Feel It Girl!!!

 

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One thing about me if I find something,  an item of clothing I like, it fits me and I can afford to I will buy it in all the colours it comes in that appeal to me. In retrospect this may actually be something I carried over from my childhood, I was raised in a bulk shopping household; we bought most items in bulk. So that being said I am also a fan of wholesale shopping not only do you get to buy in bulk but at a cheaper cost than retail as well. This works well for people who prefer to do their shopping once and forget about it until they need to stock up again, and also for small scale business people who may want to resell items they bought wholesale. Not only do I buy clothing items like regular undergarments wholesale but if find them I also purchase wholesale shapewear especially if it fits me well and I know that these are items that I will wear on a regular basis. I don’t want to be in a situation where I need to wear shape wear and the one and only piece I own is dirty or in the wash. No thank you! So I invest in them in bulk.

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Feelingirldress.com has an array of body shapers to choose from and you can find the best body shaper to suit your needs on their site. They have an array of products to choose from not just for the girls but for the guys as well. Items range from waist trainers, men active wear, sports bras, yoga leggings and one of my favourite products on the site seamless shaper waist trainer leggings among others. They offer very affordable deals on their website; I was amazed at the prices on display and they currently have an amazing US$5 off offer upon joining the site. Head on over to the website at Feelingirldress.com for more information on how to join, how to order, payment and shipping and customer service information today or click the links in bold to check out their amazing product line for all you gorgeous gorgeous girls and gents out there.

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Bhajias - East African Version!

 

Bhajias or Bhajis/Pakoras came to East Africa (specifically Kenya and Tanzania for this post) from India thanks to colonialisation, trade and migration.  We adapted them and made them our own. Here are some variations of bhajias that I like to make. All vegetarian friendly but deep fried so you may want to burn off the calories the next day.

Potato Bhajias

Sometimes referred to as Maru bhajias (Kenya). These are thinly round sliced potatoes coated in seasoned gram flour (chickpea flour) batter; I like to season mine with salt, cumin seeds, coriander leaves, cayenne pepper and sometimes turmeric. You simply coat the potatoes in the batter and deep fry. This recipe also works well for sturdy vegetables like aubergines, cauliflowers, courgettes, onions, sweet peppers etc. Simply slice the vegetable if it needs slicing or coat it whole if it doesn’t require slicing in seasoned gram flour and fry.

Here’s a link (Kenyan Maru Bhajia) and link (Indian aloo bhajii) to a recipe you can follow. Served with a chutney or salsa of your choice

Potato Bhajias

Courgette/Zucchini Bhajias

Bhajia za Kunde (Cow pea/Black eyed pea fritters)

These are exactly as the name suggests. Somewhere in the Indian sub continent these are called Lobia Vada/Alasanda Vada. If you are West African these are like rough ground Akara because the recipe is similar; soak cow peas/black eyed peas overnight or for at least 10 hours or more if you have the time. Grind them; add spices of your choice and fry major difference is these are ground to a rough finish not smooth like Akara. You may or may not choose to remove the skins it really doesn’t make much of a difference to me. For these ones I added chopped red onions, ginger paste, coriander leaves, red chillies and salt.  Traditionally these were ground using a good old mortar and pestle which I still use if I am making a small quantity and need an arm workout, otherwise you can just use an electric grinder. I say grinder as opposed to blender because with a blender you would need to add water which you will have to strain because otherwise the mixture will be runny, I prefer to use a grinder much easier.  Just drain all the water before grinding. To the western world these are similar to Middle Eastern Falafel. The major difference is that Falafel is made with chickpeas in the Middle East.  I also suspect that in addition to India, Middle Eastern traders who plied the trade route between the Middle East and the East coast of Africa and ended up settling in East Africa may also have contributed to the adaptation of this dish in East Africa. If you make them bigger, they make for a great sandwich filling.  Here’s a link (East African) and link (Indian) to a recipe you can follow.

With skins peeled

With unpeeled skins

Bhajia za Dengu (Chickpea fritters)

These are made using gram flour (which is basically chickpea flour). In the regional name varieties found in India these would be called Pakoras/Pakodas but in East Africa we call them all bhajias and specify which variety it is. In Trinidad and Guyana these would be similar to Pholourie. A batter is made using gram flour, water and whatever else you want to put in them and then deep fried. I added chopped red onions, coriander leaves, cumin seeds, paprika. dried chillies and salt to these ones. Most times I also like to add mashed/chopped pre boiled potatoes to the mix and then fry. You can add baking powder or yeast to help them rise if you want puffy ones. These also make for a great sandwich filling. Here’s a link (East African) and another link (Indian) to a recipe you can follow.

These come out in all types of shapes and textures depending on the ingredients

And a bonus video with several bhajia recipes;

 

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Homemade Paprika!

