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Cooking South African Style

Friday, 29 January 2010

One of the best things about traveling has to be trying new food. When you actually live in another country you get to learn how to cook all these fabulous dishes. The past two weeks we have done South African dinners for both of our home churches (New Covenant Fellowship and The Worship Center) and it was so fun!

We cooked up a few of South Africa's famous dishes for about 100 of our friends and supporters. Thank you to everyone that came and ate! For those of you that missed these times, here is a sampling of what we had. A lot of what we cooked was with ingredients brought over from South Africa.

First was Rice, hopefully you've seen this exotic food before:)

Then we had Pap (Ugali for those of you in East Africa). Pap is a staple food all over Eastern and Southern Africa. It is made with dried white corn flour which is cooked with water until it forms a stiff pile of goodness. It takes some muscle to constantly stir this with a wooden spoon!

On top of these two starches was Babootie. Babootie is a Cape Town curry dish made with ground beef and baked with egg on top. It is our son, Garett's, absolute favorite meal.

With that is a common African salad made with tomatoes, red onions and cucumbers. A little vinegar and salt is added to it and that is it. There is no Hidden Valley Ranch in Africa and with food like this, we don't miss it (although my husband might disagree:).

For dessert we had Malva pudding, a simple white cake soaked in a sweet syrupy sauce. Delicious!

malva_2

To drink with that is Rooibos tea. Rooibos means "Red Bush" and is an indeginous tea to South Africa. We brought it from South Africa because the American version is just not the same. Normally people drink it with a little bit of milk and maybe some sugar.

So there you go! We cooked, we ate and we were full. Hopefully if you joined us, you enjoyed trying something new!

A number of people have asked me for some recipes so I am going to put them here. I have put the Babootie and the Malva Pudding recipe up.

For the Babootie, I had to write down a recipe out of something I just cook intuitively. That basically means that I took my best guess as to what amounts of stuff I put in. I'm sure yours will turn out fine. If you do make these please e-mail us and let us know how it goes. If you have questions also e-mail us and just ask.

I hope you enjoyed the virtual culinary traveling!

Recipes:

Malva Pudding

Babootie

(In order to download these recipes in .PDF format, right-click on each link. For Microsoft Internet Explorer choose "save target as", for Firefox choose "save link as")

Alternately, you can cut and paste the recipes from this page.

Over the river & through the woods...

Monday, 04 January 2010

"Over the river and through the woods to grandmother's house we go" is something we have been doing literally lately. We have been in the USA for a little over a month and having a great time. So far one or more of us has been to Lancaster, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh (all in Pennsylvania), North Carolina, Washington, Montana and we're still going! We still have Oregon and California to hit before we are over! It has been a great time of relaxing, seeing people and also doing some teaching and sharing about South Africa.

We are currently in Montana where Chris is teaching on the School of Biblical Studies and the Discipleship Training School. As I write this, the snow is gently falling outside which is an answer to the prayer of our two boys. They have been patiently waiting to see the white stuff!

We look forward to the rest of our time and connecting with those of you that we have yet to see!

(Below are some common scenes in our life right now)

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travel_3

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The best of the best

Wednesday, 30 December 2009

(Chris writes)
In 2009, I read 62 books, the most ever since I have begun to keep track. How do I read so much? Well, when you receive 4 channels of TV and only a few sports events, it makes it much easier. You can see my complete list here . Out of all the books I read, many do nothing for me. There are some that are exceptional. Here are five that were the best of the year. I would recommend all these. In order, my top 5 of 2009 plus a fiction special, or two.

Top 5

9780830833788 1. Cross-Cultural Servanthood - Duane Elmer
This was one of those books that was painfully, yet pleasantly convicting. Elmer spent many years working in Africa, which makes his examples all the more impacting. He has such a practical definition of servanthood -not putting distance between you and those you work with. Can you learn from them, receive from them, enjoy life with them? My team in Africa will study this book. Expect to see re-reads of this book on my book list for years to come!

hot_flat_crowded 2. Hot, Flat and Crowded- Thomas Friedman
Finally! Someone who can talk about the environment and the green movement in non religious, non political terms. God gave us the Earth - why would we not want to take care of it? And it is not merely the creation of some right or left wing politicians. Enough already! Energy conservation is not only good for the planet but it makes sense; it saves you money!! There are no "trees are people" in this book. Fantastic, sensible read that shows the truly beneficial and amazing sides to this issue

mad-church-disease 3. Mad Church Disease - Anne Jackson
Comparing symptoms of burn-out with Mad Cow disease, Jackson writes a book everyone who feels pressure to perform needs to read, whether in full time church work or not.

starfish_and_spider_logo_cr 4. The Starfish and the Spider - Brafman & Beckstrom
Using modern business illustrations such as Ebay, this leadership book examines de-centralized leadership and structure as a wave of the future. They think theirs in the only model, which I disagree with, but it is a proven and successful one that has merit.

yes-50-scientifically-proven-ways-to-be-persuasive 5. Yes! 50 Ways to be Persuasive - Robert Cialdini
Strategy and studies to show how to "frame" things to influence people. The 50 studies are intriguing and readable in short chapters even if you do not feel the urge to persuade others.

bovkrgwkkgrhgoh-doejlllw14ubjugkbjyr_1 Fiction:The Winner - David Baldacci
A single mom wins the lottery and it seems like the perfect story. Come to find, it was a plan all along to rig the lottery and make the bad guys rich. How the innocent winner flees for her life from her benefactors. After a long day, my brain no longer holds theology or leadership truths. Fiction is a great way to wind down. Many books are better than TV! This one is the best of the year I read.

2nd Place for Fiction
The Collectors - David Baldacci - it was a good year for Baldacci.

Interested in more? Click here to see some other book reviews from the year!

Goodbye SA, Hello USA

Wednesday, 02 December 2009

We have been in the USA for almost 2 weeks now and we are enjoying being home, with family and friends as well as the food that we love! Leaving for two months is always a lot of work, getting work, home and children all situated for being gone that long. That means saying goodbye to preschool (see pic) and final ministry opportunities (see Lindsey speaking at a woman's retreat). We are really excited to see everyone at home though, we hope to see many of you in the coming weeks!

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