HAPPY BIRTHDAY LOVEY!

Birthday cake baked by mi

23^rd of December a very pleasant day in the month of December; two days to the most magnificent celebration in a child’s life – Christmas is the best celebration for children. Today the 23^rd, is my Boss man’s birthday.  

He usually say “Those born on this day were created with so much intelligence” and I believe him because he is just the best. I love this day too, because his birthday kind of ushers the merriment of the season.  It is not a mistake that the greatest man that ever-lived on earth was born on December 25.

This is a period of extreme happiness, enjoyment and sharing.  So I will be sharing with you the things I prepared for this special day. I would be availing the recipe on my next post.

Enjoy!!!

Straight from the Oven

In the Making

Lamb shoulder getting ready to be popped into the oven

 

Roasted Lamb shoulder

Crab and Crayfish Ravioli

 

Curry goat Pasta

A friend of mine that came around, asked how I manage to do these; my answer was, I just love cooking and I manage my time so well. God also blessed me with a man that doesn’t eat out, its kind of a motivational factor.  

I will be baking tuna fish pie tomorrow. Hopefully, I will be blogging soon for recipes.

Thank you for visiting.

Stay blessed and happy Xmas in advance.

COW LEG NKWOBI - the abroad style!

There are days when a friend from far away calls to say they will be visiting. Most times we rack our brain, thinking of what to offer these visitors. At the end of the day, we still go along with rice. C’mon, a friend won’t travel that distance just for you to offer  the same thing they've been eating. We have to be creative at times in the kitchen. Prepare a meal that will make them feel welcomed, loved and cherished.

Your food says a lot about you. It can portray more than you can ever imagine and please don’t be stingy when it comes to food. Me for one, I love to entertain my family/friends/visitors… For those of us living abroad, it could be hard because there are no varieties of foods stuff available except if you managed to bring things from back home. Today, I will be sharing the cow leg nkwobi recipe.

For those of us expecting loads of friends this Christmas, this could be the touch you are looking for.

uncooked cow leg

INGREDIENTS

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·      3 Knorr cubes

·      A bulb of onion

·      Potash (akawu)

·      Abacha

·      Ugba

·     palm oil

·      Salt

·      Pepper

·      Crayfish

·      Cow leg

PREPARATIONS

cooked and scraped cow leg

Abacha

Ugba

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·      Spice the cow leg with 2 Knorr cubes and a pinch of salt

·      Cooking the cow leg until done, soft and tender (I usually cook mine a night before because it takes longer time to cook).

·      Remove the cooked cow leg from the pot leaving the water behind

·      Scrape out the meaty parts, cut into smaller pieces, plate them and set aside

·      Blend the crayfish and pepper: set aside

·      In a sieve, put in a small portion of abacha

·      Boil water and pour on the abacha so as to moisten and soften it

·      Set aside to cool

·      In a small soup bowl, put in the potash and add the boiled water

·      Use a tablespoon and stir the potash to aid melting

·      In a frying pan, put in the ugba and fry so as to dry the water

DIRECTIONS

 

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·      In a clean medium pot, put in the processed cow leg, the abacha and ugba

·      Add in the blended crayfish and pepper

·      Add a cube of knorr

·      Then add about 2 to 3 soup spoons of the water from the cooked cow leg

·      Add a soup spoon of red oil (you can add more to your satisfaction)

·      Put the pot on a gas-low heat

·      Use a wooden spoon, stir in the potash until the colour of the red oil changes

·      Continue to stir until the mixture has blended.

·      Serve hot!  

Nkwobi ukwu efi

recently made this, chopped the cow leg smaller and added more ugba.

I hope this helps.

Happy Sunday y’all.

Your comments would be appreciated.

Stay blessed!

MOI-MOI with a TWIST: Just in time for Christmas!

Saturdays are days for special delicacies. Yesterday, I made Moi-Moi. My family loves them. Moving to the United Kingdom, I found it so hard to adapt to the fact that there are no grinding machine shades around, like we are used to in Nigeria and other African countries. The very first time I tried to blend the beans for moi moi; it wasn’t as smooth as I wanted. Then @Zitera advised me to look for beans powder (already grind beans in powder form). Stating that she noticed one of her friends used some stuff like that whilst she was holidaying here in the UK. I went straight on a rampage for it… and guess what! I found it. It was so good but not the way I really wanted my moi moi to come out – fresh, natural and tasty…

Now, I’ve come up with my own perfect way to get that delicious moi-moi ready… And as perfect as it could ever be…Moi Moi fit for the gods, so smooth, so fresh, so natural and so tasty…

Here are the requisites in the processing to the preparation of MOI-MOI GODDESSES.

