The World of Gourmet Cooking

One of the challenging things about living in West Africa is that most of our meals have to be prepared from scratch. There are restaurants here, but most of them are so expensive that eating out is reserved for special treats, not for times when you just want to pick up something convenient.

We have done pretty well at taking care of ourselves, but sometimes we get stuck in the rut of eating the same ole thing over and over. Fortunately, our neighbor Lucy is a gourmet cook who recently decided to start hosting cooking classes for all us "newbies" who aren't yet experts in the kitchen.

During yesterday's class we learned to make healthy side dishes, like Cous Cous Salad, Sugared Green Beans, and Broccoli with Orange Sauce.

Cooking with other people makes the process so much more fun! Here are Jesse and Stephanie slaving away over a hot stove:
Here I am cutting up blood oranges (I had no idea such a thing existed -- oranges with red flesh!):

The finished products:
And if you just can't get enough of the cooking pictures -- here we are in our own kitchen, making doughnuts from scratch (notice how we had to improvise by using a bottle to cut out the holess..). They aren't as good as Krispy Kreme (which we definitely miss!), but they did satisfy the craving.