Waakye

Awaakye or waakye it's still the same dish, made with beans and rice.  It's eaten with a special tomato stew which is made with meat,fish and egg. Other accompaniments that goes well with this are spaghetti, gari ,salad.
Ingredients:

• 2 cups of black eye beans
• 4-5 stalks of the waakye leaves. (if you don't have that 1/2 tablespoon of baking soda will do, if you use too much,the rice will become soapy)
• 1/2 cup of rice
• 1 teaspoon of salt
• 1/4 cup of butter(optional)

Method:

1. Wash black eye beans and cook with enough water to cover up beans, add in your waakye leaves OR baking soda (this will give the waakye the color that it comes with)
2. Let the beans cook for about 25 minutes or soft to the touch.
3. Add rice, cover with foil



Finally got some waakye leaves (YAY) look at the color difference?

4. After 15mins check on your waakye , now you can add the butter, stir and allow it to cook for about 15mins 

Pardon the steam this was still on fire when I took the picture lol

Gari: This is one of the accompaniments that goes with waakye. If you have some gari at home, that will be awesome. You will be using the oil from the tomato stew.

• 2 cups of gari
• 1/3 cup of water
• Enough oil from the stew to give the gari the orange color that it usually is. 



The stages of the gari. See the color difference?

• Sprinkle about 2 tablespoons of water on the gari, mix it together. Then start off with 3 tablespoons of oil, if it is still white then add more oil till you get that orange color.

Spaghetti: You can use a tablespoon from the oil from the same tomato stew that is why the waakye stew is usually oily.

• Half of a bag of spaghetti (or the whole bag depends on how many people you are cooking for)
• 2-3 cups of water
• 1 teaspoon of salt
• 1 teaspoon of oil
• Break the spaghetti in a bowl, add your water,salt and oil. Boil till its soft . Allow it to cool down for 5mins, stir in 1 tablespoon of oil from the stew with a fork. 

The stages of the spaghetti best known as "ta-lia" (when buying it on the roadside in Ghana lol)

Waakye stew: 

• 1-2 lbs goat meat
• 2 onions
• 3 tomatoes
• 2 scotch bonnet pepper (depending on how spicy you want it)
• 1 small can of tomato paste
• 1/2 cup of oil
• 1/4 teaspoon of ginger
• 4 eggs (depending on how many people you are cooking for, optional)
• Spices (Lawry's seasoning salt,black pepper,parsley flakes,etc...any of your choice)

1. Season goat meat, then steam it for 20 minutes(until the meat isn't red), after the meat is ready, fry it. 
2. Blend onions,tomatoes,ginger and pepper
3. Slice half of an onion and saute it with some oil in a different sauce pan, after 1 minute pour in your blended ingredients. Add in your tomato paste, let it simmer for 20mins then add in your fried goat meat. (Boil your eggs now)
4. Season your stew with the spices, your eggs should be hard boiled now so you can add them to your stew......and after 10- 15minutes your stew should be all ready now. Enjoy!!

PS: You can increase the amount of ingredients you use depending on the number of people you are cooking for......You can also fry some fish and add it to the stew if you want that road side waakye stew feel lol.

This is my mom's lunch bowl for work, I make sure she has food for lunch everyday lol, There's waakye,gari,spaghetti,meat,fish and egg :-D

Waakyeeee is readyyy!! LOL

Bread rolls

I remember sometime back in Ghana these bread rolls were always served at some parties we went to and we use to have them for breakfast too! I am so glad I have the recipe for them!

Ingredients:

• 4 cups flour
• 1/2 cup butter [1 stick,4oz,100g)
• 2 teaspoons of yeast
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 2 eggs
• 3/4 cup milk
• 1 teaspoon salt

Method:

• Mix the milk and yeast and set aside
• Beat the eggs, take 2 tablespoons of the eggs and set aside this would be used to coat the rolls this is known as egg wash. 
• In a mixing bowl, mix the flour, sugar salt. Add the eggs and mix well then add in the milk mixture with hand till dough starts to form. When the dough is fully formed, remove it and put it on a lightly flour surface
• Knead for 5 minutes. then cover with napkin and set aside for about an hour. (It should be obviously bigger in size after that )
• Preheat your oven at 400 degrees F (200 degrees C), grease a baking pan with butter 
• Make small bread rolls(balls) and set right next to each other in the greased pan
• Brush with your egg wash then put it in the oven and bake till its golden brown. 

Deep Fried Shrimps

Hello, Shrimp lover here again! Lol

Ingredients:

• 1 lb of medium sized shrimps (deveined and with the tails left on them)
• 1/2 teaspoon of black pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon of garlic powder
• 1/2 teaspoon of salt
• 1 cup of flour
• 1 cup of panko bread crumbs (any bread crumbs could work)
• 1/4 cup of oil (for frying)

Method:

1. In a bowl, season the shrimp with the black pepper,garlic powder and salt
2. Mix your flour and paprika in a small bowl, put the eggs and bread crumbs in separate bowls
3. Heat up your oil on medium heat
4. Put the shrimp in the flour mixture then into the eggs, and then mix in the bread crumbs
5. Fry until gold brown(takes about 5 minutes to brown)

Ps: It does get a little messy so be prepared. :-)

Ingredients

Step by step 

All ready. :-) 

Shrimps!!!!!

