HOME MADE CHOCOLATE

Everything you need to live well
Chocolates are the best delight especially when you have a sweet tooth. There is a sudden energy rush you get from eating chocolate on a stressful day. You don’t have to leave the comfort of your home to enjoy chocolates instead you can make homemade chocolates.
You can eat chocolate alone, enjoy it with biscuits or can be taken as a fluid (hot chocolate). This sweetened delight in most cases can win you a lady’s heart as it has been known over time that girls generally have a thing for chocolate.
Ingredients
2 cups of cocoa powder
⅔ cup of milk
¼ tsp. of flour
½ cup of sugar
¾ cup of butter
Water
Method
1. Mix cocoa powder and butter until it forms a paste. Place cocoa and butter in processor and mix until they form a paste.
2. Fill the pot with about 1/4 full with water and place it on the heat. Put the bowl containing the mixture on the heated water.
3. Let the mixture get heated up in the pot until it is quite hot.
4. Remove the heated mixture from the pot and mix until it is smooth.
5. Heat up the milk to room temperature.
6. Add flour, sugar and milk to the paste. Mix the paste very well so that no lumps are formed.
7. Now pour the mixture into moulds and place it in the fridge till they become hard.
8. Take the frozen chocolate pieces out and munch away!
Contrary to popular belief, dark chocolates are quite beneficial to one’s health as it’s a source of antioxidant, provides energy and helps to improve blood flow to the brain.

Cucumber Salad

The Health benefit of cucumber is so great and that is why I love to give us the recipe of preparing cucumber salad.

Ingredients

2  medium cucumbers, thinly sliced

1/3  cup cider or white vinegar 

 

2  medium cucumbers, thinly sliced 

1/3 cup water

2 tablespoons sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon pepper

   Chopped fresh dill weed or parsley, if desired

Directions

• 1 Place cucumbers in small glass or plastic bowl.
• 2 In tightly covered container, shake remaining ingredients except dill weed. Pour over cucumbers. Cover and refrigerate at least 3 hours to blend flavors.
• 3 Drain cucumbers. Sprinkle with dill weed. Store covered in refrigerator.

Orange and Lettuce Salad Recipe

INGREDIENTS

• 4 oranges
• 2 tablespoon salad oil
• 3 desertspoons lemon juice
• salt and pepper
• lettuce

1. Peep the oranges, removing the pith. Cut acroo in slices and remove the pips
2. put the orange slices in a bowl and sprinkle some of the lemon juice over them
3. Make a dressing using the oil, remaining lemon juice, slices
4. Serve with a border of young lettuce leaves.

Waakye(rice and beans delicacy

INGREDIENTSYou can use kidney beans, red beans, or black eye peas (beans) to prepare waakye. Get about 200grams of any of these beans
You will also need about the same quantity of long grain rice, or slightly less amount as that of the beans.
Salt
Four to five cups of water

COOKING TIME: About 1 hour

SERVINGS: 2 Servings

PREPARATION:
Soak your preferred beans in water over night in water to become soft and easy to cook. Alternatively, you can soak it for 3 – 5 hours in the morning, should you want to prepare this meal for lunch or dinner.
Now bring the soaked beans to boil in a pot after washing and cleaning the beans. Allow to boil for about 15 minutes.
Then wash your rice and add to the boiling beans and add more water. Allow the mixture to boil for about 30 minutes, adding water to achieve the desired level of tenderness.
Add salt to taste.
Your waakye is ready to eat. Serve with a sauce of vegetable and fish or meat.
Some would add blended tomatoes straight into the boiled mixture, curry, magi cube, chilli pepper, and a little vegetable or palm oil and allow to boil for another 10 minutes, and ready to serve as complete.
You can buy rice and beans online here to prepare your waakye.

Useful Links

African foods online shop

Waakye and other Ghanaian Foods

African Recipes

Banga Soup

INGREDIENTS:

Ripped palm nut, meat, crayfish, onion, salt, seasoning

METHOD:

Boil the palmnut till it soften.

pound or mash with your finger to bring out the sauce.

