We're having an amazing time cooking in Haiti. Actually, David is doing a lot of the baking. We brought our Joy of Cooking cookbook and David tries out something new everyday. Ron built a kitchen island for me for Christmas. It's funny because for years we had considered popping out our kitchen in Oregon. People would come over and see our tiny kitchen with our large family and we would all talk about how "maybe someday" we would have a bigger kitchen mostly because the bulk of our family time seems to revolve around preparing to eat, eating, thinking about eating, talking about eating, and dreaming about eating. Hence the weight watchers issues.
But...whenever we came into some money with our tax return, there seemed to always be more pressing family needs such as medical expenses or paying for the next adoption. It is amazing how the Lord works though. When we give up the "dream" of a large kitchen with an island, we then move to Haiti and the Lord simply provides it in the least expected circumstances. It is a huge blessing with the various bug issues we have here. The ability to hang our kitchen pans and utensils help to keep the bugs off of them. The bugs like the dark cupboard drawers- yuck!
We've been blessed to meet an amazing missionary couple that help people learn trades. Part of what they do is help people start baking businesses. Because of that, they go monthly to buy large quantities of baking supplies and we are able to get in on that order.
We buy over 100 pounds of flour a month, plus sugar, oats, lard, and yeast. We've gotten pretty good at making pizza, bread, rolls, donuts, cookies, pancakes, biscuits & gravy, and Haitian oatmeal. It is really good!
Wow, I cannot believe how much you have to make from scratch out of necessity. I love baking and bake a few times every week, but it's a choice for me, of course. It must take a ton of time to just keep up with the staples, planning and baking for such a big family!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comment! Yes, I hadn't really thought through all the details of feeding a large family in Haiti. In the States, we had a different ability to buy cases of food and store both canned and in a deep freeze. We don't have the storage ability to the same extent here due to limited power (no deep freeze) and also the bug issues. We are slowing buying (as we can afford it) garbage cans and various storage bins in order to keep bugs out, but everything is incredibly expensive here (typically 3-4x's the price as in the states). But...we are figuring out a good system in cooking each day and are thankful to have the help of a local amazing lady. She thankfully goes to the market 2x's a week, since whatever we buy has to be eaten within a couple of days. Plus, we would spend pretty much all our time just trying to get to the market to buy food. BUT....there are also a lot of us to share the load on cooking, laundry, etc. David (19 year old) generally helps cook in the morning and then is gone up at the school teaching in the day and different kids are assigned different days to cook lunch and help with dinner. We brought in our pressure cooker which saves a TON of time when cooking beans. We also brought in our 60 cup rice cooker, but it broke after about a month. We have electrical issues, so we're developing a new plan with that. Billy (one of our 11 year olds) enjoys cooking rice on the propane stove though!
DeleteWell that IS a ton to figure out. What a process! My big freezer just died on us, which was disappointing, but even with that I have 2 fridge/freezers and such conveniences to feed our big family. I am thankful for our resources but this post puts a whole new perspective on feeding a large family. And sorry to ask another question, but I am wondering what bug issues do you have down there? Like beetles/moths in the grains, or ?
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