Gonna cook Ghana food!

One of my students, paying attention to my not so subtly mentioning repeatedly throughout the year that I love to read got me a gift card for a bookstore as my end of the year present. What she probably didn't realize is that I very reluctantly buy novels and "fun books." My rationale is simple. A fun novel, I will enjoy reading, but may only read once, or if I really liked it revisit it again in a number of years. These are much better suited for the library where I can check out the book, read it, give it back, and read it again any time I get the urge without spending any money. When I am given book money, I tend to get books that I feel will be good books to have at the house and refer to frequently. For example, last time I got a little travel book on Ghana and an international adoption guide book, as well as a parenting an adopted child book (which I loved and KNOW I will be referring to again).

This time my gift card was spent on a Ghanian cookbook, among other things.

My desire to cook this kind of food actually has a few reasons behind it. One is that I would rather have my first time trying the food be in the safety of my own home, when I know all of the ingredients of it already instead of in Africa when a strange this is offered to me. It also feels like a way to bond with the child that I have never even met, by sharing similar food to what they are eating, right now! The third reason for this cookbook is that since we are adopting an older child, they will likely know and remember the food from their home country, especially when they first arrive, and many books recommend trying to serve them similar food, since they are already having to deal with so much change. Last, but not least, is that even if they don't remember, we do want them to know their culture and where they came from, and keep Ghanian foods somewhat frequent in our home so that they are familiar with these dishes that would have been common to them if they were raised in Ghana.

So, without the strictness of the presidential cookbook goal, I simply hope to continue to try a Ghanaian dish each week (within reason, and ability to get ingredients etc.)

At this point, I am just choosing the ones with all easy to get ingredients, though I know eventually I will have to order some of the ingredients online.

Of the two recipes we have made from this book, I have one I didn't care for, and one I loved, and look forward to eating more.



The first one we tried was Meat Pie. The inside mix was good, but the dough was not. It could have been that we messed up on it somehow, but it couldn't really be formed, and practically fell apart when you tried to eat it too. It also might be because the recipe called for a lot of nutmeg in this dough, which was really strong. Blake couldn't even finish one, and I ate more than he did, and then gave up and just ate the insides of the remaining pies (which was a bison/onion mixture, recipe said beef... but we have a lot of bison still... ). Pretty disappointing for our first try from this cookbook (not first Ghanaian recipe, that was back in March)

Our second attempt was today, with much better results.

Today we made two recipes from here- one was groundnut soup, and the other was rice balls. The groundnut soup had a lot of interesting ingredients: tomatoes, peanut butter, water, chicken, ginger and a habenero. The rice balls were basically just overcooked rice that was shaped into balls. But together it was delicious, I kept going back for more and I look forward to our leftover lunches with this good treat!

I made both of them together because that is pretty standard in their cooking to have a stew or a soup served with a starch. Also, the recipe book cross referenced the other recipe, so I knew I should make them at the same time (the notes for the soup said to have it with rice balls or a few other starches, and the rice ball also said to serve with a soup like the groundnut soup).

This recipe gives me hope for our upcoming adventures in Ghanaian cuisine!