Haha! I don't know exactly what to call this except what it is....some SHRIMPS!!! LOL I am such a shrimp lover it's insane, I was craving shrimps but didn't want curry shrimp or fried shrimp so I just went into my fridge got some bell peppers, onions and then here we are! Some yummy shrimps!! :-D

Ingredients:

• 1 lb of shrimp (peeled,deveined) 
• 1 red bell pepper
• 1 yellow bell pepper
• 1 green pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon paprika
• 1/2 teaspoon seasoning salt (I used Lawry's as always)
• 1/3 teaspoon of oil(olive oil or canola oil)

PS: You can make this as spicy as you want by increasing the amount of spices you use, its all up to you. If you also want it saucy just add 1 or 1/2 cup of water mix it with 1 or 1/2 teaspoon of cornstarch or flour and pour it on your shrimps and let it simmer till it gets the "thickness". The one I made didn't have any sauce because that's how I preferred it. 

Method:

1. Wash shrimps and season with all your spices, set aside
2. Chop and wash your vegetables (Don't cut them too small)
3. In a sauce pan, add the oil, pour in your vegetables, stir for about 5 minutes 
4. Add in your seasoned shrimps, stir for another 5 minutes, Let it simmer for 15minutes
5. Serve with jollof, fried rice, white rice and rice and peas

Vegetables

Almost ready

Pound Cake (Ghana style)

I've always been the cooking type wasnt really into baking but I was bored on one Sunday & decided why not give that a try. So instead of buying the box mix to make it easier for me. I decided to ask my mom how she did her cakes back when we were in Ghana & I was surprised to see how simple it was

Ingredients:

• 2 cups butter (4 sticks,16oz)
• 1 cup sugar
• 6 eggs
• 2 1/2 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3 teaspoons baking powder

Ps: As a preservative, so that the cake won't go bad(because of all the eggs you have in there), add 1/4 cup of brandy(any of your choice)to the cake.

Method:

1. Grease a cake pan of your choice
2. Preheat oven at 350 degrees F(177 degrees C)
3. Mix your dry ingredients, flour,baking powder and nutmeg.
4. Then in a separate bowl,cream your sugar and butter till is completely mixed, beat in eggs one at a time still stirring.
5. Add in your vanilla extract, then mix in your dry ingredients slowly, making sure that everything is fully mixed.
6. Pour into greased pan and bake for about an hour or when you stick a toothpick in and it comes out clean. (When you put the cake in the oven don't open it to check on it, let the cake rise well before you do so otherwise it would fall in and you would have a flat cake.....hopefully this makes sense...Lol)

Ps: If you are trying to have yours with the coloring that I have in some of the pictures below. Just take about 4 tablespoons from the batter, add the food color of choice(about 1/3 teaspoon....not too much color) then mix it well,then pour it in your greased pan with the rest of the batter. For the chocolate mix I used 1 tablespoon of cocoa powder in a small mixture of the batter. 

The process of making the pound cake. (I don't have a cake mixer yet so it was all by hand...lol)

Finally got a cake mixer (as a graduation gift...yay) so everything was a bit easier

I used green,purple and pink food coloring for this trial cake. Loved how it came out

Wanted a vanilla and strawberry flavor so I used this with a little bit of batter from the original

Something blue lol

How it looked like lol (Something blue)

Something blue is ready lol

The end result. (Sorry I don't have a before picture for the chocolate one, but I will update as time goes on)

For some interesting reason the cake looks like red,yellow and green after it was done haha. (But I had some left over batter so I made cupcakes with them)

With a little of chocolate in the middle

Plain old pound cake with a dash of vanilla & strawberry flavors

Baking for christmas 

Very colorful lol

Ghana colors, representing my motherland!!! 

Soft and yummy 

With a little chocolate hidden inside

Bofrot/Boflot/Bofloat = Ball Float

Oh man one of my favorite snacks,well according to one of the friends of Theedee's cuisine page on fb(Maha-Marissa) these are called ball float (like balls floating in oil) but somehow Ghanaians we ended up with bofrot or bofloat (Gotta love Ghanaians lol). I had a craving for these just like they sell on the streets in Accra but I couldn't find none in New York so what does a foodie like me do I go on a search for the recipe. And waa-la I found it from my Auntie Mary of course lol.They taste close to exactly what I was craving for.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups of flour 
• 2 teaspoons of yeast
• 1/4 cup butter
• 1/3 cup of sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon of salt
• 1/4 teaspoon of nutmeg
• 1/3 cup  of lukewarm water
• 2 tablespoons of milk
• Oil for frying