INGREDIENTS:

• Beans
• Onions
• 2 Knorr
• Crayfish
• 2 Tuna fish * I use tuna in sunflower oil*
• Sunflower oil
• Romero pepper a.k.a Tatashi
• Ginger
• Garlic
• Pepper
• Pinch of salt
• Foil or small plastic container
• Water

GETTING THE BEANS READY.

Soak the beans in a bowl with warm water.

After 5 minutes, drain the water and peel away the beans skin.

Rinse out the peeled skin totally

Soak the washed beans in hot water and leave for 4 hours.

**Note: if you are going to have the moi-moi for dinner, prepare the bean in mid-morning, so it would be soft enough to blend in other to get the smooth mixture**.

The amount of tuna fish you are going to use would depend very much on the quantity of moi moi you want.

romero pepper.

Blend the washed beans together with water, crayfish, onions, pepper, romero pepper, ginger and garlic.

Pour the blended mixture into a bowl

And add the oil from the tuna fish and additional 50 ml of sunflower oil.

Open the Knorr cubes, put them in on a small bowl plate and add hot water. Stir the cubes so as to melt entirely.

Stir in the cubes, the tuna fish, pinch of salt and water. * The mixture has to be a bit thick, not too thick and not to watery either*

Stir the entire mixture and check taste.

Pour in the mixture into each container or prepared foil

Cooking process

Cook in a medium pot, add 500mls of water

If you are using foil, use a smaller pot cover, as a base on the pot. It prevents the foil from burning or sticking to the pot.

For plastic containers, no need to protect the base of the pot.

Put in the containers and their contents.

Then cook for approximately 45 minutes.

Allow cooling before serving.

POTATOES SALAD

• One medium Irish potato
• Medium cucumber
• Cherry tomatoes
• Sweet corn
• Garden peas
• Boiled Eggs
• Carrots
• Salad cream
• Macaroni

Preparation.

Peel the potatoes and carrot, and then cut them in cubes.

Divide the cucumber into 2 and remove the seeds.

Remove the green back of one and leave the other half green

Dice the cucumber

In a steamer, put in the carrot, peas and sweet corn, allow to steam for 10 mins but remove the carrot at 5 mins.

In a small pot, boil the macaroni and potatoes until done and drain.

In a medium bowl, slice in the boiled eggs and put in all the ingredients. 

Serve with salad cream.

                                               He's the BOSS, always certifies before Mommy can blog.

Hope you try this one-day… I believe you would really love it. Your comments would be appreciated… THANKS… ENJOY!

Grilled Chicken Thighs served with Salad!

Juggling school and family life is like trying to juggle two bags of cement all on your own. One of my friends in school said the other day, "It feels like I'm ignoring my hubby and kids. I don't even cook for them anymore...that's so bad school work has affected our lives! My new best friend is my PC...so much course work! In fact Belle, any day you don't see me in school, just know that I finally quit school".

I've refused to let the stress interfere with my giving quality attention to my man and his stomach. The way to a man's heart is through his stomach after all! So I came up with this plan of stocking as many chicken thighs as possible, spiced and left in the fridge over night to marinate after which I pack them, as I want to use and preserved up in the freezer. It really comes in handy especially when an unexpected friend pops in to visit…

                               Here's my recipe for spicing the thighs, and the salad that goes with it. 

 

Ingredients         
 
Meat seasoning                                           Salad

Chicken                                                   Bristol salad {from Iceland or Lidl}
Beef                                                         Avocado
Knorr                                                       Cherry tomatoes
Salt                                                          Carrots
Ginger                                                     Cucumber
Garlic
Lemon or vinegar
Curry
Thyme


The seasoning process.
 

• Remove the skin of the back of the chicken
• In a bowl, put in the meat, be it chicken or beef
• Add the Knorr, curries, a pinch of salt, ginger, fingers of garlic, squeeze in quarter of a medium lemon and thyme
• Massage the spices into the chicken
• Put in the spiced protein into a freezer bag
• Put in the fridge to leave to marinate for 2hrs
• for the steak...fry with little olive oil and butter until browned

If you want to grill immediately, that’s fine. It’s up to you how you want it.  I usually freeze them and bring out the portion I will be using about 4 hrs before I use them so as to defrost.

For the Salad

• Empty the Bristol salad into a bowl
• Grate in your carrots
• Cut the cucumber and avocado and chunk into the bowl
• Wash the cherry tomatoes and add in
  Mix together and serve with any cream of your choice. I love my salad cream.

                                                       Made this for my friend and her son.

                                                                     Shiela and her Son

                                                                

                                                     Made this specially for him...Lazy friday.