Fidelia is Coming…

And she is bringing my darling Seni, her son with her. Seni, who is five thinks I am the coolest grown up ever. He actually asked his mum if I could come for a sleep over at theirs once. I was so chuffed! A five year old thinks I am cool. It’s a wonderful feeling I tell you! Whenever he comes over he has the Nintendo DS and Wii to entertain him and his favourite, the iPad! He got a DS as a present earlier in the year and now he has asked for the iPad for Christmas… hahahaha. If this continues I fear that Fid will put me in charge of purchasing Seni’s major assets!

I met Fidelia through Miss Ola, a friend I share a flat with. Most Sundays after church, Fid and Seni come to ours to chill before heading home. I love it when Seni opens my door to say hi and my lazy ass is still in bed. I know deep down he comes looking for the iPad but I will pretend it’s me he is looking for.  

“Sara, I am coming over in about ten minutes. Do you have that pasta with all the green things inside? Please I am craving it” she says to me on the phone. I literally laugh out loud.  The green leaves she is referring to is spinach and spring onions. I actually keep an emergency supply of cream cheese, spinach and chicken for this pasta just in case she decides to pop round. I have to admit I thoroughly enjoy preparing this dish for her. The joy I feel is unquantifiable when she asks for it. 

I have always imagined me in a big kitchen where people just drop by to eat, talk and laugh. A place that’s warm and welcoming. This is why I love it when the regulars drop by and drag me out of bed to prepare something warm for them to eat.  

If I owned a restaurant right now this dish will definitely be a signature dish. The number of people that have asked for the recipe after sampling it has been overwhelming. Imitation is the best form of flattery. M my dearest friend, who hardly cooks, probably last cooked in 1987 (she is going to kill me!), came to Aberdeen for the weekend and I prepared this dish for her. Guess who called me last Saturday armed with pen and paper to take down notes? Madam was constantly calling to ask about ingredients and methods. At a point when I didn’t pick my phone on time she said “Sara, you cannot be unavailable right now”. It’s not like I never picked up, the phone just rang longer than she would have liked.

She sent pictures of every stage of her cooking. I was completely bowled over when she told me she had really enjoyed her cooking experience so much that she was considering making a weekend of it. WOW! I was really pleased to hear this especially since M thinks I have a problem with food. I feel now she is beginning to understand it is love I have for food. When I asked her how her version of my recipe tasted, she replied “Just like yours!” I smile, my work here is done! Rumour has it M is experimenting in the kitchen again this weekend!!! 

Cooking pasta recipes, especially spaghetti is something I am very comfortable with. I have even gone as far as learning how to make the actual spaghetti from scratch just in case I wake up one night craving spaghetti and there isn’t one stick left in the packet. Crisis I tell you! It is my favourite food in the whole world. I remember how excited I was in school when spaghetti had just been introduced to the dinner menu. I used to get dressed up (well we had to wear uniforms and the only way to improve on the hideous outfit was to wear loads of make up) for “spags” day. I would pretend I was in a posh restaurant having the most delicious meal. When ever I am sad or happy, I think of preparing pasta to “mark” the occasion. It is the comfort food that makes me feel everything will be alright. Nothing beats a huge bowl of spaghetti in a thick spicy sauce for me. I even love the mess I make on my clothes and face when I am slurping it down. Mind you, I am always well behaved when I go out to eat. 

‘Wifey’ and I share this love for pasta so we decided to go to Italy to experience authentic Italian food. We got a really good deal to go to Milan (Sicily would have been perfect but like my people would say “na money kill am”). When the pilot told us we couldn’t land at the airport because of the weather we were like but this is Italy, it can’t be that cold. The amount of snow we met when we got off the plane was unbelievable. I have never seen such in my life before and I live in Scotland! Cars were completely covered up with snow; people were carrying shovels on their shoulders. We were still confused. But this is Italy! Mediterranean climate, which equalled mild winters! Where did the snow come from? Chido didn’t want to leave the hotel room. I had to drag her out after the second day.  There was no way we were going to spend all our time under the duvet. We wore all the clothes we packed for the trip that day. It was that cold! When we got to the town centre we saw signs directing us to the “Winter Olympics”. Winter Olympic? In Italy? In Milan? We were so excited about the dead cheap deal we got that no one even bothered to check what the weather was like or what was happening that weekend in Milan. If we had seen that the winter Olympics was being held there, there was no way we would have gone. We didn’t even know that there was such a thing as “Winter Olympics”. Ignorance is indeed a disease. We did try to sample some recipes but the weather was so terrible that we didn’t really enjoy our time there.

Anyway Fidelia is coming; I need to head to the kitchen:

Pasta a la Fid

250g of Spaghetti

3 Chicken Thighs, diced

8 Spring Onions, chopped

2 Cloves of Garlic, chopped

Fresh Chilli (scotch bonnets), chopped

2 Cups of Spinach, chopped

2 Tablespoons of White Wine Vinegar

1 Tablespoon of Soy Sauce

2 Table Spoon of Corn Flower

1 Teaspoon Lemon Zest

2 Tablespoons of Cream Cheese

2 Tablespoons of Sunflower Oil

Black Pepper

In a freezer bag add the diced chicken, soy sauce, corn flower, vinegar, lemon zest and black pepper and mix so that the chicken is covered in the marinade.  Place it in the fridge. In the meantime boil some water (enough to boil the pasta) in a large pan and when it has boiled add the spaghetti. When it’s cooked, drain it and keep it aside. 