Method:

1. Stir yeast in 1/4 cup of warm water. Stir in 1 teaspoon of sugar and set aside for 10mins. If the mixture doubles in volume the yeast is active
2. Mix your flour,butter,sugar,nutmeg and stir in the yeast. Slowly add in your milk and water. 
3. Sprinkle some flour on a clean surface and knead your mixture till its very smooth and doesn't stick to the surface (this is the longest process for this whole recipe,usually takes about 10-15mins because you want the dough to be very smooth). 
4. Cut pieces of the dough and mold it into small balls, place on a baking sheet(sprinkle some flour on the sheet)
5. Cover with napkin or towel and allow the dough to rise(usually takes 30mins to an hour to rise, it also depends on how warm the kitchen is, the heat enables it to rise faster)
6. Fry until golden brown. (When the oil is extremely hot it doesn't take a long time for it to brown so keep stirring and keep paying attention to it)

Dissolving yeast

Milk and water mixture

Flour-ed baking sheet to place the ball float

Step by step after kneading

A perfectly risen bofrot. I was so happy when I saw this. Haha. 

Another perfectly risen ball float lol

Step by step frying stages, as you can see the ball floats were browning very quickly but don't take them out just yet because you want the insides to be well done. 

In the process

Ball floating in oil I loved how this turned out :-D 

Hot and tasty! Haha. :-)

This is how the inside of the ball float should look. If the dough is still stretchy that means its not ready

Too good. Ps: someone placed an order for this lol,...wasn't for the house

Peanut/Groundnut soup (Nkante nkwan)

 This is the soup that MOST people eat with their rice balls (omutuo), but it also goes well with fufu,rice and yam.....I love it with anything basically because it is yummy!! lol

Video -Groundnut soup

Ingredients:

• 1 12oz bottle of peanut butter 
• 1 lb of goat meat or chicken or fish (your preference)
• 2 onions
• 3 tomatoes
• 1 scotch bonnet pepper (depending on how hot you want it)
• 1 tablespoon of ginger
• 1 can small tomato paste
• Spices (lawry's seasoning salt, adobo,ground black pepper)

Method:

1. Wash your choice meat very well, removing every fat from it. Season with seasoning salt, powdered ginger and black pepper. Let it steam for about 20minutes
2. In a different sauce pan mix water and peanut butter till a smooth paste, chop onions, pepper (scotch bonnet) and a tablespoon of tomato paste. Put the peanut mix on a medium high,stir occasionally until it thickens. There will be some oil on the surface of it
3. Blend your onions, tomatoes, ginger and pepper. After pour it on the meat, then add the cooked peanut paste and the rest of the tomato paste. Add enough water till it's watery (You are making soup so it shouldn't be too thick)
4. Add the spices (season to your taste)
5. Allow it to simmer for 30- 40minutes

Ps: If you prefer fish instead of meat you can buy any fish you want (ideally tilapia), wash it,season with your choice of spices and bake it till its really dry and put it in the soup. :)

Before "frying" the peanut butter, has the onions,1 teaspoon tomato paste and scotch bonnet pepper

After steaming for a while, you see how its thickening up,this shows  that the peanut mix is ready for the soup

Goat meat ready to be steamed for the soup. Seasoned with chopped onions,black pepper,lawry's seasoning salt and ginger powder 

Goat meat after steaming

For those who prefer fish instead of meat or chicken. This is tilapia that I baked in the oven till it was very dry. And the others are dried fish directly from the market in Ghana. 

Soup with goat meat

This was with chicken and of course some rice balls (omutuo)

Scones (rock/rough buns)

I must confess I didn't know the real name for these until I started learning how to cook. I always called them rock/rough buns like they did in Ghana. LOL. Very simple but yet yummy scones. Can be great for tea for breakfast or just a snack.

Ingredients:

• 3 cups of flour
• 5 teaspoons of baking powder
• 1 egg (beaten)
• 1 cup of milk 
• 3/4 cup of butter (1 stick and a half)
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/3 cup of dried fruits like raisins could be added if you want it different from the plain old scones

Method:

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F(175 degrees C)
2. Grease your muffin pan or baking sheet
3. Combine flour,butter,nutmeg,salt and baking powder. Mix it well it you have a bread crumb like texture, then add your sugar
4. In a separate bowl mix your milk and egg, and slowly stir it in the flour mix until its moistened. 



Bread crumb like texture



After adding the liquid ingredients, ready for the oven

5. Put a tablespoon or 1/4 cup full in the muffin pans OR turn out dough on to a very light flour surface, knead very briefly. Roll out the dough into 1/2 inch thick round and cut into 8 piece, place each piece on the baking sheet and bake for about 15-20 minutes

Before coating with milk

In the oven almost ready

I just made medium sized balls and baked it in a greased pan

These are not so rough buns but close lol