Cooking Canadian meals in Zambia

When we first got to Zambia one of the things that overwhelmed me was trying to cook.  I can cook. Even from scratch.  But it still threw me off.  I can't buy everything I'd like to buy. There is a grocery store in town that does help a lot but it doesn't always have everything. And some things I'd like it never has!  My go-to in Canada was frozen peas and corn.  Always a quick easy vegetable that my kids like.  Or as a quick healthy snack.  I found some frozen corn in Lusaka this last trip but I've never seen any in Choma. I can find vegetables on the street - so we had a lot of cucumbers, carrots, and peppers when we got here (and continue to). There is lots of lettuce type plants that I'd never heard of… rape, chinese cabbage.  And plain cabbage - lots of it.  The seasons have changed and now I can find butternut squash and other vegetables that I don't know the name of.  (Some small white squash looking something). Slowly I started remembering and adapting recipes from Canada.  Chilli is now a favourite again (but I couldn't find chilli powder anywhere that's not the really spicy hot chilli pepper powder!)  I finally found some MSG loaded chilli spice that works.  And a friend gave me some of her stash that she brought from the US.  Part of the challenge is cooking food that Andrew can eat too.  (We ate a lot of pasta when we first arrived!  Luckily they make maize - corn - pasta!) There hasn't been any corn pasta in our grocery store in town since we got back from our Christmas vacation though.

I'm finally figuring things out… and it's been long enough (we've been here almost 5 months) that I'm willing to spend a couple hours in the kitchen for the gratification of taco night! (Or insert some other usual meal from Canada!)

It's blurry - sorry.  I was in a hurry to EAT it! :)

So, come with me on my Taco cooking journey with me… (we had them last night - and they were delicious!!)  Left overs for lunch!

The parts of the Taco we needed for Taco dinner:

1) Tortilla shells (corn ones too for Andrew)

2) refried beans

3) Beef with onions, garlic and taco seasoning

4) Cheese

5) Lettuce 

6) Salsa

So now looking at what each part required to get to the table:

1) Tortilla shells…. Andrew made flour tortillas and corn tortillas from scratch while I concentrated on the other parts.  Tasty - but time consuming!

flour tortillas

making maize (corn) tortillas

Refried beans

2) Refried beans: I had previously cooked a big pot of beans from scratch (luckily we did this a lot in Abbotsford!) but it requires soaking overnight and cooking for a couple hours the next day. I had put a container in the freezer for such an occasion as this - so I just pulled those out and heated them in a pot, mashed them up and they were really good! (Probably my favourite part!)

3) Beef was not hard.  I can find ground beef in the store (not very lean though). Onions and garlic no problem either.  Taco seasoning I made from scratch.

4) Cheese.  I waited a month to find cheese in our grocery store! They had it off and on before Christmas.  I hadn't seen any since we got back from Christmas break but snagged a large block of cheddar at the store yesterday morning!

5) Lettuce.  Also hard to find - plain lettuce. Our MCC friends in Choma have a farmer that comes to their house and sells them lettuce so they always buy us one.  But we have to soak it in water with a bit of bleach. Rinse it off. And let it dry before we can eat it.

6) Salsa - I was dreaming, we didn't really have any of this…. I can find tomatoes and onions and hot chilli peppers but I have no cilantro. (I have a friend who is growing some so I'm planning to get some cuttings this weekend!)  So we had plain tomatoes. (Well, Andrew and Malachi did).

Tacos were lots of work but they were delicious!

Quick peeks at other cooking:

I wanted a chicken wrap the other day. Took until the next day to get one!  Made the tortillas.  But the only chicken we can get (one time I found frozen chicken breasts!) is a whole chicken.  So I roasted it that night for supper so I could have leftover chicken to eat my wrap at lunch the next day!

I was given a pumpkin (large!) by our MCC friends from their garden. I had to get Andrew to cut it - it was so big I only made it 1/2 through (in about 10 minutes of trying) before I gave up and called him! Took out the pulp and seeds.  Then boiled the cut up pumpkin (skin included).  It took two days as my big big pot only held half of it!  I ended up taking off the skin after it was cooked. If I had a blender than it would have whirled up nice… but I have a potato masher and the peels weren't mashing!  I made pumpkin soup out of the first half.  I also picked out the seeds:  kept some to plant and roasted the others for a snack.  The next day I boiled the rest of the pumpkin and I ended up with about 10 cups of puree (after the soup!) Yeah for internet and being able to put in "pumpkin puree" into all recipes!

We made these very very yummy cookies: (Iced pumpkin cookies on allrecipes) Today I hope to make more AND some pumpkin loaf / muffins. :)

Iced pumpkin cookies (without the icing!) from allrecipes