Tomatoes and Peanut Butter

Cook a couple of sliced onions in some oil in a pan. 

 Add some chopped tomatoes. 

Voila! the sauce is ready for rice or couscous or beans! 

 As my Nigerien friend said, " as long as we have onions and tomatoes we can make a sauce."  Sometimes we add a bit of chopped meat and/or peanut butter, serve it over rice and that makes it a dish fit for a king! Just ask my kids. 

Tomatoes are in season now and coming into the city literally by the busload.   The outlet is at the market close by our home so a friend and I decided to skip the middle man and purchase our tomatoes "en gros."   

Fortunately, my friend had her vehicle so I didn't have to transport them back on my head!  

The tomatoes made great sauce and salsa.  My only problem was I had none of my canning supplies here.  Nor did I have extra plastic storage containers.  So I froze it all in pans, cut it in squares and re-froze it in plastic bags.  As long as Tom doesn't mistake it for brownies we'll be okay.  

I suppose Americans eat peanut butter like our African friends eat tomato sauce.  In the early 90's when we lived in Central African Republic, peanuts were abundant.  Melissa's first way of earning money was making and selling peanut butter to other missionaries using our Oster Kitchen Center blender we had received as a wedding gift.  In Ouagadougou, our pastor's wife had a peanut butter machine and we could buy it from her, a dishpan at a time. 

Here in Niger, getting peanut butter is a bit more complicated so I decided to see if my Bosch blender was up to the task.  But I had forgotten how time consuming making peanut butter from scratch can be.  All the recipes that I read on-line started from peanuts you buy at the store that are shelled, skinned and roasted already. 

It took awhile to find shelled peanuts in the market but thanks to Tom's searching, I now have a source.  

After sorting through the raw peanuts,

 I roasted them for a bit  in the oven and then began the arduous task of taking all those pesky red skins off.  That was a great thing to do during the "Friday night at the movies" time.   

Saturday morning, since there was no breeze to help me, I set up my artificial wind to blow all the red skins down the driveway. 

The blender worked perfectly and I now have enough peanut butter for a while.  No orders, please! 

  P.S.  I still prefer Skippy!