Dutch ovens in Africa

Here was our contribution:







Voila!!

Kokie Beans

This one is by far my favorite!! It's YUMMY!!!

Here are the beans (sort of like a mix of soy beans and small white beans):




You have them ground up, then you cook them:





Then you grind them in the mortar/pestle, add palm oil, wrap them up in banana leaves, and boil them some more.

Then you cook plantains and coco-yams to serve with it:




Voila!!


(They reminded me a bit of tamales from Guatemala....but I liked these better!)

Ero

Another interesting African dish. It's a soup. Unfortunately (?) I didn't get to taste this one. But, here is how you make it:

First, you sit around a big pot of water and leaves and strip the leaves off:




You cook the leaves:



Then you cook the coco-yams (also known as cassava or manioc) and you beat the heck out of it:




Then you mix all of that together with a LOT of palm oil, some dried shrimp and some 'Ero' (smells a lot like feta cheese. Devin thought he was going to throw up! Ha!):



Voila!

Achu

No, I didn't just sneeze. It's a spicy food from the north of Cameroon. Here are some pics and videos of how it is done:

First, you peel all the hair off the coco-yams:



Then you boil them in a big blue bag:



Then, you throw it in the mortar/pestle and smash it!





The soup that goes in the middle (like a volcano, seriously) is yellow and SPICY!!
It is a very interesting food.

A Saturday Branch Cookout

Our English Branch activity was a raving success!! We all got together and made food! We had 'Achu' (when they told us the name, we always said 'Bless You', and thought ourselves hilarious! However, they don't say anything when someone sneezes, so no one else got it), 'Ero', 'Kokie', and dutch over potatoes and cobbler!

Pascaline and Yvonne:


Chopping up the wood for the fires:






Fires everywhere!




Some candids of myself and the kids:

















The giant rat the kids found...gross:



Some big group shots: