The Food Here Is A-MAH-ZING!

So here's the long awaited food entry.  I've been getting lots of questions about what I'm eating here...but I wanted to wait until I had a pretty comprehensive list.  So I've been adding and adding...and now it's a REALLY long paragraph...but yeah...here's the answer to the question:

Meat Pie (but it's stuffed with a noodle mixture...very little
"meat")

Okay, so I already wrote about jollof rice…which, I think, is still my favorite food so far.  And I talked about the yummy meat pies and “sausage sandwich” (with the chicken hotdog).  But I have eaten so much other delicious stuff (it doesn’t hurt that Mandy is like the best cook ever = )!  They make fried rice…like based on Chinese fried rice…but it’s super spicy and has local flavors like curry, so it’s way better.  I had waakye (pronounced WA-chee), which is rice and beans, and of course it had a spicy sauce on the side, which was really good.  I had fried kokoo (that’s not how you spell it, but I don’t have the right letters on here) which is yellow/sweet plantain with red-red (black eyed peas in a sauce); the red-red was only okay, but I LOVED the kokoo!  I had fried yam spears (like French fries, but with yam - yummier than potatoes in my opinion, but maybe it’s the way they prepare it) and sardines

Waakye and egg, served with "peppeh," the spicy sauce...
and surprisingly it's usually eaten with spaghetti noodles.
The yellow "cheese powder" in the top left is actually gari
(I got laughed at for that one = )...made from kasava.

(and I LOVE sardines!…can’t believe I’ve never eaten them before).  I had a version of coleslaw…again…better than coleslaw I’ve had because it’s not as vinegary and has more types of vegetables.  I had banku…which I didn’t really like.  It’s like this thick paste…kinda similar to fufu…but it’s made with corn and kasava…and it’s got a really sour taste that I just couldn’t get used to.  I had bananas and gha nuts (you take a bite of the banana and then eat a couple nuts - delicious combination!…and their bananas are SO sweet and firm = )  I had local yummy pineapple.  I had strawberry ice cream…haha (good thing I got over more my addiction to McDonald‘s cones ‘cause there are no McDonald‘s here…who woulda thought there‘s a country they haven‘t fattened up yet…haha = )  Mom…I had FUFU!  It was instant…so Mandy said it’s not as good (the real kind takes a long time to make and is very labor intensive because you have to ground kasava into powder using a mortar and pestle)…although I still liked it - but it is SO filling (and

Red-red and kokoo - you can see how oily their food is

she said the instant is nothing compared to how filling the real stuff is…wow!)!  It’s kind of got a mochi consistency…although not quite as connected, if that makes sense.  We had it in goat light soup (it‘s like a huge ball of fufu…and then you ladle the soup around it…and you eat it with your hands…pinching off a ball of fufu and dipping it in the soup - shucks!  I shoulda taken a picture).  Light soup can be made with any kind of meat, but Mandy’s favorite meat is goat’s meat…so she likes to make it with that.  It’s called light soup because it’s light (like thin in texture and not heavy and filling) and it’s super spicy…but good kine spicy = )  And yeah…if you didn’t catch that…I ate goat meat!  Here…meat is always on the bones…so I kinda

DELICIOUS pancakes! = )  Ooooh...with berries they'd be
BOMB! = )

had a hard time getting the meat…like figuring out the parts I was supposed to eat.  But yeah…it’s really fatty and has the same texture pretty much as beef…so I wasn’t a big fan.  The flavor…I’ve heard people describe meat as gamey…so maybe that’s what it was.  Not sure…don’t really know what gamey is…but there was something a little unusual.  I had pancakes…but these are not like pancakes that we have at home.  These are SO yummy…and are slightly sweet on their own…so you don’t need to add syrup.  Their consistency is more doughy (which I love)…kind of like a thick crepe.  I had mpotanmpotan (yam and sweet potato curry) - and it might just be my new fave dish!  It’s got huge chunks of yam and sweet potato

