YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT

Have you taken out time to go through the nutritional content of the foods you eat? After my recent update, I've learnt a lot about food especially junk food. Yes, I agree, by Nigerian standard I am too skinny to bother about what I eat. I shouldn't even be thinking of such a topic. However, I strongly disagree mainly because I don't intend to start the battle later in the future. As they say, "prevention is always better than cure". Besides, what kind of a family physician will I make if I don't prevent you from getting a disease and wait to treat something that will most likely be untreatable but manageable like obesity, diabetes, hypertension, heart disease?

Last year, a few of my friends went on a weight watching exercise. I didn’t join them, (don’t need to), but I observed very closely, in combination with my experience working in a weight loss clinic and that gathered from my tutors for when I might need it in the future or for when I meet a person in need of it. I have written a few posts on how to lose some weight here and here, however, I realized that if we actually watch what we eat, then we can actually avoid much more than spare tires in the mid-section. Experts say that there are 5 key ingredients to losing weight and they are;

• Diet
• Diet
• Diet
• Diet
• Exercise

When I say diet, I don’t mean starve yourself, we’ve already learnt how that could lead to ulcers. I simply mean eat in moderation and avoid a few harmful substances in your diet while adding some others. A lot of African women pride themselves in been well endowed and many try everything on earth to put on a little weight (I was in that band wagon by the way). Somehow, more weight got translated to wealth in Nigeria. Somewhere along the line though, a Nigerian won the miss world contest and more harmful diseases closely related to our diets came to limelight and there was the turning point (for a few).

Here’s what I learnt, as you probably already know. The caloric need for an adult female is between 1400 – 1600kcal/day and for a male, about 1800 – 2000kcal/day. If you intend to lose weight though, you’d need to reduce your caloric intake. The key to controlling your diet is in counting the calories. I have met people who tell me that they eat only one meal in a day and the rest are just snacks. Well, if you belong to this category of people then I’ve got news for you. Let me site a few examples using a few snacks commonly known to many people especially Nigerians. This is because in Nigeria, manufacturers rarely give you the caloric intake on the packaging of the snack. They believe that writing out the ingredients and the net weight of the product is good enough.

Take shortbread biscuits as an example, did you know that each one of those yummy milky biscuit is 100kcal? You eat the whole packet of 10 or 12 and wash it down with a bottle of 50cl coke, which is about 250kcal by the way, and you say you just took a snack. And it may be just that – a snack, because it isn’t filling. But you have 1250 – 1450kcal already and you haven’t eaten your meal for the day. Let’s take a look at gala (sausage), each pack is 330kcal and usually we eat 2 with a bottle of coke for snack. That gives a total of 900kcal that is not your breakfast, lunch or dinner. Chocolates! (oh! I die!) Each bar of 50g contains about 250kcal. Take 2 and that’s 500kcal. Noodles?- that’s 350kcal for each 70g pack, and we can’t have just 1, it has to be 2 with carrots, green peas, tomatoes, sweet corn and eggs. Guess what total that would bring you to for a single meal. It’s unbelievable right? For your information, I was guilty of all these, just beginning to change.

I realized that there are a few foods that don’t add as much calories to our diets and also help our intestines and prevent or reduce the likelihood of diseases like colon cancer, diabetes, hypertension, obesity and so on. These foods are fruits, vegetables and water. Add these regularly to your diet and you would be surprised. They fill you up without adding as much calories.

HOME MADE BURGERS

Hello and welcome to Friday! #TGIF!!! right? Yea so let's get it started. These days, a lot of people try to it healthy (trying to do so too myself, but it's not an easy feat. Thumbs up to those who can pull it off). However, whether you are eating healthy or not, I believe we should be able to have a day off for good behaviour, and I believe that today is that day.Besides, burgers are just enhanced sandwiches right? And you can choose what to add or remove if you make it yourself.

