My Favourite Things

Reasons to Believe: All things Creme Fraiche, Mascarpone and Ricotta

Domestic goddess that I am. I’m in red raffia heels. OK….wedges. I feel like Nigella. Creme Fraiche on the go, 2 fruit cakes in the making (last Christmas’s success), this time the recipe is adjusted to include some Maltina and pureed lemon sugar. Its the creme fraiche that I’d like to start off with. Thankfully, my feet are not hurting…..and I admit, it is time to drop the charade and take off the shoes.

I am confused as to exactly what chemical reaction has gone on with my ultra-pasteurised whipped cream and reconstituted buttermilk.

DSC_0451

Something has definitely happened. The mixture is thick, thicker than the double cream consistency yesterday. It looks dollopable…… and at the bottom of  my glass some liquid has collected – whey to the initiated.

Read more…

Author name:
Publish date:
February 21st, 2012
Discussion:
5 Comments
Categories:
Baking
Cooking
My Favourite Things
Tags:

About :
Passionate, creative home-cook & amateur food photographer sharing life stories to encourage and inspire men & women the world over. Currently on a mission to create awareness about Nigerian cuisine - its flavours, history, culture and similarities with other world cuisines!

Follow on Twitter
Connect on Facebook
Visit website

Reasons To Believe – Locally Grown Strawberries in Nigeria

When we returned home last August, my older sister told me about strawberry season in Nigeria – January/winter to you in some parts of the world. I was convinced it was a joke. Till last Friday when I held a pack in hand.

DSC_1654

Read more…

Author name:
Publish date:
January 27th, 2012
Discussion:
19 Comments
Categories:
My Favourite Things
Tags:


About :
Passionate, creative home-cook & amateur food photographer sharing life stories to encourage and inspire men & women the world over. Currently on a mission to create awareness about Nigerian cuisine - its flavours, history, culture and similarities with other world cuisines!

Follow on Twitter
Connect on Facebook
Visit website

Reasons to Believe: Celebrating Sinterklaas in Nigeria

What are memories made of?
Fragments of colored glass, perfect for life’s grand mosaic
Pieces of patterned cloth for the patchwork quilt of our earth journeys
And thick threads, for the tapestries we weave of the world

DSC_1196

Read more…
Author name:
Publish date:
December 5th, 2011
Discussion:
16 Comments
Categories:
My Favourite Things
Traditions
Travel
Tags:


About :
Passionate, creative home-cook & amateur food photographer sharing life stories to encourage and inspire men & women the world over. Currently on a mission to create awareness about Nigerian cuisine - its flavours, history, culture and similarities with other world cuisines!

Follow on Twitter
Connect on Facebook
Visit website

My Childhood Favourites

This thing called ‘nostalgia’. Who are you? You blow hot and cold at the same time – a child of different mothers, loved and hated both the same. In one hand you hold the polaroids of old, yellowed and dog-eared with age…full of smiles of carefree youthfulness and abandon; yet in the other sits the present and the future, full of promise yet mingled with uncertainty, a road yet untravelled.

Today I find myself….and I’m on a scale, tipping left and right when all I want to do is stay centered, around a fulcrum of certainty. All I need today is to create my future with a patchwork of squares and scenes from the past. Is to reread the stories and novels that made my childhood heart sing, to lick sweetened fruit powders off my palms and to explore the world with eyes of wonder and skinny legs that could run.

CSC_0434

My daughter, I figure I was just beginning to lose teeth in the 80s

Read more…

Author name:
Publish date:
October 21st, 2011
Discussion:
16 Comments
Categories:
Discover Nigeria
My Favourite Things
Nigeria
Tags:

About :
Passionate, creative home-cook & amateur food photographer sharing life stories to encourage and inspire men & women the world over. Currently on a mission to create awareness about Nigerian cuisine - its flavours, history, culture and similarities with other world cuisines!

Follow on Twitter
Connect on Facebook
Visit website

My Favourite Things – Nigeria and Beyond

One man’s goodbye is another one’s hello. This month, my favorite things span two continents, thousands of miles apart,  but places I’ve called home, back to back. I pay tribute… to the discoveries I made in the last hours of our stay in the Netherlands and share some of the things I love about Nigeria.

The Bankastraat

The thought of a favorite street in the world had never really crossed my mind till I happened upon the quaint, gorgeousness that is the Bankastraat, in the heart of The Hague. Of course I’ve admired Paris’s Champs Elysee numerous times, enamored by the street cafes, its chairs peppered with tourists staring out on the world. I was enamored with Barcelona’s avinguda Diagonal, glistening with glass windows and lined with trees. But when I first walked down the Bankastraat, minutes from my office ( a street whose existence I was completely oblivious to) and led by M of My Kitchen Diaries, I fell in love.

