Recipes

Recipes

This page includes a couple of recipes referenced on other pages. It includes Burkina Faso Peace Corps Key Lime Pie and Cathy's (adapted) Black-Eyed Pea Dip.

Burkina Faso Peace Corps Key Lime Pie

In Burkina Faso when I was there, Peace Corps volunteers had developed a recipe for a very rich dessert made from things available there. It can likely be adapted for other locales, but probably being far away from favorite comfort food enhances the flavor. I can't imagine making this in the United States.

Mix the contents of a 1000-gram can of Bonnet Bleu sweetened condensed milk with the juice of 5 to 7 citrons (little lemon-lime fruits that grow here). Pour the mixture into a pan that is lined with crumbled butter cookies or shortbread cookies and top with one or two more crumbled cookies. That's all there is to it. It will sort of set up by itself in an hour or two (some principle of science about acid and milk or something), but having a refrigerator can improve this process.

You don't really want to know the nutritional content of this light little snack, but we figure it is about half fat and half sugar. I prefer to think of it as a good source of calcium and vitamin C.

Cathy's (adapted) Black-Eyed Pea Dip

Black-eyed peas, or something very much like them, are grown in Burkina Faso and are readily available at the marché (market) in Ouahigouya. At home in Texas, I always just bought a couple of cans of cooked black-eyed peas at the store, but in Burkina Faso, I had an opportunity to learn for the first time how to cook beans from scratch (it's about time at my age). I didn't have the recipe with me, but I tend to improvise a bit with recipes anyway. The basic ingredients follow (thanks to my friends for sending the things I couldn't get in Burkina Faso):

	Black-eyed peas
	A couple of onions, chopped
	A bell pepper, chopped (optional)
	A couple of cloves of garlic, minced
	One or two cans of chopped green chilies (hot or mild, depending on taste)
	Some jalapeno juice and/or some minced jalapenos
	A couple of sticks of butter, melted
	A cup or two of grated cheese (jack or cheddar or some kind of Mexican cheese is probably better than the Emmentaler I finally found in Ouagadougou)

Soak the beans for four hours, or as directed in a good cookbook. Then cook them with just enough water to cover them, adding the chopped onions, pepper, and garlic. Don't add the jalapeno juice because it includes salt and will prevent the beans from cooking properly. Cook about an hour or until nice and soft. Then add the green chilies and jalapeno juice and heat through. Mash it all up (or put it in a blender if you live in a developed area with probably too many appliances) until it is the consistency of bean dip. Return to heat and mix in the melted butter. Finally, add the grated cheese gradually and stir over heat until it blends in. Taste and add salt or more peppers or more garlic or whatever, depending on taste and what you have in the kitchen. Serve with tortilla chips (whole or crumbled from being packed in a suitcase or mailed across a couple of continents).