Fried meat and cabbage/carrots

INGREDIENTS:

Burger bread (it really doesn’t feel like a burger without one of those)

Beef, Chicken or Ham

Fresh Tomatoes

Cabbage

Carrot

Eggs 

Red Onions

Green Bell Peppers

Cucumber

Lettuce

Olive Oil

Cheese (optional)

Spices (grinded pepper, salt, curry, thyme, seasoning cube)

Garlic

Butter/ Mayonnaise/ Mustard (you can pick more than one)

RECIPE:

First of all, I’m pretty sure you are wondering, what kind of hamburgers are these that we have to add spices. Well, it’s my special kind of burgers, I call it the “Kay’s spicy burger”. Something about the Nigerian palate and spices; again, there is something about Nigerians cooking every food, (which is why it was difficult to introduce vegetable salads to the diet of many Nigerians). Sometimes, we still cook some of the elements we use in our salads, unbelievable right?

Cook the meat (beef or chicken – don’t forget to season it properly) and shred it with a blender. Most of the time, Ham comes already prepared so you could just buy it off the shelf.

In a bowl, break and whisk one egg, (you can use just egg white if you are eating healthy). Mix the shredded meat with a bit of the egg, you don’t want to pasty mixture. Mould the shredded meat/egg mixture into tight circles.

Grate the carrots, slice the cabbage into tiny long strips (usually the same length as the grated carrots).

Wash and cut the fresh tomatoes, cucumber, green bell peppers and red onions into circles. 

Wash the lettuce and separate the leaves.

In a sauce pan, add a tincy wincy bit of olive oil (or vegetable oil) and fry the cabbage and carrots with garlic and minimal spice. Then fry the minced/shredded meat and then the eggs

Time to assemble; there really is no particular format for me. I just add everything in a way that I get to taste almost every ingredient in a single bite.

Cut the bread in two, spread the cream of your choice on either side of it. I like to spread butter on one side and mayo on the other.

On one half, place the lettuce, carrot and cabbage mixture and fried egg, next comes the meat and cheese. Then add the vegetables (tomatoes, onions, green peppers, cucumber). Cover with the other half, and you are ready to rock and roll!

Until next time, watch this space for the last week of the blogging challenge, my theme? – Medical drama.

By the way, how much do you love burgers?

Cheers 

CASSEROLE SAUCE

Hello! And TGIS. It's time for our food Friday and I'm dropping it like it's hot! I know, I know, this is a little late for my recipe post, but I figured it could come in handy for Saturday shopping against Sunday lunch. Today, we are making casserole sauce. So, without further ado, here we go:

INGREDIENTS:

• Vegetable oil
• Red onions (regular onions)
• Garlic
• Spring onions
• Protein (Chicken, Beef, Snail e.t.c.)
• Fresh red pepper
• Crayfish
• Fresh Tomatoes
• Carrots
• Green beans
• Cabbage
• Cucumber
• Sweet corn
• Hot dog
• Spices (curry, thyme, seasoning cube) and salt.
• Green bell peppers

RECIPE:

• Prepare all the ingredients, that is, wash the washables, peel the peelables, grind the groundables and scrape the scrapables, lol. But you know what I mean though.
• Chop up all the ingredients into very tiny cubes, to the size of the sweet corn or close to it. (As shown in the photos).
• In a pot placed over medium heat and allowed to dry, add two spoons of vegetable oil and allow to heat up a bit.
• Add the red onions, allow to simmer for 30 seconds to 1 minute, then add the chopped garlic. Stir for 1-2 minutes then add the spring onions.
• Next, add the meat (already cooked, I used smoked chicken in this case)
• Stir in the fresh red pepper (either chopped or grounded) and 2tablespoons of grounded crayfish.
• Keep stirring the mixture gently, you could turn up the heat, but not full blast.
• Next, add the fresh tomatoes, and allow to simmer for a few minutes, just to allow the excess water from the tomatoes dry up a bit.
• Add the carrots and green beans and stir continuously.
• When the carrots and green beans become a bit soft, add the cucumber, cabbage, sweet corn and hot dog. These are added late so it doesn't become soggy by the time the sauce is ready.
• Spice it up to taste.
• Finally, add the Green bell peppers, stir for 30 seconds and turn off your cooking stove because food is ready.

