What do you eat before going to Africa?

At the end of last week, I started thinking about food to fix that would create a little bit of leftovers, but nothing that we couldn't finish up before heading off to Liberia. For some reason I thought of my Easy Enchilada Sauce recipe. This is fast, cheap, and you can pour it over whatever you want to wrap in a corn tortilla, grate some cheese on top, and call it enchiladas. We've used leftover roasted chicken, blackbeans and rice, and of course taco-meat. I chose to use a mix of beef and black beans as a side dish, or to wrap up with the beef. It was great. We ate a meal from it, I took some to my grandparents, and there is just enough to make 4 more enchiladas for tonight. On Saturday night, we were able to have my younger brother over for dinner while he was in town. Heath said, "let's make burgers," I said "great!" He also suggested we make some black bean and corn salsa. For us, the easy version is using two cans of black beans (organic was on sale!) and one thing of corn. We roasted a yellow and red bell pepper and some garlic, threw in some red onion, cilantro, heirloom tomatoes, and some other seasonings. Done. Easy dinner, had a great time. We even had salsa left over that we are still munching on. Today I had the thought, "We're leaving to go to Liberia where our lunch and dinners will consist of rice with a bean mixture poured over top. Why on earth did we pick now to decide every meal should consist of something with black beans!" Oh well, maybe our stomachs won't have any problems adjusting to the food. Atleast today I thought I'd make some muffins for breakfast for tomorrow and Thursday, and freeze some for the morning after we return.


Easy Enchilada Sauce:
3 Tbl vegetable oil
1 Tbl flour
1/4 C chili powder
2 C chicken stock
10 oz tomato paste
1 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp salt

In a medium saucepan heat oil, flour, smoothing and stirring with a wooden spoon. Cook for 1 minute. Add chili powder and cook for 30 seconds. Add stock, tomato paste, oregano, and cumin. Stir to combine. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to low and cook for 15 minutes. The sauce will thicken and smooth out. Adjust the seasonings. Serve atop your favorite enchiladas.

I have used a little adobo sauce with the tomato paste and that's good. I also pour it over enchiladas, grate my cheese over it, and then bake it in the oven till everything is heated and its bubbly.