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You are here: Home / Archives for THE GAMBIA

Around The World In Food

July 23, 2014 · by munchiesandmunchkins · Leave a Comment

When I was asked to write a recipe based on a country involved in the Commonwealth games I immediately planned a meal around food I had tasted years ago on a volunteer trip to The Gambia. Food prepped and ready to cook I found out that The Gambia actually withdrew from the games last October – oops.

I guess I’m not that sports minded.

I decided I would still go ahead and make my Gambian Domodah recipe but add to it some Indian Flatbreads and Mango Lassi – India is still in the Commonwealth games 🙂

Domoda was by far our favourite meal we had on our trip to The Gambia and it was fun trying to recreate it. I made adaptations to a recipe from the WYCE charity cookbook. You can read more about our trip to Madina Salaam in The Gambia here.

My Take On Domodah

500gram of lean diced beef
2 roughly chopped sweet potatoes
2-3 large tomatoes (deseeded)
2 red onions
2tbsp of tomato puree
2 vegetable stock cubes
1.5 cups of smooth peanut butter
4 cups of water mixed with a little tomato purée or tomato juice
1/2 small red chilli
2tbsp of sunflower oil

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Heat your oil in a large saucepan and brown your beef. Add your sweet potatoes, 1 cup of your water and vegetable stock cubes. Stir and leave to simmer for 15 minutes. Dice your onions and tomatoes and mix together with your diced chilli – I cheated here and threw them in the Vitamix. Add to your beef along with your remaining water, tomato paste and peanut butter and leave to simmer for another 15 minutes or so.

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Serve with rice, flatbreads and something cool and refreshing to drink.

* You can add more chilli if you prefer a hotter dish – mine was for my toddler to eat also so I kept it mild. You can add carrots and aubergine instead of sweet potatoes if you like or any veg you want to throw in.

Indian Cumin Spiced Flatbreads

250g of Plain Flour
1tbsp of Chilli and Garlic Rapeseed oil ( normal rapeseed oil is fine)
150ml of warm water
1/2tsp of sea salt
1/2tsp of ground cumin

Mix together the flour, cumin and salt. Mix together your water and oil before slowly adding it to your dry mixture. Stir together to combine until it forms a dough. Turn onto a floured surface and knead until the dough feels smooth and stretchy. Cover and leave for 20 minutes. Roll into a sausage shape and cut into 8 pieces. Roll each piece out until approx. 2mm thick and leave to rest for 5 minutes. Place a large frying pan onto high heat and wait until the pan is very hot, almost smoking. Place your dough in the pan, each side should take 1 minute or so. You can tell if the bottom is done as it will start to bubble on top. Some blackened scorched bits are normal and make it taste even better.

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We also had delicious Mango Lassi – a combo of mango pulp, yoghurt and ice. Yum. Recipe and pics to follow soon.

We thoroughly enjoyed our meal, it was really nice to cook something different and it brought back some lovely memories of our trip to Africa

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*’I was sent a food shopping voucher to cover my costs for this recipe.

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Filed Under: Recipes · Tagged: commonwealth games, flatbreads, india. domoda, recipes, THE GAMBIA

Silent Sunday

January 20, 2013 · by munchiesandmunchkins · Leave a Comment

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Filed Under: Uncategorized · Tagged: African, child with bucket, THE GAMBIA

Not All African Children Are Sad

June 11, 2012 · by munchiesandmunchkins · 7 Comments

Lately it seems that every time we turn on the tv there is another advert for a charity such as water aid and startling images of desperately starving and sad faces of African children, these adverts are intended to pull on the heart strings and they do. I do to a certain extent agree with the showing of these adverts and I know it probably creates such a lot of much needed funds but unfortunately it can also make you feel that every child in Africa has permanent tear tracks on their face.

Two years ago I was lucky enough to spend some time working with the WYCE ( wonder years centre of excellence) charity in The Gambia and it was the most fantastic experience I have ever had. It wasn’t a holiday but it was still one of the best holidays I’ve ever had if that makes any sense!