*PS** if you are trying to eat healthy, there's a way for you around it too. Use very small amount of water in place of vegetable oil and boil everything. This is the method I employ when making it for my parents and they absolutely love it.

So, there you have it. Recipe for Sunday lunch. I'd love to hear from you, let me know if you tried it and how it turned out.

OFADA STEW /SAUCE

Yayy!!! It’s Friday and guess what? Yes, you guessed it. It’s another delicious recipe coming right up. A little problem though, it’s purely Nigerian, with its roots in the western part of the country. Ofada is actually the name of the locally produced rice used to eat the sauce and somehow, the sauce got stock with the name. Now since this is purely a Nigerian recipe, we are almost certain that it isn’t going to be as healthy. Trust me though to upturn ofada on its head as I usually do with most recipes and get the best out of it. Like I always say, tasty food is in the mouth of the beholder. What if I follow all the rules of the original recipe and hate the outcome?

The very first time I ate ofada was at my aunt’s house and I don’t know if it was the leaves used to serve it, or the local rice that got me thrill. Tried it out with my family and they haven’t stopped asking for more since then.

INGREDIENTS:

To prepare the ofada sauce, you are going to need the following ingredients;

• Protein: usually meat (commonly the assorted type – the organs), cow leg and even beef. I also don’t mind fish especially if it is smoked. 
• Red palm oil

• Fresh tomatoes

• Fresh red pepper

• Chili pepper (locally called Tatashe)

• Locust beans (Ogiri, Iru or Dawadawa). I prefer the seeded not the already grinded type, because the seeded ones seem fresher to me.

• Crayfish

• Onions

• Salt and spices

• Rice (ofada rice or regular rice)

• Uma leaves (shaped like banana leaves), same type used for wrapping moi-moi or agidi.

RECIPE:

This is a little more complicated because you have a bit more preparations to make.

• First, wash the Uma leaves (they can be dirty sometimes) and put out to dry.

• Cut the meat into small cubes, bigger than a seasoning cube though, (maybe the size of a grape); seasoning properly with garlic, onions, curry, thyme, seasoning cube, ground red pepper, ginger if you like and cook with almost no water, on low heat. The meat most times has a lot of water in it and it comes out when cooking. Check the meat regular to know when its own water is drying up and if it’s done. You don’t want to eat charred food. This is the time to also boil your fish n a different pot of course.
• Next, time to chopped things up; unlike the traditional ofada stew when the pepper and onions are blended and then drained, I prefer to chop mine up. I’m not so much into spicy foods. Pepper to taste is just okay for me. Also, I like the sauce red and traditional, so no green pepper from the original version for me either. Somehow I associate green pepper with western foods, (fried rice you are to be blamed).
• Dice the fresh red pepper, chili peppers, fresh tomatoes and onions into very tiny, tiny bits (the size of a bean or corn seed). Don’t forget to remove the seeds from the chilly pepper.
• Grind the crayfish but not to an entirely powdery form.
• Crush the fresh “Iru” slightly so it’s not a paste. I don’t grind it. I don’t know why I feel I should see a bit of it in the sauce.

I’m sure by now you’d be wondering why not blend everything into a paste or powder? Well, I’ll let you in on a little secret; Chopping things up and crushing or blending half way, gives the sauce a little more texture. You can savor the taste better.

