Author: Rachel

2018 word of the year: ABUNDANCE

When she's not busy making websites, Rachel likes to hang out with her family and all their critters (3 dogs, 3 cats, 11-ish goats, 1 sheep, and a gazillion chickens).

Categories
What's Cooking?

African Peanut Stew

African Peanut Stew

African Peanut Stew

  • coconut oil
  • 1 onion
  • 4 cloves garlic
  • 2 Tbsp fresh ginger (minced)
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 tbsp cumin
  • .25 tbsp red pepper flakes
  • .5 tbsp cinnamon
  • 1 hot green pepper
  • 6 oz tomato paste
  • 1 cup peanut butter
  • 1 acorn squash
  • 12 oz frozen spinach
  • 6 cups vegetable broth
  • sriracha
  • peanuts

  1. Dice the onion. Saute in coconut oil with salt for several minutes until the onion softens.

  2. Chop garlic & mince ginger. Add to onions & cook for several minutes until everything is soft.

  3. Peel the squash. Cut in half to remove seeds, then cut into small (2 cm) chunks.

  4. Add squash, cumin, cinnamon, & red pepper flakes to the pan. Cook for several minutes to soften squash.

  5. Add broth, tomato paste, and peanut butter to pot.

  6. Bring to a boil, then turn down heat & simmer about 20 minutes.

  7. Shortly before serving, add frozen spinach.  Bring soup up to desired temperature.

  8. Top with peanuts & sriracha.

I served this over quinoa. The meat-eaters in our house added roast chicken to their bowls.

Recipe was inspired by:

Categories
The Bookshelf

PopCo

PopCo
PopCo

PopCo by Scarlett Thomas

4 stars

I’m not sure how to categorize this book. Modern fiction, with a bit of mystery, I guess. I enjoyed the digressions into codebreaking, history, philosophy, and ethics.

Unfortunately, the ending was very abrupt and unsatisfying. The solution seemed to come too easily to the protagonist. After scrolling past several “end of the book” sections of prime numbers and letter frequency that I thought were just appendices, I found there was another chapter which helped wrap things up a bit more. I almost missed it, thinking the story had ended before the appendices.

Categories
The Bookshelf

Akata Warrior

Akata Warrior
Akata Warrior

Akata Warrior by Nnedi Okorafor

3.5 stars

I enjoyed this book, but not as much as I liked “Akata Witch“. This one felt repetitive; how many times do I need to hear that Sunny has strong muscles in her arms? Overall, though, I enjoyed the story and am tempted to listen to the audiobook version to see if that adds additional depth.