Mpotanmpotan!

in it…so instead of eating it over rice, you cut the pieces of starch and stir them around in the curry sauce.  I think it had goat meat in it, too (off the bone…so it was easier to eat), as well as chicken sausage (hot dog).  I had egg soup…which is like the traditional stew base with egg - sounds simple…but it’s simply delicious!!!!  I had palm nut soup with goat meat…and this time the goat meat tasted better - are my taste buds changing that quickly?!  Palm nut soup is made from the flesh of the palm fruit.  It surrounds the nut or seed…and after they cook it, they smash it and the flesh separates from the seed.  That is used to make the soup - but the fruit is gristly so it’s sieved out and just the flavor and oil (it’s VERY oily!) remain.  I had spaghetti…which is so different than spaghetti at home!  It’s got less sauce…and the noodles are cooked in and

Spaghetti...but you can see the egg and how it's not like
sauce over noodles

mixed with the sauce.  As usual, it’s got delicious heat…and it has scrambled egg in it!...which I absolutely loved!  I had Chinese take-out noodles…haha…but of course they were served with the spicy Ghanaian paste that they eat with so many things (they call it “peppeh,” like pepper).   I had beef palm nut soup with rice…which was actually really tasty, but made me sick…so I think I’m still not a beef-eater.  I had gari and okra soup with fish and goat meat, I believe.  Gari is the powdered kasava that I thought was cheese powder…haha (hey…it was served on my spaghetti) that they mix with hot water to form a dough that is formed into a ball and eaten with the hands.  You take a piece and scoop up the soup it’s in (in this case okra soup, which is really yummy and really slimy) with your hands and eat it.  So far I was

Chinese take-out...haha - of course served with "peppeh"

supposed to eat the banku and the fufu with my hands, and didn’t, so Marian took a pic of me eating this because she said now I’m a real African…haha = )  I hope this entry makes sense!  It’s been added to over a long period of time and I don’t have the patience to go back through and read it all = /  But yeah…the food here is so good!  I really wish you guys could all eat food that Mandy makes - she is such an amazing cook!

Kids eating banku...I ate with a spoon this day...

but I ate the gari with hands this day! = )

This is what it looked like before I devoured it...haha

Some of the SUPER SPICY peppers they use to cook, and
especially to make "peppeh" - the spicy sauce

Look at that incredibly vibrant color!!!!

I'm still mastering the art of biting it open...I still get lots of
plastic in my mouth = /  They've got it down to an art form  = )
Sometimes the bags taste gross depending on where they
were bought from and who's been touching them.

As far as drinks go, it’s so interesting living in a place where you can’t drink the tap water.  That means that there are no water fountains…and getting water has to be a consistent chore…because it’s not like running out of bread or milk…you NEED it!  So far I’ve seen water in a jug (like Menehune water dispensers), in normal bottles, in modified bottles (it’s like a camelbak- ish thing), and in plain bags (where you just bite open a corner and suck it out).  Other than that, it’s been standard juice and soda (although the apple juice I had here was SO good!…like Japanese apple juice = ), except for a drink called Malta.  It’s so interesting!  They said that people who’ve never had it before say it tastes like dirt water…but I actually liked it.  It’s made from hops, so I’m guessing it probably has a beer-y taste.  But it’s carbonated and slightly sweet…and so 

I'm still figuring out drinking out of them, too...haha = )  I
usually just squirt it into my water bottle = )

it’s like a more natural tasting soda to me = )  Oh yeah…and we have powdered milk with our cereal.  I remember mom saying how much she didn’t like it…but it’s SO good! = )  It’s like really creamy…and drinking it warm is delish!

The Camel-bak kine water...I spill it on me every
time I start a new one...haha = /

They have "Dasani" too!

We were driving so I couldn't get the front of the sign...but
this food joint is called WESTEASTERN PALACE...haha = )
I wonder what kind of food they specialize in ; )

A "fast food" place - aka street food

Their freezer...everything in the US is super-sized!