It's Time to Say Goodbye...

by Jenny

It's Time to Say Goodbye...well, at least, see ya later to Foodie Fridays for the Relafords. We have hit a one year mark of Foodie Fridays, with over 30 different countries, Foodie Friday All Stars, Foodie Friday restaurant tours, and specials for birthdays & anniversaries. We decided to take a break for a while because the last few it seemed the like the kids were tired of cooking and helping. And maybe doing all those dishes! And frankly, hubby and I were too. We decided to make it to the one year mark and then in the new year think of something new and exciting to do for our family day on Fridays. So for our last Foodie Friday Gregg ended on America!

Foodie Friday~America

Gregg tried to select dishes from different regions, some we've never made our selves.

~Menu~

Maryland Crab Cakes

Texas Pressure Cooker Chili

Green Bean Casserole

Homemade Apple Pie

 

Everything was suburb! The chili had so much heat to it that the girls weren't too fond of it. It's a recipe from Food Network's Alton Brown- it'll bring tears to your eyes! We've never made crab cakes at home before and they were delish! Ahh, green bean casserole is my favorite holiday side dish so it's pretty common around here and Juliet ate it up by the handfuls! We all made the apple pie together and it was way easier than I thought it would be! Awe...so yummy! Really, nothing better than homemade apple pie!

 



 

As we end and I think about all we've done together, I decided to put together all the pictures of each Foodie Friday. Ahhh wow.... to think where we started and all the countries we experienced, the wonderful memories we made, the experiences we got to count as "school"- It's crazy to see how much the baby has grown and changed even! This experience was much more than just cooking together- what it did for our family was priceless. We put that day aside for our family and made it sacred and precious. Even when we traveled, we tried to experience 'Foodie Fridays' in other cities- one of the coolest was being at Epcot on a Foodie Friday!

I think I'm going to have to have these made into posters for our kitchen! Loved all these moments!

 

 

 

"Wats" for Dinner?! Ethiopian Food!



by Jenny

 

Ethiopia~Foodie Friday

 

Selem

(seh-LAHM) means hello in Amharic, the official language of Ethiopia. But many other languages are spoken there as well. That's just one of many things we learned this week!

 

When Gregg picked Ethiopia for this week, I had no idea about much of their country, let alone their food. In fact, Gregg and I embarrassingly thought Ethiopia was mostly dry and desert. It is very dry on the eastern side of the country but also is quite mountainous! They have quite a few 13-15,000 feet ranges! The other thing we found interesting is that 44% of the population are Orthodox Christian Church, 40% are Muslim, and 10% are Protestant. Back to the food...

 

Ethiopian Menu

Doro Wat

similar to stew; chicken with spices such as garam masala and fenugreek

Mesir Wat

red lentil stew with spices garam masala, turmeric, and tons of ginger

Ye'abesha Gomen

Ethiopian collard greens with ginger and green chilis

Ayib

creamy soft cheese, we made with cottage cheese and greek yogurt

Injera

a spongy sourdough flatbread, typically uses teff flour and ferments for 3 days, we used a quick recipe with buckwheat flour, baking soda, club soda, & vinegar

Dabo Kolo

spicy, crunchy snack made with cayenne pepper

 

We started the Doro Wat in the crockpot first thing in the morning and the smells were A-Mazing....the spices are things we don't normally cook with and creating a strong, sweet aroma. After the six hours, Gabe used the potato masher to shred the chicken and mash everything a bit.

 

The Dabo Kolo is a typically a snack and are quite addicting. You think they're plain little crunchy, slightly doughy on the inside then a kick of cayenne hits. You just want more. We cooked those next and they were fun to make too. They reminded us of feffernusse we made when we did Germany.

 

Gregg and Evie made the Ayib because it's not a cheese we can find here. They rinsed off cottage cheese and stirred it in greek yogurt with lime juice and we used it to top the Mesir Wat, like a sour cream. Yummy!

 

Gwyn and I had the job of making the Injera. It's a very bubbly spongy flatbread that Ethiopians use instead of utensils. They just rip off pieces and use it to pick up the stews. The batch gave us about 40 pieces! In a medium skillet, you scoop batter and spread it as thin as possible to stretch out to 6-8 inches. There was definitely an art to it and Gwyn and I got quite good at them after about the tenth one!

 

Next was the Mesir Wat, the red lentil stew that also has some amazing spices plus tomato paste, & garlic. Gregg started the collard greens last.

 

We found a great blog A Spicy Perspective  where she's done all the work to create Ethiopian recipes with ingredients we can find and she quickened the Injera recipe from three days of fermenting to like 10 minutes! We still wanted all the spices we could get our hands on- thank goodness for our local and totally awesome Mama Jean's market where we could buy the just the amount we needed of garam masala and fenegreek. I think I'm in love with those spices- man, they smell good!!

Here's her recipes for Doro Wat and Injera, and Mesir Wat and Ayib. Here's the recipe for Abesha Gomen.

 

Here's the recipe for Dabo Kolo:

In a 1-quart bowl:
Mix: 2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. salt
2 Tbs. sugar
1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper
1/4 cup oil
Knead together and add WATER, spoonful by spoonful, to form a stiff dough. Knead dough for 5 minutes longer.

Tear off a piece the size of a golf ball.
Roll it out with palms of hands on a lightly floured board into a long strip 1/2 inch thick.
Snip into 1/2-inch pieces with scissors.
Spread about a handful of the pieces on an ungreased 9-inch frying pan (or enough to cover bottom of pan). Cook over heat until uniformly light brown on all sides, stirring up once in a while as you go along.
Continue until all are light brown.

 

Ethiopian cuisine is family style eating with everyone eating from the stews and using the Injera to pick up their food. We had fun experiencing Ethiopian food what better way to teach Geography?! Homeschooling at it's best....love it! :)