Call me Chef Carter!

After this weekend, I'm pretty sure I can now add the word Chef in front of my name! I successfully finished baking and shelling and grinding my groundnuts into groundnut paste or Peanut Butter! I was nothing less than estactic when it came out of the grinder as future pictures will prove! After adding a little salt, sugar and some groundnut oil (which I learned will not be necessary next time when I cook them a few at a time like I'm supposed to) to make it less crumbly it was done! It was pretty darn good and my next attempt will only be better! :)

The peanut butter simply gave me confidence to try moi moi solo. I decided to trek down to the grocery store to pick up some american food and then hit a mini-market to get the final ingredients for the moi moi. This turned out to be quite the jaunt as many people stopped to greet me, I was able to stop and price a water tank for a future project, and I was able to scope out a picture printing place and let him know that I would not be paying $2.50 to print one 4x6 picture! :)

Having gathered all the necessary ingredients and confident I remembered how Laura had made it, I realized that I had not taken an active role in shelling the beans. I knew that she had soaked them and the shells just seemed to come off for her...clearly that was not the case for me! After attempting to shell them one-by-one and concluding that there must be a more efficient way, I went outside my compound where there are women who have a little restaurant and are always cooking food. I'd never officially met them, but we were definitely on a waving and "Sannu (hello)" basis, so I took my bowl of beans and a quizzical expression to them to request help. Now I speak limited Hausa and they spoke limited English, but they understood my problem and showed me exactly how to grind them in a giant morter and pestal then to put them in a bowl of water...the shells most definitely floated to the top (thank you density...this will definitely be an example I use in class later this month!) and in mere minutes, they were all expertly shelled! I figured out how to say "Thank you for helping me!" and promised I'd bring them some of my product.

I was a little disppointed to find out that the man at the market had given me dried pepper instead of dried crayfish, but I pressed onward! Then as I was filling the bags as Laura had done, I'd somehow purchased faulty baggies...yeah...every other one leaked out the bottom. That's okay...I was able to double bag! :) I wasn't sure how long to cook them, so I just kind of guessed when they looked done. I was more than a little nervous, but decided to go share my food, which had been a community endeavor, with those who had helped! The women who had helped me shell the beans were excited to try it, and I was excited to have new friends and kitchen mentors right ouside! Since the guards are always there to help me out, I decided I'd partake under the tree with them. They were very appreciative and complimentary of my first attempt! Now, there were defintely some chunks of spice that hadn't been well-distributed and a couple of the bags were kind of runny, but it wasn't bad! Even more importantly, I made a lot of great connections with people while making it which made it taste even better!! :)