My Favourite Dishes Either To Cook Or To Eat!

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Vegetable soup

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Egusi soup with fufu.

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Concoction oil Rice with fish and Avocados.

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Rice, tomato sauce, fish and salads.

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Rice, beef stew and pumpkin leaves.

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I come from a country that boasts of a variety of home-cooked local dishes and my favorite thing to cook at home is definitely a home-cooked meal. I love being able to cook for my family and friends and enjoy a meal together. There’s nothing better than a delicious, home-cooked meal to devour when one is famished.

My Grandma was a culinary genius, she was a woman who could turn the simplest ingredients into a feast. It was in her warm, smoky kitchen that I learnt to whip up local delicacies such as Ofe Nsala, Ofe Onugbu, Ogbono, Utazi, Egusi, Vegetable soups, all spiced with the magic of "Ogiri isi", a pungent local seasoning which added a unique taste to every dish. And I would never forget the "Mkpodu" of assorted meat that's always left hanging and drying, over a slow smoky fire.

Grandma's recipes were specific and fantastic!

Then was when preparation of food felt like a ritual. My grandmother could pick vegetables from her backyard, grind spices on her grinding stone, pound yam and fufu in her mortar, add or reduce the firewood to either increase or decrease the heat, step after step, my seven-year-old self would watch in admiration as she adds one ingredient after the other, each at just the right time. There was that sense of pride knowing you knew exactly where your food originated.

The wafting smell of freshly made pots of Egusi Soup, Okra Soup, Nsala, Onugbu, Concoction Oil Rice or Rice with tomato sauce, were not just appetizing; they simply were amazing. Having fresh raw materials every day, cooking everything from scratch, and then smelling the aroma of food bubbling up in the clay pots, on the fire, belongs in the past now. Modern life has made it difficult for such simple pleasures to be enjoyed and it does sometimes feel as if some magic has gone missing.

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Sometimes, I might not be working on something to cook or to eat, then I go to the market and let what I see dictate what I am cooking. From the images above, it's easy to guess what my all time favourite dish is; it is Rice, anyhow it is prepared. I cook it at least three times a week. It makes my heart content and satisfied! But knowing that it is mainly carbo, I try to accompany it with lots of protein and veggies and fruits.

Whenever my grown children are home, especially on their first day, or if they have told me that they have someone they want me to meet, I would cook fresh meals, I wouldn't serve them the refrigerated ones, I have nothing against it, (infact I refrigerate foods as I have to work all the days of the week and am mostly too tired to cook fresh meals, when I get back.) the ease is undeniable plus it's timesaving too. I just love to give them something so different!

As my children and my loved ones come visiting, the old ways of cooking fresh pots of food is what I would be doing this Christmas, “homey” cooking is my tradition on very special days, and you are all specially invited. 😁

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All images are my own authorship!

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This is in response to an initiative of @ericvancewalton, to make us walk down memory lane and relive those moments long gone, keeping them alive for our future generations.

You can be a part of this initiative here

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I am @edith-4angelseu and thank you for stopping by my neighbourhood.

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