Put the sauce in a pot and boil

Boil meat separate and add to the palm nut sauce on fire.

Add crayfish, onion, salt, and seasoning, allow to simmer for 1 hour (add more water if necessary), then serve with eba, fufu, or rice.

Oha Soup

Oha soup is mostly prepared by the eastern tribe in Nigeria. It is one of their special soup.

INGREDIENTS:

Oha leaves, stock fish, dried fish, beef, ash, (thickening agent) cray fish, Ogili, potash, oil, salt and grinded pepper.

METHOD:

1.  Wash and shred the oha leaves with hand and cover up in a clean bowl.
2.  Wash the stock fish and boil, add a pinch of grinded potash and grinded pepper
3.  Mix the oha leaves with little water. Add to the leaves, salt and pepper
4.  Cook for 5 minutes.

Afang/Okasi Soup

INGREDIENTS:
1 Medium bunch of Afang leave, 3 medium bunch of water leaf, goat meat, a pair of dried fish, 3 table spoon of cray fish(ground), 3 cooking spoon of oil, pepper, onions, salt, water.

METHOD:
1. chop and grind (or pound in morter) the Afang Ogasi leave and set aside, Onions
2. Wash and slice the waterleaves, and set aside
3. Season the goat meat with onion and salt. Add two cups of water and allow to boil for 10 minutes.
4. Debone the dry fish and put together, add the sliced water leaves. Add the cray fish and pepper and stir, cover the pot for about 10 minutes. Add the the ground Afang and oil and stir. Allow to boil for 10 minutes then serve warm.

Jollof Rice

INGREDIENTS:

Rice, meat, salt, tomatoes, onions, Thyme, vegetable oil, margarine, seasoning cube.

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Prepare the meat and cut it into moderate size.

2. Wash meat and boil with salt, onion, and thyme.

3. Fry meat in hot oil until brown.

4. Slice grinded pepper and tomatoes.

5. Fry grinded pepper, onion, tomatoes in hot oil, adds salt, seasoning cube and other ingredients as many be required, allow cooking well and then adding your washed rice.

6. Allow to steam for about 10 minutes and then add enough water to boil until well cooked to taste

Moi Moi

Moyin-Moyin (also called Moin-Moin, Moi-Moi, Moimoi), a sort of savory bean pudding, is a unique and delicious way to prepare black-eyed peas or other beans. The traditional way to cook Moyin-Moyin is to wrap it in leaves (such as banana leaves) and steam it. In modern Africa it is often cooked in empty tin cans, but it can also be made in muffin pans (muffin tins). There are many variations of Moyin-Moyin. Skip all the optional ingredients to make a simple version; include one or more of the optional ingredients to make fancy Moyin-Moyin. Also see the Akara recipe.
What you need
two to three cups dried cowpeas (black-eyed peas) or similar
one tablespoon dried shrimp powder
one or two tomatoes, (peeled if desired), chopped -- or -- a similar amount of canned tomatoes -- or -- two tablespoons of canned tomato paste
one or two onions, chopped
salt and black pepper to taste
chile pepper, chopped, to taste
cayenne pepper or red pepper, to taste
oil to grease muffin tin
Optional Ingredients (a cup of one or more of the following):
cooked shrimp, chopped
cooked carrots, finely chopped
cooked peas
sweet green or red pepper (bell pepper)
hard-boiled egg
dried, salted, or smoked fish; washed, cleaned and torn into small pieces
dried shrimp or prawns, washed and crushed
canned sardines
leftover cooked meat, cut into small pieces
dried or smoked meat, torn into small pieces
canned corned beef

What you do
Clean the black-eyed peas in water in a large pot. Cover them with boiling water and soak them for at least an hour or overnight. After soaking them, rub them together between your hands to remove the skins. Rinse to wash away the skins and any other debris. Drain them in a colander. If the beans have soaked only a short time, they may be cooked in water over a low heat until they are partially tender. More