Dad had promised Amina that they would make a fire the next day.
Today Amina came up to me and looked somewhat sad. It took me a while of hugging and encouraging her to tell me what the matter was until it came out that she really wanted to make a fire with dad and was a bit sad that he did not come up to her yet to take her outside. I said he might have forgotten about it, maybe you go and remember him? But she as too shy and asked me to go and ask him. I usually encourage her to go ask herself but today my heart melted and I reminded him.
Then I was asked to prepare a delicious dough for “bread-on-a-stick” and Amina helped me to prepare a herbal/ garlic butter we could eat with it.

Here is the recipe for the bread:
1 kg organic flour
2 sachets dried yeast (or 2 cubes of fresh yeast if they sell that in your country grr ;))
3.5 Tbsp Salt
3.5 Tbsp Virgin Olive Oil
500 ml lukewarm water

you could leave the oil away for less fat and add some water and you can now add garlic, cumin, any herbs you like to spice up the recipe 🙂

For the garlic butter, take half a butter, add 2 cloves of finely chopped garlic, chopped chives and herbal salt

For a vegan alternative, I love pumpkin dip:
1 kg butternut/ hokkaido etc. pumpkin
1 tbs olive oil extra virgin
1 garlic clove, finely chopped
1 tsp ground cumin
add salt and or pepper if you like

Peel and seed the pumpkin. Cut into 2cm pieces. Place in a medium saucepan and cover with cold water. Bring to the boil over medium-high heat. Boil for 5 minutes or until tender. Drain.
Wipe the pan clean. Heat the oil in the pan over medium heat. Cook the garlic and cumin for 1 minute or until aromatic. Stir in the pumpkin. Use a wooden spoon to mash. Set aside to cool. Season with salt and pepper.
Transfer the dip to a serving bowl. Cover and place in the fridge to chill.

We spent a lovely late afternoon baking the bread over the fire. Some tasted really good, some was a bit blackish haha. The banana leaves made great plates. And if it weren’t for the sand flies, we might have stayed out a little longer 🙂