• In a clean pot, place over medium heat to dry, add your red palm oil (not palm kernel oil) 1 or 2 cooking spoonful. I don’t bleach my oil either; I still hold the bleached oil is unhealthy. 
• Allow the oil to heat up for a minute or two, then add the chopped onions, stir continuously, don’t allow it to get burnt.
• Add the fresh pepper and chilly after 30 seconds – 1 minute of stirring the onions.
• Next add the crayfish and iru. Iru, just like garlic smells, so I usually add them in the early stages of preparing a meal when they can still add their flavours but won’t stink as much when food is done.
• Next up, fresh tomatoes, this has some juices in it and you have to fry it till the water is almost dried up.
• Add the meat and/or smoked fish and the very little stock. (Nothing goes to waste). And stir. Add spices and salt if need be to taste, don’t forget that the meat stock you added contains its own spices.

Voila! Your stew is ready.

• On another burner meanwhile, wash the rice and start to boil. All you need to add to the rice of course is salt to taste. Most people parboil the rice, then, wrap it in the Uma leaves (shaped like a cone), then steam it till it’s ready. Well, I’m probably too clumsy for that style. I just cook my rice till it’s done, wrap it in the leaves still and keep in a cooler for about 10mins. It achieves the same aim to me. It adds its aroma to the rice.

To serve, open the wrapped leaves with the rice in it, don’t discard the leaves, place on the plate and add the stew beside it.

Enjoy.

FOOD FIRST

Today, F is for Food! And it might as well be since many know me as the food mistress at work. What they don't know is how I got to the point of eating food every morning before work. Here is my story;

During my medical school days, I had to be in class before 8am, and that meant skipping breakfast. I only got the opportunity to eat during the break periods and that was at 11am. I didn’t see the big deal in eating at 11am (especially since I rarely get hungry, and don’t even realize it when I do). I am one of those people who eat food based on the time of the day. Like, oh! It’s 2pm, it’s time for lunch. I’m that bad. I may go for 12 hours before I realize I haven’t yet eaten a meal. Not watching my weight or any of such, it’s just a bad eating habit.

Anyway, so I’m carrying on like I own the food world, eating anytime I like, (even late into the night at 2 am – when I’m reading), until one morning, I develop a severe abdominal pain. I was in my fourth year, I had just had breakfast and was coming back to class for more lectures, when I suddenly doubled over in pains. My friends helped me get to the nearest consulting room where the doctor made a diagnosis of peptic ulcer disease. He advised me to eat better and I agreed, took the prescription of drugs he’d written, thanked him and went away.

I wish I had been a good listener back then, because frankly, I couldn’t adhere to his advice for more than a month. At every stage of clinicals, till my housejob, I always had to meet up with something before 8am. It wasn’t until my youth service year, 5 years ago, that I finally decided to take my health a bit more seriously and listen to the advice of so many people (doctors, mother, father, relatives) at the time.

One thing my father said stuck to my memory. He said: “Nne daddy, (as he fondly calls me) the only reason we leave our homes every morning to go and work, is so that we get money to put food on the table. If you don’t eat, you can’t work and if you can’t work, you are no longer beneficial to your patients. And guess what, if you drop dead one day from hypoglycaemia (low sugar in the blood), those same patients will move on to the next doctor. Only a few would stop for 1-minute silence”. My mum concluded by saying that “even 2 slices of bread in the morning is better than nothing, as breakfast is the most important meal of the day”.

So today, I have a small flask that I take to work with me everyday, and make sure that its contents are deposited in my stomach, latest 9am. And if anyone tries to hassle me, I just smile and repeat the words of advice of my parents in my mind. I would love to know, do you miss your breakfast?

MACARONI EXTRAORDINAIRE!

Hello everyone, 

I had earlier to have this article out by yesterday for my food friday series, but somehow, I ran out of time. Last week or was it 2 weeks ago, (doesn't really matter) I made a random dish and it came out nice. I promised a few people who asked, that the recipe would be out by this week. It is also a healthy meal to some extent. Here is how it was made.

