Sotho inspired

I was able to leave the Bronx earlier than expected Monday night so of course I decided to go to Wegmans on my way home.  I'm loving Wegmans even more now that I've gone through the entire store.  I have nitrate-free lunch meat for my children for $6.99/lb (they package Cooper Sharp cheese so that it doesn't stick) and a host of other things.  My mission was to get the ingredients for the mngqusho and to get some things for the kids' lunch.

I had a feeling that the corn product (samp) she described was something similar to hominy.  I learned a lot about corn products when I began the short-lived culinary trek through mesoamerica.  I wasn't able to find it, which is probably just as well because it seems that some of the corn products are processed with lye and I'm not that thrilled about knowingly ingesting sodium hydroxide.  I have a choice between the yellow grits and whole-grain cornmeal...clearly the texture of this dish will certainly be more like porridge than intended, but I'm giving myself culinary license to make some adjustments.  Sometimes I suppose I will be looking to cultures for inspiration rather than recreating authentic dishes.

Tuesday we had quesadillas for breakfast again, this time with a bit of chicken.  It is clearly not the time of year to attempt pico de gallo from fresh tomatoes...I ought to know better, especially since I just gave lectures to 4 different sections about food production.  I discovered that the key to making golden brown quesadillas on my Griddler is to use butter.

After breakfast I ran two errands that took 4 hours.  As I was putting out the recycles (I try to divert as much waste as possible from the landfill, including food scraps), I noticed Macy's One-Day Sale; I flipped through it and Martha Stewart's enamel cast iron pots were on sale.  With my coupon, I was able to get the 7-quart pot for $53, a substantial savings over the $270 Le Creuset I saw at Wegmans.

I think I went a bit too far with the hodge podge meal I put together.  I went with a kale/cabbage combo (sautéed onions, garlic, ginger, and tomatoes) that was quite tasty until I decided to give it a West African flare by adding peanut butter - the kids didn't like the result, so I drained the cabbage and poured vegetable broth over it for much better results.  Actually the peanut butter worked well with the kale, it was the cabbage that was problematic.

I also went with yams.  I know that yams are probably a stretch because pumpkin/squash would be more appropriate for South Africa, however I have 5lbs of yams that I picked up Sunday, so yet again I attempted to West Africanize them by sauteeing onions and simmering the yams in coconut milk for a tasty result. It was my interpretation of the mngqusho that proved to be the most interesting.  I went with a 16-bean mixture which I soaked overnight.  I sautéed onions, garlic, ginger added cloves and allspice (maybe a tad too much) then simmered the beans, adding salt and pepper...fortunately the flavor intensified because initially I was quite disappointed.  Once the beans were tender I added my last half of bag of TJs frozen corn then about 3/4 cup of stone ground cornmeal to thicken it up a bit.

The food wasn't very attractive but was quite filling, a well-balanced vegetarian meal.  The kids loved the yams and were lukewarm about everything else, unanimously voting to move out of Africa into Arabia.