Things I loved doing this week

This has been a really cold week (well for us in Nairobi) am sure living in a place where it gets to below -0 is no comparison. I thank God for being borne in Africa, of course we have our problems but snow, -0 degree weather, tornadoes, earthquakes, mud slides, blizzards, forest fires etc are not geographically in our terrain. Really, combine our 'organized' governments, our financial problems (we are developing at our own pace), plus such kinds of calamities and we would surely still be living in huts. But weather, our African economic status and poor governance is not my topic today, but hey it does start off a conversation, evidently!

Back to my point, its been really cold and trying to stay warm is something we (Kenyan ladies) are not very good at, until we wake up in the morning and see fog, then it hits us, that for real it is cold. For the last 3 months I have been hauled up in jackets thanks to my loving husband, but every time I left home for work in the morning, I would meet my neighbour comfortable in her blouse and really question my health status. But now, 3 months down the line, even she can't deny the fact that its cold. So taking good amounts of tea and warm water has been helpful plus I end up having to wear socks in the office coz otherwise I'd be a very agitated person to be around, me and cold don't get past, 'hey, you again!'. Cooking warm meals has also been an excellent way to end my day and my hubby isn't complaining either.

Ugali, managu and pork fry

The meal that took the price this week as a warming food was managu, ugali and fried pork, yum! The pork was bought for another day but it ended up being part of the day's meal and boy did we enjoy it. Am a very outspoken supporter of 'don't cook pork meat in watery stew' campaign. So what I did was pan fry the pork, do NOT add oil, just let it sizzle in its own fat, because you want that fat out. Then once it is well and good take out the pork from pan, leave oil in pan, you can use it for whatever you want later on. Then do the onion frying, add garlic/ginger and tomatoes. Once that mix is good and cooked add your pork and a little salt, remember pork can be salty as well. Then add alittle hot water and let it simmer. Allow it to simmer to a thick stew as in picture. The managu on the other hand, was boiled abit, I poured out the water, well this is only to remove abit of the bitterness, we are sternly told that that water has the nutrients, urgh! Moving right along (before am accosted by a nutritionist) I fried them with onion and one tomato and the magic ingredient, sour milk (mala), you can use cream or milk if you have none of the aforementioned, but the sourness of milk does justice to managu. That meal was fantabulous, try it out.

Normal Granny Squares

uhuh! my other adventure of the week was, yup crocheting. Since the last time I posted my first crocheting breakthrough, things have been slow, reason, I needed to get time and shop for yarn (ha, nowadays I call it yarn feels peculiar as opposed to Uzi) anyway blame it on too much You Tube. After successfully checking out the yarn (ha) place, I present my next project, am not quite sure what I want to accomplish but lets just say am glad to be crocheting again. These are called granny squares you can check on You Tube and learn how to make by yourself. They can become anything from a small top cover to a big chair warm up cover. I plan to mix other colours so now just working away my blue yarn.

Glad its been a great week considering it started out with me being relaxed. So interesting how much we can accomplish when we manage to relax, our weekends are too packed with things that don't really add value in our lives. If you avoid too much unnecessary activity and relax with family and friends, life will be awesome and you won't notice Monday or Friday (I have to admit though, that Friday 5pm is the best time of the weekdays) and at least when the week gets to Friday, it won't be all that bad. Have a relaxed weekend won't you!