It's All About the Gatsby

by Jenny

Foodie Friday ~ South Africa

 

We came about our pick this week a little differently than we have other weeks...We were watching a cooking show and saw The Gatsby Sandwich. With our mouths watering we decided to build a Foodie Friday around this infamous sandwich. It may look like what we know as a hoagie but don't be fooled, there is so much flavor packed in that bread. The Gatsby originated in Cape Town, South Africa. I read some place that they would take leftovers and pack them in a large roll to take to work. Then it became popular in fast food restaurants. The constant is meat, veggies, chips (fries), all on a large roll. The meat could be chicken, fish, and some even do bologna. South Africa has huge range of diverse influence in their cuisine. The flavor of the meat reminded me of Indian food. It is spicy with a hint of sweet. Now here's the recipe:

The Gatsby Sandwich

1 1/2 lbs. of beef steak or roast

3 tbl. masala (we found this in bulk at our local health food store, Mama Jeans, but have seen it at Indian food markets too.

3 large onions, thinly sliced

2 large soft baguettes

sliced tomato

shredded lettuce

chips (fries for us Americans- we used premade to save time but should be straight cut medium thickness

shredded cheddar cheese

 

First, cover your meat with the masala seasoning, rubbing in, then marinate in the fridge for the flavors to develop. Next put thinly sliced onions and meat in skillet to sear all sides and cook onions until their translucent. Then we cooked the meat and onions at 350 degrees for 40 minutes. As soon as the meat is done, start the French fries, I mean, chips. You will want to let the meat rest for about 10 minutes before slicing fairly thinly. While the meat is resting, the chips are cooking, you'll want to shred the cheese and lettuce, and slice the baguette lengthwise.

 

 

Assemble the sandwich with lettuce on the bottom, then tomato slices, the onions, then the meat. Pile on a generous amount of chips then sprinkle with cheese. Broil in the oven to melt the cheese.

 

      

 

This was truly an amazing sandwich. Very filling. Very flavorful. Very huge. You should've seen all of us trying to take a bite.

 Along with our Gatsby sandwich we fixed South African Samp and Beans. South African Samp and Beans is a traditional side dish known as Umngqusho by the Xhosa people. Samp is cracked hominy and this medley also includes black eyed peas, potato, tomato, onion, vegetable bouillon, and curry. It takes a long time but well worth the wait because of the complex flavors. These are not just plain beans! We found our recipe for Umngqusho on food.com. (I even added my photo there because they had none...)

 

 

 

And for dessert we had South African Koeksisters. They are divinely sweet and usually enjoyed during teatime. They are braided pastries that are deep fried and covered in an extremely sweet syrup.  The recipe followed said to make the syrup the night before but we made it first thing in the morning and it chilled for about six hours.  It's similar to a simple syrup recipe but is 2 parts sugar to 1 part water. It includes lemon, 2 cinnamon sticks, and ginger, then is chilled.

You make the dough and then let it set for about 3 hours. When it was time to roll out and cut the dough, we kind of digressed from the recipe a bit. We made ours a little larger, I used a pizza cutter to quickly slice dough. Everyone joined in for the braiding, then we deep fried them. As soon as they left the fryer, they needed to be dipped in the syrup.

 

 

Oh.My.Goodness. I know I rave about a lot of our recipes but this one was spectacular. So sweet, with a hint of lemon and cinnamon and ginger. We probably had forty koeksisters and ate about twenty five of them that night! I was able to share a few with our neighbor and she loved them too!

 

We really enjoyed our South African cuisine experience. I love that it is something we do together as a family. I love that this is homeschool for my family. I can't think of a better way to learn Geography than to try the foods of other countries. And I love that we pray for each of these countries, their people, & missionaries that are there. It's gotten all of us to think outside of ourselves and world. God created a wondrous and diverse world and I'm loving exploring it with my family.

What Does Canada, Australia, Thailand, & the UK have in Common?

by Jenny

 Gabe's Birthday
Favorite Foodie Friday Foods

They represent some of Gabe's ALL TIME favorite foods!

