Happy Mother's Day

As most of you wake up to Mother’s Day, mine is coming to an end. It is about 12am in the US and 3pm here.

 

This morning, I woke up to the beautifully crisp weather of Ukarumpa. We are not living in the highlands, so it feels like it is eternally spring or fall, depending on whether or not the sun is out. I love waking up to a cool house….having to grab a pair of warm socks and a hooded sweatshirt, knowing that it will all warm up when the sun comes out. It is refreshing….as was my morning.

 

I woke up, started the coffee pot (yes! We have one now) and turned around to see Caleb and Ben coming in the apartment with freshly picked flowers. Caleb had a morning meeting (yes….on Mother’s Day) but he was back in time for church. Here, the community organizes the worship service. Today was puppet show day. The idea was: without the children, we wouldn’t be moms.  Which is very true. So, the service was centered around the kids. We started with some singing, a time of prayer and then the puppet show. Ben loved the puppets and just sat there mesmerized the whole time.  I have to admit, puppets are not my favorite extra-curricular event….but it was really nice to have Ben there with me during the service….and it was so nice that he was entertained and not pitching a fit.   Tonight, we are going to cook pork chops. I got to pick the recipe…which is a sweet soy sauce recipe.  Hope it turns out.

 

I don’t mean to brag, but I have learned how to cook so many things already. Before I came to PNG, we had the luxury of having a Food Lion grocery store close by where I could buy any ingredient or item if the price was right. I also became a master at couponing before I left, so we didn’t go hungry.  Here, though, we just don’t have the things we had at home. And, if we do, then sometimes it tends to be REALLY expensive to buy it here. So, when given the choice between buying or making, the best cost-savings decision is usually to make it yourself. Not to mention, my sister in law gave me this great book called “How to Cook Everything” by Mark Bittman. This book makes me think twice about common shortcuts that I have used in the past. For example, it begs you not to use chicken stock from the store….and explains how even a simple home-made vegetable stock is far better than that. The book takes the time to explain everything….and it has recipes that start out easy but then have a ton of variations.  Love it!

 

So, this past week-end, I have been getting my kitchen in order. I made a Master Mix to have on  hand. Basically, you mix all the dry ingredients together, cut in shortening, then follow recipes where you only ever have to add things like sugar and wet ingredients. It is a great way to quickly make pancakes, coffee cake, biscuits, brownies, etc.  After that, I made a double batch of granola. This stuff is so good, I eat it like candy. But, it is pretty healthy and will be a good substitute for cereal in the morning…or a topping for yogurt.  I also made pizza dough. Were we eating pizza dough this past week-end?  Nope. But, I was able to freeze it so that we will have it for next week.  Tonight, I am going to make a chicken stock. Then, I will cut up the meat of the chicken so that we can use it for wraps, salads, etc next week for lunches.  Oh…speaking of wraps…I will have to make tortillas tonight or tomorrow.  We haven’t had store bought salsa in a long time. So, I picked some up at the store here. Problem is, there are no tortilla chips in the store…..so, you guessed it. I will have to make my own tortilla chips, too.  There are ladies here who sell them. Which will be a nice break every now at then….but, it would be too expensive to buy them all the time.

 

So…that’s about it for now. I hope that you all have a wonderful Mother’s Day.