Cooking in Tanzania

Side Note: The photo I posted with this blog has nothing to do with with the blog topic on cooking, but I liked the photo because it was a fun photo that Jodie and I took with one of our girls, Sifaeli, who was in a photo-taking mood at the time.

When I was growing up I did not do much cooking at all. My mom was the cook of the family and we all enjoyed her cooking very much. When I went to college I lived on campus so I did not have to cook at all. I ate at the dining commons for all my meals. After graduating from college and getting a job in Orange Co. teaching I lived with a roommate and started cooking for myself. I didn’t take a keen interest in cooking so most meals were very basic and simple. It was about survival in eating…cook whatever is easiest and edible. As the years rolled on I learned a few things here and there about cooking meals, but because I spent so much of my time at work or church I did not focus on making more elaborate meals except when I’d have friends over for dinner and usually on those occasions because of the numbers of people who came over it was much easier to order out and bring it in.
Ok, so fast forward to 2006 and living in Tanzania. Three single girls living in Tanzania with lots of boxes of Kraft Mac and Cheese and Top Ramen that they brought from the U.S. After all that ran out we had to figure out our meals. We ate A TON of spaghetti.
In 2007 Jodie and I moved to a house about 15 minutes from TOA (Treasures of Africa Children’s Home). In the evenings we had time to ourselves without any disturbances and decided we would start taking a greater interest in our evening meal. At first we just messed around with cooking and after a while we realized that we could come up with some tasty dishes with a little creativity. Cooking became a hobby of ours and making “American style” dishes with African ingredients became a favorite thing of ours to attempt.
So now fast forward to December 2010 and Jodie and I are still here in Tanzania. We continue to enjoy cooking and experimenting with ingredients and trying to make our favorite American dishes. We have gotten better at it for sure but have found that cooking meals takes a whole lot of time in the evenings. There is no opening a box and boiling something in 10 minutes or popping something in the microwave for six to seven minutes and having a hot meal…nope, none of that. Most of what we make has to be prepared from scratch. The other day Jodie and I were talking about cheesecake…yum…we miss cheesecake. So we decided to try to make our own. First we had to make the cream cheese. We made cream cheese…yep, we did! Then after that we made pineapple cheesecake. It was our first effort and I thought it came out pretty good. We even made our own crust…that was tasty too.
I had brought some corn tortillas with me from the U.S. and we decided to use them to make enchiladas. We made our own enchilada sauce. I was quite impressed how it came out. Those were yummy enchiladas! Tonight Jodie made hot dog chili for our hot dogs. We still enjoy spaghetti but now we make our own sauce.

I never imagined myself cooking meals the way I cook them today. I would never cook like this if I lived in the U.S. I wouldn’t have to because so much would already be prepared and in a can waiting for me to open and pour. I miss that but it sure has been fun to discover a fun and tasty hobby.