Our son Gabe's birthday fell on a Friday this year so we decided to do something special and he picked some of his all time favorites from past Foodie Fridays for us all to cook up this week! One thing I realized through his picks- he is definitely not a vegetarian.
He picked three past main dishes from Australia, Thailand, & the UK Foodie Fridays. He wanted several desserts but we put the kibosh on the number of recipes (I mean, I love cooking with my kids but that doesn't mean I want to do it for 8 recipes and 3 days straight...) so he settled on Canadian Nanaimo Bars.





Look at that plate?! I mean, wow...that was some super yummy, artery clogging, special occasion foods!!! I don't necessarily recommend all of these things together but you MUST try these dishes! They are seriously all of our favorites so no one was sad by his selections.








Firecracker Shrimp~ When we were in Kansas City a while back we went to a Thai restaurant and Gabe got Firecracker Shrimp so on one of his first picks for countries he chose Thailand and we searched for a shrimp recipe. The firecracker shrimp recipe we follow can be found at Picture the Recipe. Why blog it all again when they've got suburb directions and great pictures! 
These shrimp are accompanied by a sweet & spicy chili sauce. We add a little less Sriracha than it calls for so that the girls will eat it too. We've made these several times- very easy but intense on great flavors!

Scotch Eggs~ Scotch Eggs are a lovely little dish that has everything you'd want wrapped up in a neat little fried bundle. We discovered them when we did the UK for our second ever Foodie Friday. They consist of a hard boiled egg, sausage wrapped around that, then rolled in bread crumbs, and last they're fried! This go around, we decided to add our own twist by adding bacon!
Ingredients:
6 hard boiled eggs
1 lb sausage
2 tbl finely chopped onion
1 tsp sage
1 tsp cumin
breadcrumbs or panko chips
1) Mix the sausage, onion, and spices together. 2) Take a peeled egg and wrap 1/6 of sausage mixture around egg. 3) Roll gently in the breadcrumbs. Deep fry for 1 1/2-2 minutes on each side. You want the sausage cooked all the way through but not to burn the coating. (If you want to add bacon like we did, you wrap a round a partially cooked piece of bacon around the egg, then the sausage.)

Australian Meat Pies~ This recipe we found from a fun website full of all things Aussie. One of the things we enjoyed the most about this site was the slang we learned. We had a blast trying to speak "Aussie" all day...All Down Under has the recipe. We've made this with the round steak this recipes calls for and it was great but this time around we gave ground beef a try and it was just as yummy!









Canadian Nanaimo Bars~ These bars are amazing! They are sweet and rich so a little piece goes a long way, you can find the recipe we follow here. The only change we made was increase the semi-sweet chocolate from 4 ounces to six! Who doesn't like more chocolate?!
I'm not usually a nut or coconut fan and the crust in these bars have both. We crushed the nuts very fine and used coconut flakes instead of shreds which I found super delish! I was surprised how much I really liked them! They have a creamy center and hardened semi-sweet chocolate top.

This Foodie Friday we took time to focus on Gabe and we prayed over him before we ate. I love how adventurous he is about eating all sorts of crazy things- he's discovered flavors I don't think he would have ever thought he would like! I think that speaks to his personality and maturing. But more than how he is about food I love how he is deep down. I'm so proud of the man he is growing up to be. I can see a deepening relationship with the Lord, his love for his sisters, and  how he cares for his friends. Our family is truly blessed by this boy!

My Finale to the Change 3 Challenge...

by Jenny

So now it's November 9th and I "ended" the Change 3 Challenge nine days ago and still haven't written an update. I say "ended" because I was so bad about the changes that last week and a half it's almost laughable.
If you haven't followed these Change 3 Challenge posts, here is my first~ Change 3 Challenge. Then I shared how I did after one full week in my Was I Successful in My 3 Challenges? and then the following week I shared my Two Weeks in~Change 3 Challenge. That was my last post. I could say I feel like I failed but I'm going to look on the bright side. I'm choosing to be positive.
In a nutshell, my three challenges were drinking more water, writing down what I eat, and only eating veggies or fruits between meals.
Overall, I would say I wasn't necessarily successful in these three challenges as far as accomplishing them more often than not. But I would say a lot of good came out of this challenge.
1. I am drinking a full glass of water everyday before I start all of my coffee to insure I'm getting more than I was...that also encourages me to drink more in between the coffee because I just refill my water bottle.
2. I really eliminated snacking between meals altogether which was helpful (honestly though...it went out the window when the trunk or treat candy came in the house...)
and lastly...
3. I've really begun to think and pray about the 'food issue' in my life. I really don't want to talk about this with anyone because if you read my first post I think I remember mentioning living in denial when it comes to my physical realm.... well, I'm coming to the realization that it really is something deeper for me. I rely on food when I'm stressed, when I'm sad, when I'm angry. I think the way others can rely on drugs or alcohol, I rely on food. And that's not healthy. So I'm working on this. And it's going to take some time. And more than this challenge can fix. But I'm super glad I did this because it got me thinking. Or maybe I'm not. I haven't decided yet.

