COOKING WITH YOUR SENSES

In this age of technology, where they are so many things like video games, movies, phones and easy access to emails from work, the temptation to continue work at home is very tempting. Aside that, there is also the demands from family and friends wanting our attention in the middle of cooking.

Never has cooking being a challenge. The tendency to forget that one  has something on fire is more, because of numerous distractions that comes with living in this day and time.

This could translate to food getting burnt, vegetables  loosing their nutrients because they are over cooked, oil getting to hot on fire and basically loosing a lot of gas.

One of the many arts of cooking, is cooking with your senses. The ability to cook with not just the eyes, but with the ears, tongue and mind.

Interestingly, as you practice cooking more often, your mind and senses begin to master the sounds of food. It is also the same way you look at the color of something you fry, and just know when it is cooked by merely looking at the color.

And when someone asks you how you know it is cooked, your reply is often "you just know"
Therefore, if you consciously listen to the sounds around you when you are cooking, you will soon be able to tell ; when the water is boiling, when the water is drying up, the sound for a perfectly sautéd vegetable, the sound of a well fried fish e.t
.c.

It is an art that may not be taught, but it can be surely learned. With conscious effort and a deliberate decision to awaken your senses when it is time to cook.

                                                                                                                             Written by Mary Jane.

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FORCING YOUR CHILDREN TO EAT

Often times, when our children are weaned, or when they clock six months,a mother is usually excited. It is that time of their lives when they are introduced to different kinds of meals. It is also that time of our lives as mothers, when we want to take a break. We become excited about the idea of them getting full on foods that we introduce to them, and spending less time on our nipples.

At six months, some children are already growing teeth, and would nibble on our nipple to test our reactions or maybe scratch their gums. Who knows?.
I'm usually fascinated at how hurt and upset they feel when they are flicked for nibbling on the nipples and would forget very fast, and nibble again.

When they are half a year, they begin to learn to sit, attempt to crawl and stay away from our weary arms a bit longer. The joy, the joy of not holding them all the time, and having a little spare time here and there, to do other things. And not having them get in the way with love!

The joy of this extra free time, gets to us, that we want to force them to eat other meals. We begin to try grains like

Corn (akamu)
Guinea corn (kunu)
Tom brown (a mixture of grains and groundnut)
Acha
And other available cereals.

These are easy grains to prepare, we get frustrated and start closing their nose, grabbing their hands, and forcing food down their throats. We begin to unconsciously make them prisoners of food.

As much as we enjoy this little freedom, the best thing yo give your child at this time is little smashes of fruits like

Avocado
Watermelon
Bananas
A little of things that you eat. Smashed of course.
And if they happen to like cereals, then go all out for it.

After all at six months, you are not weaning the child completely. You are a only taking a break from exclusive breast feeding. W.H.O (world health organization) advice's to breast feed till the child is at least 2.

So six months is not the best time to force them to eat. It is the time to observe them and understand what they like and what they don't like. And if your child is picky at 6months, don't worry. Just feed them what they appreciate for now.

As they keep eating the preferred food, it will ignite their curiosity to want more, or they will get tired of a particular meal and want more.

                                                                                                                   Written by Mary Jane.

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THE PERFECT THICKENER

Have you ever tried preparing banga soup, but it ended up not coming out as thick as you want?

Do you also know that tomatoes paste can be a healthy alternative for smelly thickeners?

Things you'll need

1cup Ovalz tomatoes paste
3 cups palm kernel
Salt
5 balls of pepper (small size)
1 large stock fish
1kg of meat( beef, chicken or mutton.)
1 cup of crayfish
3 seasoning cubes
1 round portioned locust beans (optional)
Basil leaves
Pumpkin leaves (optional)
2 big sized kpomo (thoroughly soaked skin)

Process:
1. Boil your palm kernel until very soft. Put it in a pressure cooker to save time.
2. When it is cooked, put it into a blender or mortar,  whichever is available.  Grind until the coverings are out of the seeds
3. If it's in a blender, pour in two cups of water and blend.
4. Blend until you begin to see the oil come out.
5. If it's in a mortar, pound with out water, until the coverings are out of the seeds, then pour it in to a bowl and squeeze with 2 cups of water, until all the oil is out..
6. Then set it aside and allow to settle before you start
7. Boil your meat and crayfish and stock fish in 1 and 1/2 cup of water. Season with salt,

pepper and seasoning cubes.
8. Allow it to cook until tender, and then pour it out into a bowl.
9. Preserve the stock from the meat, that always adds a sweet flavor to the soup.
10. Now use your hands and fetch the already rising oil from your settled washed palm kernel and put it into your soup pot.

11. Then sieve the remaining liquid, to put away the seeds and the chaff. 

12. Turn the extra liquid, a cup of tomatoes paste and your stock with all the meats, stock fish and crayfish already cooked. 

13. You'd notice that your soup is already slightly thick. 

14. Put it back on fire and add seasoning cubes, pepper and salt to taste.

15. Add already sliced basil leaves 

16. Let it boil until well thickened as you desire. 

16. Add already sliced pumpkin leaves,  allow to steam for few minutes... 

Soup is ready.  Can be eaten with rice, yam, or any staple food. Enjoy. 

                            Written by Mary Jane. 

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MEAT BALL TOMATOES SAUCE, THE RECIPE.

Apart from stew, there are other things that you can use tomatoes paste for. And one of them is meat balls tomatoes sauce. For spaghetti or for rice.

Things you will need

1. 1pack of spaghetti
2. 200g of Ovalz tomatoes paste
3. Two seasoning cubes
4.  3 teaspoon of Ovalz pepper dem
5. Salt
6. Water
7. 250g of minced meat
8. Mashed garlic
9. Mashed ginger
10. Basil
11. Green peppers (optional)
12. Onions

Step by step process
1. Boil your minced meat with the garlic, ginger, salt and pepper. Meat is minced already, so just a little amount of water is required.

