
With the berbere I tried both Samuelsson’s and Aki’s recipes for doro wat, an Ethiopian chicken stew:
Aki’s recipe is slightly simpler to make, but both were equally delicious due to the freshness of the spice blend. Hard boiled eggs are added to this stew a few minutes before serving. It is a warm, slightly sweet, slightly spicy stew that is tasty served over rice. Ideally, it should be served with injera (Ethiopian sourdough crepes), but making injera requires some next-level skills that I have yet to acquire.
Other recipes I did try this month included Samuelsson’s beet-ginger chutney (yay for bringing purple-y brightness into my winter), Aki’s boboti (South African meat pie), and Aki’s sweet potato fritters.
What I love so very much about these cooking ventures is that I get to use local, seasonal produce to create global flavors. The vegetable farm I subscribe to, Sogn Valley Farm, has been providing me with lots of beets and sweet potatoes lately, and I picked up a large quantity of ground beef back in the fall from local female-powered Blondie’s Butcher Shop.
Besides these projects, my other bright homesteading/food joy is that my poultry have started laying eggs!
The large one on the left was revealed to contain the double yolk on the right.
I have always enjoyed farm eggs, but I underestimated how much collecting and eating eggs from my own chickens would delight me. It feels like finding hidden treasure, and I am filled with gratitude at each discovery. So far I have eaten the eggs poached, fried, scrambled, omeleted, burritoed, and hard boiled. Today I even cooked them in chicken fat skimmed from some stock I made in the slow cooker. Which seems like so much chicken redundancy that it makes me imagine a hen collapsing into herself until she becomes a condensed bouillon cube-sized essence of her own being (which is what bouillon cubes basically are, I guess).
Perhaps I’ve been left alone with my birds for too long. Good thing they make such pleasant company. I will leave you with some recent photos of the flock.
Angie Gustafson 