"STUFFED" A Chilean Dinner...

by Jenny

Foodie Friday~Chile

Wow....I begin this post as I'm lounging on the couch totally stuffed from this dinner.
It. Was. Amazing. I really wish there was a way to post the smells that happen in my kitchen during Foodie Fridays too.                                                                 Evie's pick this week was Chile which has just about as much diversity as America. One of the reasons it's so diverse is because of their geographical makeup including mountains to ocean to the tip which is almost to Antarctica. The other huge influence is from other countries that have migrated there. Germany had a huge migration there and brought pork dishes and pastries like kuchen (which we had we did Germany, it's a super yummy apple cake). Their food is also greatly influenced by Italy and France with common dishes including omelets and prosciutto. Plus a bunch of other countries so you might've thought it's just Spanish influence but it's not. Their dishes are also regional; northern, central, and southern having their own typical dishes.

 

 

~Menu~

 

Pastel de Choclo

 

Avocado Quinoa Salad

 

Sopaipillas with Chancaca syrup

Evie picked Pastel de Choclo Sweetcorn Pie, which is layered pie from the central region. It's a beef mixture, then hard boiled egg, followed by olives and raisins, and topped with a sweet corn and basil mixture. I thought it sounded a bit odd with raisins and egg slices but I'm telling you- it really was an amazing combination! The raisins seemed to take on a different flavor, there was a definite sweet taste from the corn, and the basil and spices kept it from being overly sweet.  It's widely known in Chile but nothing really like it anywhere else. The closest thing it resembled to us was Gregg's grandma's Corn Pone Pie or chili con carne with cornbread. Everyone enjoyed it but Evie wasn't fond of the corn topping (she does not like potatoes- I think it was a similar texture). Oh, by the way, this dish is totally gluten free too.

Then she picked a lighter dish for a side and Chile is known for their produce like avocados. We found Avocado Quinoa Salad that fit the bill. It was full of flavor with avocados, tomatoes, & celery. (By the way, this dish is gluten free as long as you double check your chicken broth, some can have hidden gluten.)

Last, but by no means least, dessert: Sopaipillas con pasadas! This is not what we think of as a sopapilla. They are made with pumpkin and cut in circles that you poke with a fork so they don't really rise and puff. We made the 'sweet' version but there is a very delicious looking savory version as well. The only thing that changes is the sauce you pair it with. The thing I find delightful about this food is that they say they usually snack on them on rainy days. I love when food has a story or tradition behind it. The syrup used for the 'sweet' version is call chancaca syrup. Chancaca is a raw cane sugar that typically can be found in bricks. I read Jaggery is similar. We could not find either so our Chancaca syrup was made of 1 cup of sweetness- 3/4 cup brown sugar & 1/4 cup honey, water, orange rind, cinnamon, clove, and corn starch. After all the sugar and honey melted together then we added the corn starch. After you fry the sopaipillas up, you can pour, dip, or soak them in the amazingly sweet syrup. This syrup was what Gregg kept calling "Christmas in a bowl!" Every time you take a bite, you "ummm" out loud. I can't really describe it any better than Christmas in a bowl. The kids kept saying with each bite, "We should have these Christmas morning!" and "Ohhh, we should take these to Thanksgiving dinner!"  and "The next time we've got to take a dish somewhere, can we take these?!?" I would say that that is a successful recipe.

We thoroughly enjoyed and reveled in our Chilean dinner. We stuffed ourselves til there was no room left....but as I type this, the kids are asking for some of their candy from Trunk or Treat so I guess there's always more room for kids. It was interesting to read about their rich and diverse culture. I think you should definitely try one of the dishes! And if you do, let me know what you think! :)