Cordon Bleu?

 Last Friday was a very exciting date for Joel, as he turned 6 months old! For the past few days, he has been trying out some solids- above is a picture of his very first taste of baby porridge (imported in my suitcase from the UK- I have yet to see any pre-made baby food on the shelves of Dodoma's "duka"/shops!). He seemed to quite like the experience of eating!
Today, Joel is a little more used to his porridge. Here he is, posing this morning in his baby chair, with some lovely decoration on his face to demonstrate how much he enjoyed tucking into breakfast:

Joel should be quite used to the idea of food, as he has been getting some experience in the kitchen, courtesy of Jane, who uses the Tanzanian method of getting on with our bread-making while also keeping a noisy baby calm:

On the subject of food, the banana trees in our garden continue to thrive, with bananas galore this year- so much so that we are eating more banana bread than I have ever consumed before! The banana bread turns out quite nicely- and for a bit of variety, this one below had some sunflower seeds added in. I bought the seeds from a neighbour and then wasn't really sure what to do with them, but I have to say that they added a rather nice crunch to my Dodoma banana loaf! 

 Baking in Dodoma sometimes has its challenges- Ben and I got busy making some chocolate chip biscuits recently. There are no chocolate chips for sale locally, but not to be outdone, we found some cooking chocolate (only white was available) and set about smashing up the very thick bar of chocolate with Andrew's hammer on my strongest chopping board- much more fun than simply buying chocolate chips!! Plus a free muscle work-out too- and the biscuits turned out to be delicious- they didn't last long!

 Sometimes, however, my cordon bleu skills seem to be lacking- like when my ginger biscuits turned into one giant ginger biscuit, all stuck onto the baking tray! The recipe called for white sugar- and this was one occasion when my improvisation methods of just using what we have available (ie. using rough brown sugar) did not work. This not not bother Benjamin though; he had a great time scraping the enormous biscuit off the tray, out in the garden, with many delighted ants swarming round his feet to pick up the crumbs spraying all over the sides:

 Fortunately, the chocolate cake for my birthday tea last month, with Andrew and the children, turned out nicely and we all enjoyed it:

When the idea of all this cooking and slaving in the hot kitchen seems too much, we do have the exciting option of a meal out at the local Italian-run pizzaria. On the weekend of my birthday, part of our family celebration with Claire was lunch there together- very tasty!

There is also the non-cooking option of a picnic lunch in the garden- a home-made bread roll, home-made cake, fruit and a refreshing cup of water- just right for a hot Dodoma day. No doubt Joel will be looking forward to joining in with the picnic-eating soon, along with his big sister and brother.