INGREDIENTS:

• Macaroni
• Water
• Onions 
• Fresh tomatoes
• Fresh pepper
• Carrot
• Green beans
• Green pepper 
• Cabbage
• Salt
• Spices (curry, thyme, maggi)
• Garlic
• Sweet corn

RECIPE:

• In a pot or pan, heat up water to boiling point. Add the macaroni,  making sure that the water just covers it.
• Add some salt to taste, cover it up and allow to simmer.
• While the macaroni is cooking, it's time to get busy with chopping up the ingredients.
• However, unlike most times that the vegetables are chopped into cubes, these are cut into longer strips like we did for skillet potatoes. It gives it a sophisticated appearance.
• The sweet corn can't be chopped or sliced though, just wash and drain it. 
• In a pan, add a very small amount of water and allow to heat to boiling point. 
• Add the onions and garlic and allow to simmer for about 2 minutes. 
• Then, add the fresh pepper, carrots and green beans. Allow these to boil till it starts to soften up.
• Then, add the fresh tomatoes and cabbage.
• Also, add your spices to taste,  but no salt yet. Don't forget thatyour macaroni is still cooking and it's got some salt in it.
• Keep checking on the macaroni,  if it is ready before you are done with making the sauce, put out the fire and drain out any excess water.
• Finally, to the sauce, add the sweet corn.
• Next, pour in the macaroni into the sauce, mix vety well and add the green pepper. Allow it to heat up for about 30 seconds then bring doen your food.

**p.s. You can add extra salt to taste just before you add the green pepper. Also, make sure that there is no fluid in the sauce before you add your macaroni.

If you do not like this healthy verison, you can fry the sauce with vegetable oil instead of boiling it. So annoying but fried foods taste better. 

Have a pleasant day, post for "D" in the a-z blogging challenge coming right up. Need to add some finishing touches.

Cheers......

EGGSTEW SAUCE

Hello everyone,

As promised I am here with the recipe for the eggstew sauce. I’ve had a very hectic day and I almost postponed the post. However, I can’t fail you my loyal subscribers. The eggstew sauce is super easy especially if you are a Nigerian and who know how to make the Nigerian stew. (I think that would be my next food Friday topic now that I think about it, Anyway, till then). The preparation of the eggstew sauce is as follows:

INGREDIENTS:

• Fresh tomatoes

• Fresh pepper

• Onions

• Eggs

• Spices – magi, curry, thyme, garlic, salt

• Already made stew

• Vegetable oil – groundnut, olive e.t.c.

• Green pepper

RECIPE:

• Chop up the onions, fresh tomatoes and fresh pepper into tiny bits

• In a frying pan, add 2 tablespoonful of vegetable oil,

• Allow oil to heat up, then, add the chopped onions and garlic. Allow these to simmer a bit, to allow the flavours of the garlic come out.

• Add the chopped fresh pepper and tomatoes, allow to fry for about 5 – 10 minutes, then add the spices to taste.

• Add the stew and stir until it is well blended.

• Break the eggs into a plate and add a pinch of salt. Whisk the egg and add it to the pan. Stir very gently so the egg doesn’t mash up.

• You could add a bit of chopped green pepper for more flavour and garnishing.

So, there you have it. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did mine.

Cheers….

THE MOST DANGEROUS STORAGE CONTAINER

Hello everyone,

Sorry for the prolonged silence, (wasn't my intention). I have been so busy planning the nuptials of my brother that took place yesterday. Remember him? He celebrated his traditional marriage last December. Like I always say, I think it's only in Nigeria that you have to get married 2 -3 times before you realize that indeed, you are married. Lol. Anyway, will be giving you a detailed analysis of the wedding as soon as possible, so watch out. Today however, I just had to make out time to post this. It is sad, but we must learn from other people's experiences.

How often do we go out to get one form of container or another to store items in our homes. Many of us have various kinds of containers for different objects. For people like me who are organizational freaks, we even have containers for some of these storage containers. That's awesome. However, certain containers are not made to be used as storage cans and most definitely not for certain materials. I decided to go ahead and write a bit on this topic because of some events that happened in the hospital recently. About a month ago, I managed a child that had ingested insecticide. Throughout the period, I was so afraid of the possible complications that could arise. Luckily, he scaled through. When it looked like we could take a breather, just last week, another child was rushed into the emergency room. This one had ingested kerosene!

