Experimenting

I stopped in at an Indian grocery store on Monday arvo and picked up some interesting ingredients. I really love these places. It's all so cheap and you can get all kinds of stuff that's not available in a supermarket. I've been trying to find Asafetida (a spice that lends a nice oniony-garlicy flavour and is said to be good for your digestion, but really stinks before you cook it!) for ages and bought some of that along with some corn meal.

The asafetida has been great. I made some Fooll Mudammes (an Egyptian breakfast dish made with mashed beans, tomato and middle eastern spices) with a little bit added, and it was sooo good! Probably my new favourite dish! The corn meal on the other hand...let's just say it's been fun, but not too successful:P

I've been fascinated with the concept of Injera lately. They're a kind of slightly sour flat bread made with Teff flour (an exotic kind of grain that I highly doubt I'd be able to get my hands on). In Ethiopia, instead of using a plate and cutlery, they just plonk the food on top of an Injera and tear off pieces of it to use to scoop up the food. Sure saves on washing up! I had a go using this recipe that substitutes Teff flour with corn meal. The first time was utter failure - the mixture was too bubbly I think. I did better the second time, but I think real ones from an Ethiopian restaurant would be far superior.

My second misadventure was an attempt to make corn tortillas. I didn't knead them for long enough, nor did I bother to roll them out properly, so the end result wasn't really quite like what you buy from a store. I'll keep trying though! Tomorrow night I'll make some refried kidney beans to go with my second attempt:)

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It's been super hot (>30 degrees) the past few days but even though I've been finding it hard to sleep, I've actually been coping quite well in my workouts. I've been rediscovering pleasure in running and have been getting out twice a day for a short (3k) jog round my local park.

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Two exams down, three to go! I've got 5 days til my next one, so hopefully that'll give me enough time to make up for not having paid much attention during the semester:P