CuTiPeaBAsh Soup

Alright, so I've been meaning to update this blog to give a general update on life in Saclepea, and I've decided I know exactly what to talk about that I haven't yet mentioned. Food.

So, as those of you who know me already know, I like to cook and I like tasty things. I lucked out in many respects with my roommate Jesse - but something I've discovered in the last couple of days is that one of these ways is that he is also a good cook, and he has similar tastes to me (likes spicy food, MSG, beans, etc).

Today this became abundantly clear when he decided he wanted to make soup for lunch, and we went to the market (stocking up on basic ingredients while we were at it). We can generally find a good selection of grains and beans as well as dried things (dried onion, dried okra, dried hot peppers, dried cassava powder, etc) in our market, but fresh vegetables are a problem (we can get cassava, cabbage, fresh hot peppers, small tomatoes, okra, local squash, small bitter eggplants (called "bitter ball" here), and onions). We can also get peanut butter, canned corned beef, canned sardines, tomato paste, and some random spice mixes (American brand "all purpose seasoning", "barbecue seasoning", and "meat tenderizing spice").

Anyway, so Jesse decided to make soup today, and so he decided to make a variety of peanut soup. It ended up becoming Curried Thai Peanut, Bean and Squash(CuTiPeaBAsh)soup - and it was delicious.

Basically, we sauteed a bunch of onion with some garlic and lots of small hot peppers, added water to this along with lots of seasonings (chicken and shrimp flavored MSG cubes, black pepper, all purpose seasoning, curry powder, etc), then mixed in 4 baggies (about 1/2 cup or so) of peanut butter, about 1 cup of mashed cooked squash, and about 1 cup of precooked beans. This soup was AMAZING it tasted a sort of like Thai peanut sauce, but also was really tasty with the beans, etc. I highly recommend it.

I'm pretty happy with the setup Jesse and I have going, our biggest room is the kitchen and we were able to take our knowledge from Guinea and use it to comission furniture that meets our needs pretty perfectly. Our big table where the stove is is about kitchen counter height, and we had a hole cut into it that fits a big plastic basin in which we do dishes (sort of like a sink). We also comissioned a pantry of sorts that is open air, but covered entirely in metal mosquito screen to keep the mice away from our food and cooking utensils. I also brought some spices with me from America which we have been able to find empty spice containers for (from all those all purpose seasoning, barbeque seasoning, etc jars).

So yeah, life is going well, can't complain too much, and hopefully I will take and post pictures of Saclepea, my school and my house this weekend (I've been waiting for all my furniture to be finished so I could have pictures of the final version of my house). I hope you're all well, until next time, وداع