IMG00239-20110814-2035

Read more…

Author name:
Publish date:
September 11th, 2011
Discussion:
25 Comments
Categories:
My Favourite Things
Nigerian recipes
Tags:



About :
Passionate, creative home-cook & amateur food photographer sharing life stories to encourage and inspire men & women the world over. Currently on a mission to create awareness about Nigerian cuisine - its flavours, history, culture and similarities with other world cuisines!

Follow on Twitter
Connect on Facebook
Visit website

My Favourite Things – End of Summer Edition

Repurposing Kitchen Utensils

I love multitasking….and I heart gadgets and utensils than fit that bill. A garlic press shines new light on mincing ginger, a pasta roller that doubles as a pizza base roller, creating consistently thin Italian-style pizza bases – so what if you end up with pizza lenghts as opposed to rounds? Deliciousness cannot be constrained by geometry!

DSC_0859

Read more…

Author name:
Publish date:
August 5th, 2011
Discussion:
16 Comments
Categories:
My Favourite Things
Tags:

About :
Passionate, creative home-cook & amateur food photographer sharing life stories to encourage and inspire men & women the world over. Currently on a mission to create awareness about Nigerian cuisine - its flavours, history, culture and similarities with other world cuisines!

Follow on Twitter
Connect on Facebook
Visit website

My Favourite Things – ‘Dutch’ Special

Holland, my sweet Holland

Soon I shall see you no more

How is it that time so quickly goes by?

And now I return

To Nigeria, my beloved Homeland

Poffertjes

Read more…

Author name:
Publish date:
July 9th, 2011
Discussion:
31 Comments
Categories:
My Favourite Things
Travel
Tags:



About :
Passionate, creative home-cook & amateur food photographer sharing life stories to encourage and inspire men & women the world over. Currently on a mission to create awareness about Nigerian cuisine - its flavours, history, culture and similarities with other world cuisines!

Follow on Twitter
Connect on Facebook
Visit website

My Favourite Things – Spotlight On Me!

This month, my favourite things revolve around special people. My special people. And people who make me feel special. People who cause you to see yourself as you ought to be….or aspire to be.

DSC_0638

Lone poppy, Nikon D40

So read on and enjoy…

Read more…

Author name:
Publish date:
June 5th, 2011
Discussion:
22 Comments
Categories:
My Favourite Things
Tags:



About :
Passionate, creative home-cook & amateur food photographer sharing life stories to encourage and inspire men & women the world over. Currently on a mission to create awareness about Nigerian cuisine - its flavours, history, culture and similarities with other world cuisines!

Follow on Twitter
Connect on Facebook
Visit website

My Favourite Things

Kickstarter

A delightful project and an innovative way to fund & follow Creativity! So what exactly is it?

Kickstarter is the largest funding platform for creative projects in the world. Every month, tens of thousands of amazing people pledge millions of dollars to projects from the worlds of music, film, art, technology, design, food, publishing and other creative fields.

A new form of commerce and patronage. This is not about investment or lending. Project creators keep 100% ownership and control over their work. Instead, they offer products and experiences that are unique to each project.

All or nothing funding. On Kickstarter, a project must reach its funding goal before time runs out or no money changes hands. Why? It protects everyone involved. Creators aren’t expected to develop their project without necessary funds, and it allows anyone to test concepts without risk.

Each and every project is the independent creation of someone like you. Projects are big and small, serious and whimsical, traditional and experimental. They’re inspiring, entertaining and unbelievably diverse.

Read more…

Author name:
Publish date:
May 4th, 2011
Discussion:
11 Comments
Categories:
My Favourite Things
Tags:



About :
Passionate, creative home-cook & amateur food photographer sharing life stories to encourage and inspire men & women the world over. Currently on a mission to create awareness about Nigerian cuisine - its flavours, history, culture and similarities with other world cuisines!

Follow on Twitter
Connect on Facebook
Visit website

My Favourite Things

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens
Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens
Brown paper packages tied up with strings
These are a few of my favorite things

Cream colored ponies and crisp apple strudels
Doorbells and sleigh bells and schnitzel with noodles
Wild geese that fly with the moon on their wings
These are a few of my favorite things

Girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes
Snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes
Silver white winters that melt into springs
These are a few of my favorite things

When the dog bites
When the bee stings
When I’m feeling sad
I simply remember my favorite things
And then I don’t feel so bad

From The Sound of Music, one of my favourite films which I recently saw with my kids

Read more…

Author name:
Publish date:
April 1st, 2011
Discussion:
16 Comments
Categories:
My Favourite Things
Tags:

About :
Passionate, creative home-cook & amateur food photographer sharing life stories to encourage and inspire men & women the world over. Currently on a mission to create awareness about Nigerian cuisine - its flavours, history, culture and similarities with other world cuisines!

Follow on Twitter
Connect on Facebook
Visit website