Step Into My Kitchen

Step Into My Kitchen

Living in a modern city, sometimes I almost find myself forgetting that I am in a foreign country. Almost. And then it’s time to meal prep and I am brought back to reality.  If there is anywhere I feel cultural stress, it’s in my kitchen. I have never felt very confident in cooking, so I guess it’s no surprise that this is an area which brings added challenges living overseas.

Let me be clear. Rwanda is a rapidly developing nation with a modern capital. I am not going out and butchering a chicken for dinner and then cooking it over an open fire. We have a modern kitchen with modern appliances. I am really grateful for these! There are, however quirks.

Let’s start with the appliances. Most of the appliances here are European models, which means that they are quite a bit smaller than the American versions. Our refrigerator/freezer is about 4.5 feet tall, so space is limited. This doesn’t bother me much because I can’t stand when food gets lost and goes bad. It just means we can’t buy and store a lot of food at a time. The tiny oven/stove presents more of a challenge. When we arrived in Kigali we had a gas unit that had knobs but not temperature markings. The door didn’t stay closed, so we attached a bungee cord to tie it closed while cooking. Oddly to my advantage, rats got into the stove and destroyed it, and I got a newer, nicer model. Don’t ask about the smell of singed rat fur!

I use an oven thermometer to monitor the temp and adjust as necessary

The new unit looks beautiful. The stove is gas and the oven is electric. It has knobs with temperature markings, though they are in Celsius. The door stays closed on its own. 😊 Now, let's talk about quirks. The temperature markings aren’t actually helpful because the oven temp doesn't stay where I set it. It constantly fluctuates, meaning that while baking I have to go and adjust the temp every 10 minutes. Another quirk is that this oven is TINY. It has one rack and the biggest cookie sheet that fits is 9x13 (AKA the smallest cookie sheet I could find at Walmart. Did I mention that you can’t buy cookie sheets here? Or, at the least, I haven't found any). A couple of weeks ago I made a three layer cake for Francis’s birthday. I had to bake the 9-inch cake rounds one at a time. All that to say, there will be no Thanksgiving Turkey going in this oven.

It's always a relief when things turn out well!

Enough on the appliances. What about actually making food?

Step one: Get the groceries.

We get most of our produce from a market where farmers bring their goods. Once home, all the produce has to be cleaned. We drop a potassium permanganate tablet (which we buy at the pharmacy) into a bowl of water and do a 10 minute soak. This is followed by a filtered water rinse. The tap water is not potable, so the water we use for cooking and drinking has to be filtered before use.

Soaking fresh produce

Our water filtration system

I love the fresh produce (Ever had a freshly picked mango? YUM!), but in the midst of meal prep I sometimes find myself missing the convenience of pre-cut veggies and baby carrots that I don’t have to peel.

The rest of our groceries come from various shops around town. Simba is the big (and maybe only?) grocery chain here and that’s where we get the majority of our staples. A smaller shop in our neighborhood, Tonto's, is great for a quick loaf of bread or bag of coffee. Milk comes from a Milkzone. We bring our own containers and fill them from a big vat.  

Because many things are imported, supply can be unpredictable here. It's not uncommon to find something at a store one day and not find it again for months. For some reason butter supply tends to be very unreliable too, even though it is made locally.

Milkzone

Step two: Cook a delicious meal

It's amazing how many things you can find here, but there aren't a lot of pre-packaged, or processed foods available. Most of the processed foods that are available are imported, and tend to be very expensive. Last week I saw a box of cereal that cost $15. A package of 8 tortillas from the store was $10. My easy go-to weekday meals now require more thought and prep. Here some of examples.

Tacos: Still one of my favorite meals, taco night now requires a lot more time to prepare than it did in the US.

Step 1: Make tortillas from scratch

Step 2: Make salsa from scratch

Step 3: Brown beef (one bonus is that the beef is very lean and doesn’t have to be drained 😊)

Step 4: Make taco seasoning (or use a precious packet that we brought with us from the US)

Step 5: Wash and shred lettuce

Step 6: Remove moldy rind from cheese and grate (There is really only one type of affordable cheese readily available here. Luckily for us, we like it.)

Step 7: Use yogurt as a substitute for sour cream because we can't get sour cream 

Step 8: If we want beans as well, this requires soaking the dry beans the night before and then cooking them. I often forgo the beans. *Francis just bought me a pressure cooker, so we may be doing more with beans in the future.  

Spaghetti:

There is a line of imported goods from Belgium that produces a spaghetti sauce which we sometimes buy, but often I make spaghetti sauce from scratch to save $. This meal that used to be so quick and easy is now time-consuming. If you have a good spaghetti sauce recipe you want to share, send it my way! 😊

Making spaghetti sauce

Breakfast:

Since boxed cereal is expensive and there aren’t many options available, we regularly make granola to eat for breakfast.

Making pancakes is pretty simple, but we have to also make our syrup. We brought maple extract from the US to give the syrup some flavor. 

Pancake syrup

What items do you use for convenience in your cooking? Pre-made pie crusts? Tomato sauce? Grated cheese? Pre-cut veggies? Spice mixes? Bisquick mixes? Store-bought syrup? These are things I miss. Last summer I was excited to dig my “More with Less” cookbook out of storage to use here.  I have only found a couple of recipes in it that I don’t have to alter to make work here due to limited availability of ingredients. Maybe I need a "More with Less than Less" cookbook. 

All this to say, cooking here has been a journey with a whole lot of trial and error, but I am learning. As time goes on it's getting easier. I'm figuring out what I can and can't make affordably in a reasonable amount of time and with the resources on hand. I'm always open to any tips! We are big fans of good food and  enjoy cooking and eating both local and international foods. 

 *Funny bonus story:

Since most of the imported goods come from Belgium or the Netherlands, we usually can't read the description and directions. During our first year here I once bought what I thought was chocolate pudding only to find out it was some sort of gravy thickener. That was a disappointing dessert! We are finding the value of Google translate. Never judge a food by it's picture!