I found out about WYCE through reading an article in a workplace magazine written by a man from Swansea who had recently been to work with them and within a few weeks of reading it had booked the flights and reserved a room at the working lodge. Flights to The Gambia aren’t cheap and by the time you added in the necessary jabs,malaria tablets and food and lodge it was probably about the same price as a luxury all inclusive holiday but it was going to be a far cry from luxury.. Cold showers and no electricity were a slight worry for me! But still if I could go back and swap this trip for a 5 star hotel in Barbados I wouldn’t. I’m not going to tell you that it changed my life but it definitely changed the way I think about certain issues.

From the moment we arrived at the rickety little airport in The Gambia we felt welcomed, another volunteer and Malang our guide (and protector) for the duration of our stay greeted us literally with open arms and ice cold water. It took us around an our hour to get to the village of Madina Salaam and as we pulled into the lodge several of the local children lingered nearby shouting toubab (white man) and smiling at us.

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We were shown to our room which to my relief were basic but quaint with everything we would really need and the basic rules of the lodge were explained to us.

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The next step was for us to be taken to the centre of the village and introduced to the elders who had to accept us for us to be able to work there. Luckily for us they did, although this was an extremely surreal experience. We met what I suppose would have been the mayor of the village in a tiny one room hut ( which we would later discover was the height of luxury compared to the rest of the homes there ) where he lived with his three wives and a number of children! A girl of around 4 sat just outside slicing a mango with a huge machete which I would have been afraid to hold myself!
The villagers were very welcoming to us and were just slightly bewildered as to how myself and A had been together for two years but were not married and even more astonished that I was in my mid 20’s with no children.. Different worlds. The next day after a lovely breakfast of pancakes cooked for us by the fabulous WYCE chef Ensa we were put to work helping in the school (me) and with heavy lifting.. man stuff of course.

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We took a number of school supplies over with us ( 1 whole suitcase full) generously donated by friends/family.

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We also took a big bag of modelling balloons which went down a storm with the children even after they had burst the remains were kept in the childrens pockets until the day we left which was incredibly touching.

not all african children are sad

The children of Madina Salaam have nothing in the way of toys, TVs etc but they are the happiest most content children I have ever met. They all hold each others hands as they walk to school and share fruit with one another and just smile all day long! We were told not to give personal items or presents to individuals so as not to encourage jealousy which we abided by but it was hard as we did grow close to some.

I could probably write all day about all our different experiences there so I will try to limit it!

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Above is a coconut tree plant which we each bought to plant outside the new school building, as they grow they provide much needed shade for the children during playtime. Looking forward to going back to see it in a few years!

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Above is Andrew enjoying a traditional Gambian meal which I helped the ladies of the village prepare. Everyone sat on the floor to eat together and it was a strange, messy but fun experience.

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Me with a lovely little baba .. Everyone wanted us to hold their children! I was never going to refuse a baby cuddle. It seemed to astonish me daily seeing very small children carrying smaller siblings on their backs but it seems a way of life there .

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Painting the new school building was a longgg process as the paint was extremely watered down but fun!

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To sum up. We had a once in a lifetime experience in Madina Salaam and I would love to go back when Izzy is older to show it all to her but maybe wait a while as it got up to 50 degs Celsius whilst we were there. WYCE are doing an incredible job of increasing and improving education, skills and employment possibilities in The Gambia and anyone who is looking for a more meaningful holiday could not look for a better place. http://wyce.org.uk/

I hope you enjoy reading and understand I am not making light of the very real problems that many people in Africa are experiencing every day but to share some happy news about some very special people in a magical village called Madina Salaam.

One final pic to end.. The lovely Bindu:

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Filed Under: random · Tagged: AFRICA, CHARITY, CHILDREN, MADINA SALAAM, THE GAMBIA, VOLUNTEER, WYCE

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