And she cooks too!

Hey All! 

I've been doing some more kitchen work and thought I would share my latest lesson.  A friend came by and taught me how to make haitian beans and rice. Three hours and lots of sweat later, I managed to cook another traditional haitian meal. Enjoy!

Beans & Rice

Ingredients: Dried beans, rice, coconut, rock salt, green onion, green pepper, garlic cloves, Haitian spices (this is what I refer to as the brown things), fresh cilantro and rosemary, water, cooking butter, maggie's seasoning cubes, and oil.

First we took the dried beans with water covering them and put it on the stove to boil. It took close to an hour to boil completely. 

Here we are sifting through the beans to remove the bad ones

Next, we then took a coconut and cut off the outer hard layer. Then we grated the flesh into a bowl. We added water to it and let it sit. (This step can be removed by just buying coconut milk)

Grating the coconut flesh

While the beans were boiling and the coconut was sitting, we chopped garlic cloves (about 4) and green onion (2) into chunks. Then, we added that to rock salt and these brown things that looked like small branches into a mortar and smashed it all together. We also slivered half a green pepper and cleaned the fresh cilantro and rosemary and put them in a separate bowl. 

Smashing our ingredients in the mortar

Our green pepper and herbs

The unknown brown spices (note: they smell a bit like black licorice)

After doing our chopping we returned to the coconut. We drained all of the pulp from the water and threw the pulp away. We made our own “coconut milk”!

Our coconut pulp and water

Homemade coconut milk!

We knew that the beans were cooked when we were able to completely smash them with our fingers. We took them off the stove and dumped everything into another bowl so we could use the pan again.

We returned the empty pan to the heat and left it to become hot again. After it was hot we added oil and waited for the oil to pop. To the oil we added our garlic/onion/salt mix from the mortar and spread it throughout the oil, frying it. Then we re-added the beans and fried them in the oil. We let the beans fry for about 10 minutes. 

Our mortar mixture we added to the hot oil (top left hand corner)

Beans frying in the oil

To the frying beans we added coconut milk, cooking butter, green peppers, and herbs. We let that boil for about 7-10 minutes. Then we added water and 2 maggie’s cubes and brought it to a boil. 

After the water was boiling we added our rice and stirred. 

We topped with a lid and let it cook until the water cooked into the rice, stirring one time. We kept on low heat for a bit longer and then served!

Cooking success!

Desperation

The night we returned from our honeymoon our car was broken into. Someone scaled our security wall, shattered our back window, and rifled through the car looking for cash and anything of value. We awoke that next morning to a knock on our door and our neighbor pointing us to the aftermath. 

When I went outside I was initially confused. I thought that maybe the young boy living behind us had accidentally broken it. Sadly, upon further inspection there was no doubt that it was a deliberate attempt to steal. All potential hiding spots for money were opened and emptied. Our radio buttons were broken off in attempt of removal. Our locked doors were unlocked and the doors left open. 

My first reaction was anger. For those who know me well, I usually respond this way and say things I later regret. I was upset that someone would choose to be so very selfish. That they would break our car window and then take things inside like it was their own. Let me take you to that morning. 

Enter the scene of the crime with me.......... 

Beth: (Gasp) Whaaaaaaaaat?!

Zizou: (calmly) Be careful, there is glass everywhere.

Beth: They broke the window! How did we not hear it?

Zizou: The windows on this car have a plastic on them. They know how to do it quietly.

Beth: What could possibly make someone do this? (said with biting irritation) 

Zizou: Calm down. 

Beth: What is wrong with people!? (losing all restraint to take it in stride)

Zizou: (the now voice of wisdom) Cheri, people who do these things are risking so much. They know at any moment someone could hurt them or even kill them for trespassing and stealing. They never know when it will be their last time. Don’t forget Christmas is coming, they are really in need of money.

Beth: Oh.

End scene

After listening I had to make myself return to the reality that this theft was not about me. Even though I felt like a “victim”, it wasn’t a deliberate attack on Beth. I continued thinking about it several days after the event. I was still angry, but God kept bringing one word to mind.....desperation.

Desperation: Acting with extreme measures because of hopelessness. A state of despair that leads to rash behavior. 

When I began thinking on the word desperation, God started changing my perspective. I began to recall how many times I had done things out of desperation. The list began piling up. Interestingly enough, I began recollecting how many times my acts of desperation had hurt other people. Almost every time I either hurt others or hurt myself.  It seemed that the person who broke into our car and I were not too different after all.  

What a good lesson for me.