Snow day and a taste of Ghana

Hello everyone, I hope you are all having a wonderful weekend. The weather has gone a little bit crazy here in the UK with lots of heavy snow and then ice. It’s quite dangerous out there so I hope you are all safe and well.

This our first time experiencing snow in a village setting. We basically live in the middle of nowhere so we are more exposed to the elements. Our little village and surrounding areas were hit quite hard.

Alfie took some snaps of our village in the snow. Stunning!

On Friday both of us had the day off work so decided to have a snow day, with the exception of a treacherous trip into town for an appointment. It was great as I virtually did nothing all day other than laundry and pottering about in the kitchen. I spent the rest of my time in my PJs cosied on the sofa catching up with the Sky+ box…bliss!

Whilst in the kitchen I thought it was time to expand my Ghanaian culinary expertise…I use expertise extremely loosely here. Alfie’s family originate from Ghana so whenever we go and visit his Mum he’s always treated to the home-cooked traditional Ghanaian food that he was bought up on. I think he misses so I thought it was about time that I learnt how to cook the food of his childhood.

Ghanaian food is mainly based around soups and stews with carbs such as rice or fufu (pounded yam or plantain). I decided to try my hand at Pepper soup with chicken, okra and fufu. The soup is a blended tomato base with chilli. I kept it mild with just one chilli and added the okra, just because. The fufu was the hardest part as it’s hard to get the consistency right. It’s like making Mr. Mash but with a completely different texture.

Alfie loved this so much he even said that it tasted like his mum’s. He rang his mum straight after eating it and she was impressed with my efforts.

Other food this week includes:

1. Oven baked salmon with sweet chilli cream cheese and cracked black pepper and stir fried asparagus and tomatoes.

2. Chocolate, vanilla and pumpkin protein smoothies made using Rice Dream vanilla flavoured milk.

3. Baked tofu, steamed veggies, plantain, rice with black-eyed beans (another Ghanaian dish) with some of the pepper soup used as a sauce.

4. Banana and vanilla green smoothie made with spinach.

5. Oats made with water and frozen raspberries and dried strawberries.

6. Chilli made with organic lamb mince and roasted squash and steamed broccoli.

One of my favourite dishes has to be Sunday’s breakfast last week; well you know me and breakfasts!

These pumpkin and cinnamon pancakes with maple syrup, crushed hazelnuts and Greek yoghurt were immense! =)

In other news…

• I had a very exciting phone call from Heather from Style Nibble about a project that we are working on together, watch this space!
• There has been lots of progress on the job front with lots of interesting discussions about different opportunities
• More home decor shopping took place…our house is starting to look ever more lovelier.

Also remember to check out my current Popchips GIVEAWAY!!!

Do you like trying out recipes from faraway places? What is the most recent world cuisine that you have cooked and enjoyed?

Have you been affected by the snow at all? Have you been out making snow angels and sledging?

Tagged as: cooking, Ghana, snow