Baking in Blantyre

birthday dinner for Ellen!

Last night, my housemates and I (Ok, we actually live in 2 houses, but they’re behind the same wall!) celebrated my roommate Ellen’s birthday at Casa Mia, a delectable little Italian restaurant just a short walk up Kabula Hill from our house. It was Ellen’s first birthday in Africa, and between the streamers Julie and Christina put up while we were at clinic, the homemade celebratory kettle corn, and a birthday dinner, I think it was a memorable one!

Today was my day off which meant I could sleep past 5, hooray! After breakfast and getting caught up on research prep for a couple hours, I was off to Shoprite (the main grocery in Blantyre). I really love grocery shopping, especially in different countries. It’s fun to see what’s popular and what isn’t sold at all. For example, there’s no greek yogurt here, or lunchmeat that doesn’t look like pink bologna. And I bought what I thought was cream cheese but it’s actually some sort blended cottage cheese. I’m hoping its bizarre flavor will grow on me (What does one do with blended cottage cheese?!).

There is however, almost everything you need to bake oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, which was the reason I went to Shoprite in the first place! Anyone who knows me well knows that baking is one of my love languages. I get so much joy from baking for people, so I decided to try my luck at baking in Blantyre.

And although this isn’t exactly a food blog, these cookies were my first Malawi baking attempt (and a success, according to my roommates!), so I want to share the recipe with you! I only had a 1 cup, a ¼ cup and a ¼ teaspoon to measure everything with, so I ended up winging the measurements a bit. I also modified it a bit from the original recipe; my changes are in parentheses!

first baking in Blantyre, a success!

Oatmeal, Chocolate Chip, and Pecan Cookies

Ingredients

1 1/4 cups flour 

1 cup regular oats

3/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup granulated sugar (only used ½ c)

1/2 cup brown sugar (brown sugar here is basically white sugar that hasn’t been bleached, but it was fine)

1/3 cup butter, softened (I used ¼c  butter and then a couple Ts of mashed ripe banana since we had one that needed to be used)

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract (I used closer to 2t)

1 large egg

1/4 cup chopped pecans, toasted (No pecans here, but I chopped up roasted unsalted almonds which worked great!)

1/4 cup semisweet chocolate minichips (No chocolate chips here, so I chopped up a dark chocolate bar and threw it in)

(I also added about 1t of cinnamon. Cinnamon, in my opinion, brings out the best in anything you bake!)

Preparation

Preheat oven to 350°.

Lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Combine flour and next 4 ingredients (through salt), stirring with a whisk; set aside.

Place sugars and butter in a large bowl; beat with a mixer at medium speed until well blended. Add vanilla and egg; beat until blended. Gradually add flour mixture, beating at low speed just until combined. Stir in pecans and minichips. Drop dough by tablespoonfuls 2 inches apart onto baking sheets lined with parchment paper. Bake at 350° for 12 minutes or until edges of cookies are lightly browned. Cool on pans 2 minutes. Remove cookies from pans; cool on wire racks, and enjoy!! Yield, 3 dozen cookies (mine made 30 cookies).

Two other nuggets:

monkeys running through the golf course

This afternoon I went for a run down to a golf course (my roommate suggested it as a pretty place to run - she was right!), and despite the hills and my slight fear of being hit by a stray golf ball, it was great! Best part was the monkeys running through the course as well!

home sweet home!

This is my room on Kabula Hill! With many of your smiling faces featured on my wall of photos. I can see mountains out the window - it's gorgeous!