In a large wok or sauce pan, heat the oil for a minute and fry the chicken until it’s cooked. Add the chopped garlic, spring onions and chilli and fry for 3 minutes then stir in the cream cheese. Add the spinach and stir until all the spinach has wilted. Season to taste. Add the pasta one serving spoon at a time stirring each time.

This serves approximately four people depending on size and how hungry they are. 

Enjoy!

P.S. - All photographs taken by me unless otherwise stated

Why am I working on a Sunday? Why?

So I have loads of work, like proper work. You know, the one that pays for all the ingredients, food and gas bills. But I couldn't bring myself to do any of it. It's Sunday for crying out loud! And it's really, really cold. All I want to do is sleep. So what did I do instead? I cooked and cleaned and cooked some more. What do I tell my boss when she asks if I have finished my report?

Anyway I baked savoury and sweet scones and crumpet soaked in eggs. I usually use self-raising flour for my scones but today I had to use plain flour and baking powder. When I opened my bag of self raising flour I found some insects inside. Let me point out that this bag was brand new and sealed. Anyone that knows me well knows how much I detest insects, I get panic attacks when I see them. My sister always asks how I coped in boarding school. Our school was in the middle of a forest with all sort of wild life and wild insects! With teary eyes I called Chido to tell her what I had found and her question was "what were you doing in Asda?" Hisssss! I am heading there tomorrow to demand a refund and a million pound compensation for the trauma they put me through!

If you have only plain flour, self-raising flour can be achieved by adding 2 teaspoons of baking powder to every 250 grams of plain flour. For my savoury scones, I added cheese to the mixture and left out the sugar. In a bowl, I whisked 2 eggs, 3 table spoons of milk, finely chopped onions and tomatoes. I seasoned with mixed spices and salt to taste. I had bought some crumpets earlier which I then soaked in the egg mixture and baked in the oven for 20 minutes.

After cooking and cleaning you would think I would try to do some work. I sent out this message "Brunch at mine!" to a few church going friends, knowing they would be hungry after the service. I pity myself!

P.S. - All photographs taken by me unless otherwise stated

Tropically Sweet

Does your favourite fruit say something about who you really are? Errr... I’ll leave that to the psychoanalyst to figure out. All I know is mine is the pineapple. It’s not exactly pretty and the prickly look seems like a total turn off. Unlike other fruits for example mangos and oranges, it’s very hard to tell when a pineapple is ripe. Then when you have finally picked a ripe one you need to cut it up, remove all the divots (the numerous evil looking “eyes” in a pineapple) and make sure you have more of the fruit on your plate than in the bin. Abeg, it is hard work!

For me, it’s all about the labour of love, which was drummed, more like forced into me by my dearest mother. She used to say take charge of something and do it properly so if you ever left people would miss you. Right! I was always in charge of preparing the fruits during Ramadan growing up so I had to learn how to tell when the pineapple was ripe. A ripe pineapple should have a yellow-golden colour at the base of the fruit. The further this colour rises to the crown, the better. Pull a leaf from the crown and if it has got a large white area then you are good. If the leaf can be pulled easily then your pineapple belongs in the bin. Sometimes what you see is not what you get. Even if your fruit is the most beautiful yellow-golden colour you have ever seen, touching and smelling it will also help you choose the best one. Is it firm to your touch? If it’s too soft or spongy then it’s rotten. If you get high from just a sniff of the base, then get ready you might just be looking at getting wasted on something natural *wink* *wink*. If you are going to try all of the above at a supermarket, I suggest you wear sunglasses to hide your face. You don't want to end up as the latest YouTube hit - 'customer caressing pineapples'.

Cutting it up is another kettle of fish. This is messy and most times results in itchy fingers. If you ask an "expert" how they would cut a pineapple they would probably tell you to cut off the crown and the base of fruit then stand the pineapple on the base and cut the skin off the sides in stripes. I find this very difficult to do. Please don't let the videos on YouTube fool you and cutting the skin off in stripes this way means you taking a lot of the flesh off. If you ask me, I would say yeah cut off the crown and base of the fruit, slice the pineapple  into about 2cm thick discs, you are now able to take off the skin easily as your knife has a shorter distance to travel. I love the hard middle bit so I leave it in. Most people cut them out.

After cutting up the pineapple into medium size chunks, what I like to do is place them in the freezer for about fifteen minutes for the juice flowing around the chunks to crystallise so that it gives it a nice crunch. What I used to do during Ramadan before we break our fast was to sit on the freezer so that no one had access to the fruits I had placed in there. If I felt that it hadn’t been in there for long enough I wouldn’t let any one touch them even if it was time to break our fast. This made me very unpopular! To confirm if they were ready I had to eat some, by the time I was done “confirming”, there was hardly anything left in the bowl most times. I don’t think my family missed me preparing the fruits for Ramadan after I went to boarding school,  so much for ‘mummy’s’ knows best.

Because the pineapple is frozen around the edges, the juicy middle gets really cold. When I bite into the juicy middle, tangy sweetness explodes in my mouth (no pun intended!) and awakens my taste buds. Beware this can also cause some brain freeze! It is for this sensation I go through all this trouble to create the perfect snack because really you can always pop into your nearest supermarket and buy a pack with only five tiny chunks in it at five times the price of a whole one! The weirdest bit about my love for pineapple is that this is the only way I can eat it, in its purest form. Ok I lie. For extra tanginess I squeeze about a table spoon of lemon on the chunks. I can’t stand it in other dishes though. If you want evil looks from me, give me that pizza with the pineapple toppings, what is it called again…? Ehen Hawaiian Pizza... yuck!

P.S. - All photographs taken by me unless otherwise stated