2. When meat is Properly cooked, bring it down and put in a separate bowl.

3. Then put a dry pot on fire and allow it to get hot... Then pour 3/4 cups of oil in it and allow to get hot. When hot, pour in your tomatoes paste, and your pepper dem peppers and already diced onions and stir.

4. Then pour in the already cooked meat, basil, and green peppers. Put in the seasoning cubes and salt to taste.

5. Put in the pack of spaghetti and allow to boil for 15minutes.

6. Serve with salads, vegetables and fruits.

           ENJOY!!!
                                                                written by Mary Jane .

   

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TOMATOES BEANS, THE RECIPE

Tomatoes can be used to prepare various things. Not just stew and jellof rice.

Here is the step by step process of cooking beans with tomatoes : things you need
a) 3 cups of beans,   b)3/4cups of Ovalz tomatoes paste,  c) 3/4cups of palm oil, d) 1medium sized onions  e) 2seasoning cubes, f) 1big sized dried fish,  g) 3pcs

1. Boil your beans until it is very soft. (to save time, use a pressure cooker)

2. After beans is cooked, put it in a bowl aside

3. Get 3/4 cups of palm oil and allow to simmer in a dried pot for few seconds

4. When oil is hot, pour 3/4 cups of tomatoes paste, and allow to fry for few seconds. (for additional flavor, use the ginger and garlic flavor tomatoes paste)

5. Add crayfish, dry fish, onions, freshly cut pepper , salt and seasoning to the tomatoes and oil on fire

6. Close the pot, and allow them to simmer for 1 minute.

7. Pour your already cooked beans, stir and pour in 1 and 1/2 cup of water, and let it cook for five minutes

8. Serve your beans with any fresh vegetables or fried plantains.

9. Enjoy it with friends and family. .Or just your self .
 

A different experience
         
                               

                                                   Written by Mary Jane. 

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RAMADAN KAREEM. 10 PERCENT DISCOUNT.

Ovalz foods Nigeria limited, in the spirit of the Ramadan, will be doing a Ramadan offer. We would like to make the preparation of Iftar easier for our Muslim brothers and sisters.

Every Iftar is supposed to be a Thanksgiving. To say, another fast is over, by the grace of God. How  more interesting it will be, if the food is prepared faster, so that family and friends can have enough time to join us celebrate every day.

If you're within Jos, delivery is free. This is to appreciate our host community. To let them know that we are a company that cares and supports them. But if you are outside Jos, the 10percent offer still stands. However, you'd have to pay for delivery.

Kindly Comment under this post to ask any questions, tell us how many jars you want, where you reside, where you would like it delivered to you and what day you'll like it delivered to you. We hope to hear from you. Ramadan Kareem.

Let prayers freshen your soul, and Ovalz freshen your body

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COFFEE OR CODEINE

Youths all over the world, are known to be energetic, innovative vibrant and most importantly, experimental.

This curiosity and the need to know, has lead him into trying out new things.  New things that are intentionally and deliberately innovated, or new things that are accidentally stumbled upon.

For some people, their discovery of coffee or codeine were probably stumbled upon. Truly, the discovery of coffee was stumbled upon by man. But the discovery of the opiate codeine, was definitely not stumbled upon.

Codeine, over the years, has been used to treat various degrees of pain. From Mild to moderate. It is often found in cough syrup.

Codeine is a part of a group of drugs known as Opioids. Opioids are depressant drugs. This kind of drugs slow down the messages travelling between the brains and the body.

Most people who take codeine, do not even know that they might get addicted to it. And because the addiction is moderate, they do not often realise that their bodies are beginning to gain dependency on the drug.

So, it will be safe to say: that some users of this drugs, stumbled on it.

Now, as a result of man's desire to get more, the purple drank was invented. This is obtained when young people mix codeine with soft drinks like sprite and Mountain Dew. It is often subtle, but that is the most common way to get addicted.

Just like codeine was stumbled upon or deliberately invented by man, because he needed an extra push, or a different

Feel, so was coffee.

The similarity between this two substances that are not really food, but can be safely classified as "beverages" is that they all have something extra. Something that gives an extra effect.

For coffee, it is the presence of caffeine. People have over the years, being known to be addicted to caffeine.

That means that as one can be subtly unaware of their addiction to codeine, so can they also be subtly unaware of addiction to coffee, because of the presence of caffeine.

Where the side effects of the addiction of codeine is dangerous and unhealthy to the body systems, that of coffee is a different tale altogether.

Some of the effects of having too much codeine in your system are as follows:

* inability to pass urine
*severe constipation and obstructed bowel
*agitation
*mental numbness
*very slow shallow breathing
*hallucination and sometimes seizures
*coma and death.

Whereas, the benefits of taking coffee are numerous:

*helps prevent premature death
*reduce mortality
*protect against cirrhosis
*lowers the risk of liver cancer by over 40 percent
*reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes by 11percent.
*is a powerful antioxidant.

Yes, the search by man, to get a different feeling every time, cannot be robbed from him. It is inherent that man tries to search, discover, know, and satisfy his curiosity.

So weather he stumbles on it, or deliberately conjure it, it is best that he chooses what will be less harmful to hisgeneral well being.

And if you ask me, the best thing for that extra push, or that different feeling, or that unexplainable edge is definitely coffee. I will choose caffeine any day over codeine.

If there's one thing I owe my body, it is to take utmost care of it. And respect the one who gave it to me.

Written by Mary Jane. .

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