How? You may ask, did these children come in close contact with these dangerous fluids, up till the point of drinking it. The answer is very simple really, especially if you have had to store kerosene before. These children simply drank what they thought to be water because these fluids were stored in water bottles and then kept within or in close proximity to the kitchen. The brain of a child doesn't work like that of an adult. They function by recognizing something and attributing a meaning to it. It's just like when you carry a baby that isn't yours. A neonate would simply turn his head towards your boobs when it's hungry, while an infant who has recognized his mother would continue to cry until you hand him over to his mother.

This second child wasn't as lucky as the first one, she developed pneumonia 2 days after admission, and a whole lot of issues. Further investigation into the matter brought more to light. I realized that as with many health myths in Nigeria, ingestion of any poisonous substance also has its myths and practices. The commonest of these practices is inducing vomiting after the child has been noticed to have ingested a poison. Please!!!! I beg you, don't do that. Inducing vomiting for a substance like kerosene or a corrosive substance like caustic soda would worsen rather than better the person's condition. The reason for this is simple, kerosene is very volatile and can easily be aspirated into the lungs leading to many complications. Corrosives just burnup the digestive tract.

To avoid such disasters, do the following; 

• DO NOT store clear nonedible fluids like kerosene,  methylated spirit, or their like in water bottles. Labelled or not, home or hospital. A colleague of mine almost drank methylated spirit at work.
• Use appropriate storage cans for such substances and label them neatly. 
• Keep them out of reach of children and dispose of any empty containers.
• If you however, find yourself in such a situation, by some "uncanny" happening, immediately take the child to the nearest hospital for care. Many of these substances have antidotes. 
• On NO account should you try to induce vomiting. 
• Share the word and educate your neighbour.

Remain blessed, 

Cheers......

FOOD FRIDAY: NIGERIAN VEGETABLE SAUCE

It's been a while since I wrote anything on food, so, I thought I might do so today, today been Friday and all. Today, another Nigerian dish is stewing on the stove and I thought I might share it with you. I am a food lover! My friends and relatives always wonder where all the food I eat end up. Lol!!! Since getting married though, my love for experimenting with food has doubled mostly because the darling man also loves whatever my experiments yield.

So back to the crust for the day; the Nigerian vegetable sauce. I have written on something similar but this one has a different taste to it because I changed one ingredient.

INGREDIENTS:

• Fresh tomatoes
• Fresh pepper
• Onions

• Fish (preferably dried or smoked)

• Groundnut or vegetable oil (low cholesterol)
• Crayfish

• Vegetables (pumpkin or green leaf), spinach would also do just fine.

• Seasoning cubes and
• Salt

HOW TO PREPARE:

First of all, get all your ingredients washed and prepared. Chop up the tomatoes and Onions. You can either grind the fresh pepper or chop it up. To avoid the pepper getting into your eyes after chopping it up, I usually advice you use grounded or blended pepper. It can be very difficult washing the peppery stuff off your hands. (This actually happened to me, it wasn't funny). Also grind the crayfish, and per-boil the dried fish. 

Place your saucepan on the burner and allow to dry. Add about 50ml (1 cooking spoonful) of the vegetable oil and allow it to heat up. (Please allow the pan to dry before adding the oil unless you want to suddenly become kung-fu fighter, dodging the splashes of hot water). After the oil has heated up a bit, add your onions, (garlic, if you like), crayfish and stir. Add the fresh pepper and fresh tomatoes. Personally, I allow these to dry up a bit too. (I don't like soggy tomatoes). Then, add the fish and stir.

Add your seasoning and salt to taste, then add the vegetables. If you are using spinach, you may not allow it dry, because if you do you might be losing the nutrients that the other ingredients have to offer. Stir your mixture, allow the vegetables to soften up a bit and you are done.

Best served with yam or plantain (fried or boil) or rice.

Enjoy....