Central African Republic: Benne Wafers

The Dish: Sesame seed cookies
The Country: Official languages: French and Sango

 goop

Ingredients:
3/4 cup sesame seeds
1.5 cups brown sugar
3/4 cup melted butter
1 egg
1.5 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking powder

blobs of goop

Procedure:
Preheat oven to 375°
Grease a cookie sheet or line with wax paper
Mix everything together
Place 1 inch wide balls of dough on wax paper, flatten
Bake for 7 minutes

I'm not so good at the whole shaping the cookies into round balls thing...

Notes: I'm the process of correcting some crooked back molars (yay dental problems!) so my chewing abilities are limited.  From the little I tasted of this cookie thing, it seemed pretty good.  I may have cooked them a little long... a few minutes less and they might have been softer on my recently installed molar spacers (look it up).
Rating: 2.3

Cameroon: Peanut Soup

The Dish: Tomato-y peanut butter soup
The Country: The official languages are French and English.

cup of peanut butter

Ingredients:
3 cups chicken broth
can of diced tomatoes
2 tsp chopped garlic
chili pepper to taste
salt and pepper to taste
cup of natural peanut butter

beware of the chili pepper

Procedure:
Put everything except the peanut butter in a pan and simmer
Once it's hot, add the peanut butter
Stir over medium heat until the peanut butter is no longer in chunks
Serve warm

the final product

Notes: Aaaahhhh too much chili pepper!! I thought I was going to burn a whole in my esophagus. My brother ate two cups of it, but I could barely take a few spoonfuls.
Rating: 1.5

Canada: Brown Sugar Pie

The Dish: Brown sugar pie... The story of how my arteries died.
The Country: Canada. Ten provinces, three territories

Ingredients:
6 tablespoons of flour
2 cups brown sugar
1 can evaporated milk
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla extract
Pie shell (if you, like me, felt a bit too lazy to make your own pie crust today...)

Procedure:
Preheat oven to 400°
Boil all of that stuff in a sauce pan
Pour into pie shell 
Bake at 400° for 5 minutes
Lower heat to 350° for 25 minutes

Notes:
My family liked it, but I'm not sure that I did. It was weirdly gelatinous.  I don't like gooey food.

Rating: 2

Cambodia: Banana Cake

The Dish:  Banana cake
The Country: Cambodia has a population over 14.8 million.

my warped reflection in the bowl definitely makes the picture better...

Ingredients:
2 eggs
1 cup flour
1.5 cups of sugar
1/2 stick of butter
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
2 tsp vanilla extract

that looks like a giant egg yolk

Procedure:


- Preheat oven to 375°
- Put all of the ingredients on a bowl and mix until there are no butter or banana chunks
- Put in a greased cake or bread pan
-Bake for 20-25 minutes

final product (and my red teapot)

Notes: It tastes good, but I can't tell if it wants to be a cake or a bread. It's really dense, so it feels like a bread... but it tastes like a cake...
Rating: 3.75

Burundi: Boiled Plantains

The Dish: plantains...
The Country: Burundi: Small, landlocked, African country that exports a lot of coffee

Ingredients:
4 plantains

the green ones aren't sweet...

Procedure:
Boil enough water to cover the plantains
Boil plantains for 15-20 minutes

steamy, yucky, plantains

Notes:
These weren't very good because they weren't the sweet kind of plantains... so I tried to turn them into plantain chips by frying them... that didn't work either. Oops...

Rating: 1

Burma: Gin Thoke

The dish: Ginger chips??
The country: Burma.. over 58.8 million people

Ingredients:
Ginger
Peanut Oil
Sesame Seeds
Minced Garlic


Procedure:
Peel, Chop ginger
Sautee in 3 tablespoons of peanut oil
when golden brown, take out and sprinkle with sesame seeds and garlic.

Notes:
YUCK. I know I didn't follow the recipe the way I was supposed to, but I felt impatient and didn't want to bother with some of the steps... so I guess that could be why it tasted so strange. Sorry for the lack of pictures, but it just wasn't even worth getting a picture of it... it ended up looking like sesame sprinkled rabbit poop pellets. 

Bulgaria: Apple Walnut Banzita

The Dish: Yummy Apple Stuff
The Country: Bulgaria, Capitol: Sofia

try and remove as much of the peel as you can

Ingredients:
3 golden delicious apples
1 tsp chopped walnuts or pecans
3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
lots of sheets of filo dough
1 stick of butter

the filo dough box

Procedure:
Melt the butter
Peel and chop the apples
Mix sugar, nuts,  and cinnamon in a bowl
Preheat oven to 400°
Set two sheets of filo dough on a plate, coat with butter
Add two more sheets
Sprinkle the nut/ sugar mixture
Add apples
Fold over and seal closed with more butter
Repeat until all the apples are gone
Place on parchment lined baking tray
Bake for 20 minutes

FINAL PRODUCT

Notes: Working with the filo dough was quite messy because it kept breaking and flying everywhere.  It was also messy to eat, but it tasted really good!!

Rating: 4.5