Rain Food Fest

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Love the rain but not to the extent of singing in the rain. Mama taught me better than that.

We have a love hate relationship with the rain. We planned a summer wedding, then it rains. Cross country cycling? Oops! It rains. Promised co-workers to have drinks, to celebrate the opening of the bar patio down the road, after three months of COVID-19 lockdown. We were going to help grandma with the harvest, but there was a downpour. Everybody has a story.

You are indoors because nature showed you who is the boss. What next? You can take advantage of the rain by cooking food you normally wouldn’t cook because you are a take-out prince and princess. Cook Spanish paella or lasagna from scratch. No cheating. No raiding the store freezer for precooked stuff.

Bake some scones and invite the Queen to tea. They call scones tea biscuits in North America. They were mama’s favourite rain food. She would prepare her wood stove and knead that dough, flour the baking sheets, cut the dough into round objects and pop them in the oven. Us kids loved her for many things, including the warm aroma of baking, while it rained.

BABY SITTING FOOD

Certain food is good for cooking when it is raining, because it needs baby sitting, like yellow and green lentils, but it is worth your while because they are wholesome when cooked. You just eat them, with no foreign objects like salt, pepper, soy sauce, ketchup, spices whatever.

Lentils need babysitting because they boil over. You must keep an eye on them like guards outside 10 Downing Street, the British Prime Minister’s office in London.

RECIPE: LENTIL BRICKS

1. Soak green lentils overnight or a few hours

2. Cook for about 40 minutes depending on how much you’re cooking

3. Leave to cool for an hour

4. Put cold lentils on foil paper or square foil cake tin

5. Freeze overnight

6. Remove from freezer and defrost for an hour

7. Cut lentils into squares and wrap with foil

8. Freeze for future use

Serve: Drop bricks in your smoothies, soups and toast. Remember, no salt, pepper, nothing. Just green goodness.

By: Nonqaba waka Msimang.

 

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