The other night Tammy and I went shopping in Nappanee with some friends of ours.  As we walked out of one of the stores we decided to get a few impromptu memory shots.  Tam and I rarely get pictures taken together so we’re glad to have one to share with you now.  Which do you like better – the black and white or the color?  And by the way – the texture on the picture is the newest fabric by 3 Sisters…  Etchings  Fun!

By far – of  everything I ate in Ghana, Light Soup was my favorite.  I’ve made it quite a few times since returning home and I never tire of it.  While in Ghana I did learn to really enjoy fufu as well.  Fufu is dough-like and is served with soups.  It is to the Ghanaian’s what potatoes are to us – their staple and favorite starch.  In America I make a mock fufu with instant potato flakes.  It’s close enough to the real thing and I enjoy it….  But I’m the only one who has acquired a taste for fufu, so I usually just opt for making rice – something everyone in my family enjoys with their Light Soup!

Ghanaian Light Soup

4 chicken leg quarters, skin removed
2 – 3 tsp fresh ginger, peeled and grated
2-3 cloves garlic, peel  & crushed
1 Magi chicken bullion cube (Magi cubes are larger than your typical bullion)
Seasoned salt to taste
1 onion, chopped
6-8 cups water, divided
6-8 oz eggplant, peeled and quartered
opt. – 1 medium zucchini (4 oz) cut in half (I usually skip the zucchini and use more eggplant because my eggplants are usually larger than 6-8 oz.)
6 oz tomato paste
½ tsp cayenne pepper

Put the leg quarters in a pot with 2 cups of water.  On top of the chicken sprinkle the fresh grated ginger, garlic, Magi cube, seasoned salt and onion.  Cover and allow chicken to steam for 2 hours, adding more water as needed.

When chicken is sufficiently tender and seasoned add remaining 4 cups of water and bring to a boil.  (I often add more water if too much has evaporated while steaming or if I want to stretch my soup.)  Add eggplant and zucchini, if using.  Allow to cook for 15 minutes or until vegetables are tender.  Remove vegetables from soup and place in blender.  Add some broth and blend until smooth.  Return to pot.  Add the tomato paste and cayenne pepper.

Traditionally, the soup is served over fufu or rice balls with a piece of chicken added to the side of eat person’s bowl.  In America, we have found it most practical to de-bone the chicken into the soup before serving over a plate of rice.  Use plenty of soup with the rice and eat with a spoon.    So good!

Optionally you can use smoked fish.  If using fish instead of chicken don’t add it to the soup until you put it in each person’s bowl.  It will make the soup too “fishy”.)

Light Soup served in Ghana with smoked fish and fufu - Yes, you eat it with your fingers.

We had two storms come through here only days apart. The first storm hit us pretty hard. No tornadoes were spotted, but the winds had reported gusts of up to 80 mph.  Thankfully no one was hurt and we had no structural damage. However, a few trees got pretty badly torn up and our neighbor lost 3 trees in their front yard.  One tree was a huge old pine. As it fell to the ground it caught the power lines, ripping them out of the neighbor’s house and damaging the lines to our house and the pole. It also covered the road in its massiveness.

It is an incredible amount of work to clean up that many trees.  Our church sent over a few guys with chain saws and Michael came, too.  By the end of the day our entire property was clean except for a huge pile in the front yard from the neighbor’s pine.  It felt good when time finally allowed and the remains of the storm were completely burnt.  What an enormous fire!

The second storm brought 4 tornadoes with it, but they touched down just a couple of miles to the north of us.  We had more branches down, but not the major damage that others suffered.  One man had his entire barn picked up off its foundation and moved across the street!  The hay and equipment was still standing on the foundation.  Now, how does a tornado accomplish such a thing?!  But it did show me  that “gusts up to 80 mph” are definitely a different story than a real, true “tornado”.

When looking at the following pictures, bear in mind that we forgot to take pictures until clean up was well under way.  It was even worse…. 

Here you can see the size of the trunk on the pine. It is sad to loose such an old tree.

The guys at work. I'm not sure how we would have gotten this cleaned up without their help.

Dad and Tammy unloading branches onto the fire pile. Thankfully, the store Dad is building wasn't damaged. That is not a barn in the background - it is a store in progress!

The view of the road after it had been cleared almost to the point of passing. I wish I would have had a picture before it was cleared at all.

The pile that was started in our front yard. It looks like a jungle!

The power company cutting a branch out of the power lines. It was a big relief when they came out and repaired the lines. You don't realize how much you depend on electricity until it's gone.

I’m glad that’s over!  Hopefully there will be no more tornadoes for a long, long time…………..

I had a very bad day with internet, website, and blog troubles! It was such an odd and overwhelming thing that all of them went down on the very same day. The internet connection went down first…. Then I noticed that our website was down. And finally, in an effort to help me, my web host restored a backup that included not only the website, but also this blog – thus the loss of the posts and also some file corruption that had to be corrected. It was quite the day! Thankfully, it is over now and all is restored to good working condition. Orders are coming through again and the blog is legible!

Family.  Friends.  Customers.  I will obviously be covering a wide variety of topics if I am to keep all of you interested!   Please disregard anything you find dull, boring, and uninteresting.  Hopefully, I will eventually get to a topic that will interest YOU!

Smiles to all!  ~Allison