Pumpkin Leaves
It’s funny how when we grow up food that we hated as children tastes a whole lot different. I have stated in previous posts that I am just beginning to discover vegetables. My discovery begun in 2010 with spinach!! And I have since “discovered” many other vegetables especially the local ones. I never knew that pumpkin leaves could be fried till mid last year (YA! Go figure!!) and when I ate them I loved them and thought that it was the first time I ever had them in my life, imagine my surprise when I went to ask my mother why she never made them for us when we were growing up ad she said “wewe mwenye ata hukuwa unakula kitu yoyote ya green? I made them but you wouldn’t touch them” ( you who never ate any green thing). I served this with ugali and it was just too tasty. I’d like to thank my FB fans who told me how to make this dish HAPPY COOKING!!!
NB: sorry I don’t have the exact measurements
Ingredients
- Fresh pumpkin leaves
- Baking soda or magadi
- Onions, chopped
- Garlic, crushed
- Tomatoes, chopped
- chillies
- Dhania (coriander), chopped
- Cream/ milk (sour cream is the best)
Instructions
Wash the pumpkin leaves then remove the rough part of the stalk by pulling it out all the way into the leaf.
Roughly chop the leaves and the stalk, place them in water, pour some baking soda and boil for about 20-40 mins depending on how old the leaves are. If its young leaves 20minutes is plenty. Once the leaves are soft. Remove and discard the water.
Put the onions in a pot with a little oil. Fry the onions till they are soft, add the garlic and cook for a further 2 mins. Add in the tomatoes, salt, pepper and chillies. Stir well. Reduce the heat and cover the pot. Let the tomatoes cook for about 5 minutes. Add the dhania and mix well.
Once the dhania has cooked for about 1 minute add the boiled pumpkin leaves, mix well and cover. Let this cook for 3-5mins then add the cream/milk. Bring to a boil and serve hot with Ugali or rice.
HAPPY EATING!!
https://www.themothershipvillage.com/pumpkin-leaves/
My Kitchen Garden
For the longest time I have wanted to start a kitchen garden in Kakuma. You see going to the market here is like going to City Park Market or Ngara Market late on a Sunday evening!!! The produce is rarely FRESH. The greens are not a deep green, the carrots are never ORANGE, the apples are soft, and the Dhania (corriander) ooh the dhanias are like a browning green herb that go bad in 3 days tops and the spring onions look like grass that was slashed off two days ago…dead. With all these we are still forced to buy the produce at ridiculously high prices due to the fact that they are transported from Kitale. Due to all these I kept dreaming of how I will start my small garden and plant mainly dhanias. So last time I was home for R&R I decided to go the supermarket and get myself some seeds. So I bought baby spinach, carrots, spring onions, chillies and of course dhanias. I got someone to dig up the space at the end of my house for me
and got some manure from the local community and I planted my seeds. Over the next 3 or so month I expect a lot of challenges, the weather here gets extremely harsh, so that will be my biggest issue, secondly there also a lot of insects that might decide that I am planting for us all and lastly pesky neighbours who think that they can come and harvest on my behalf 🙂 . As you can see from the above photos when its rainy the grass grows really fast, I wish I had taken a pic before the rains so that you see how dry it usually is, but I guess the two before pics are evidence enough of how fast the grass can grow. All in all I am up for the challenge and I am quite frankly looking forward to it all. As my plants grow I will be updating all of you on the progress and the challenges and joys that come with the new “farming” experience. WISH ME LUCK