 

I was inspired to make my own paprika thanks to the video below. I already dry my own fresh herbs so this was a no brainer; the goal is to grow my own herbs as soon as I get ample growing space. A dehydrator is also in my future just putting it out there.

Step 1: Wash sweet peppers you can use a mix of sweet peppers and red bell peppers.

Step 2: Deseed and chop into tiny pieces – I ended up chopping them into thinner strips about three days into the drying process which is what I ought to have done in the first place.

Step 3: dry the peppers. You can sun-dry them in a dust free environment, you can use a dehydrator to dry them or use an oven as shown in the video below. These were sun dried and heat dried when I decided to smoke them as well.

Step 4: Grind them in a grinder/coffee grinder. One of the best investments I made in kitchen appliances was to buy a blender set that came with two grinding jugs as well. Best decision ever I grind whatever needs grinding in them.

I overdid it with the smoking hence the darker hue

The video that inspired it all!

 

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Merry Christmas!

 

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Merry Christmas everyone! Have a blessed one!

BLOGMAS - The Christmas Movies Edition!

 

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I am a sucker for Christmas movies I am currently binge watching them, hey I’d do the same in June, I watch them whenever I need a good pick me up feel good movie to get me through. One thing I have noticed in my years of watching Christmas movies is they all seem to revolve around the same plot lines and depending on what channel you are watching on or the production house, you are bound to see the same faces in a variety of roles spread over different movies. Christmas movies almost always seem to have one, two, or all of the following plot lines. Oh we are talking specifically about US Christmas movies, wait I have actually never come across Christmas movies from elsewhere across the globe...I need to research more on this especially non English language ones I have a feeling they would be good. Anyway as I was saying you are bound to find one, two or all of the following plot lines in a Christmas movie;

·         Person comes back to their small hometown from the big city and reunites with their high school sweetheart or old flame that they abandoned to chase their fortunes in the big city and decide to stay back for love.

·         There is usually a family member suffering from a terminal illness in secret or only one other person knows, and they finally decide to let the whole family know. The family then decides to make this the best Christmas ever for the sick person.

·         There’s usually a cheating spouse situation that comes to light over Christmas.

·         There’s usually a couple on the verge of divorcing who either go ahead with the divorce or decide to give it another try over Christmas.

·         There’s a family business enterprise (that goes back generations) that needs saving over Christmas.

·         There’s a teen/university bound teen who wants to pursue a career/college course other than what their parents want for them and they finally get the courage to tell them over Christmas and the parents see sense in letting them follow their own path.

·         Some sort of matchmaking long in the making finally pans out over Christmas and everyone’s happy those two finally saw the light and got together.

·         There’s ALWAYS some sort of family feud/sibling rivalry going on with certain family members and sometimes whole families; Grandma J’s people don’t see eye to eye with her sister Grandma K’s people due to a long standing feud that no one knows the origin of. Thankfully this gets resolved over Christmas and everyone is happy they are finally talking to each other again.

·         A life changing/long held family secret comes to light over Christmas.

·         There’s always someone for who Christmas is never the same again due to a past tragedy that happened over Christmas. The current people in their life find out and try to get them back into the Christmas spirit and do so successfully may I add.

·         A prodigal family member back home for Christmas after many many years away.

·         Someone gets fired just before Christmas which turns out to actually be a blessing in disguise because they end up finding their true purpose or meet the love of their life due to this.

·         There’s usually a person or two hiding their truth, lying to keep up appearances and it all comes out at Christmas.

I could go on and on but these are some of the recurring plot lines I seem to come across from the different Christmas movies I have watched. Same script different cast type of situation don’t you think?

 

Blogmas is like Vlogmas but for bloggers. YouTubers put out vlogmas videos everyday in December until the 24^th of December and I blog everyday whenever I can in December and title it BlogmasJ Content creator solidarity you know...it’s sort of like a countdown to Christmas of sorts.

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BLOGMAS - Just Say No!

 

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I recently put a stop to a recurring request from an acquaintance that had been going on for almost a year. Every couple of weeks without fail this person would send in their request and I would honour it. Recent events made me realise that this person was not coming to me with this request out of need, or because I was the only person who could honour it, but because it was easy for her to get the request honoured by me. I can’t go into specific details but I will give an example using tomatoes. So this person’s family owns a tomato farm that she has access to and is allowed to pick tomatoes from free of charge any time she wants to, but the tomato farm was about an hour away so it was easier for her to come and get her tomatoes from me. Get it? I only just realised a while back that she was not coming to me for tomatoes because she ran out and needed some but because I was more accessible. So one day I put a stop to it just like that I was like sorry I have run out of tomatoes I don’t have any more to give and she was like ok. She tried it again two weeks later and I gave her the same answer. She hasn’t been back since. The way people take advantage of other people’s generosity will never fail to amaze me anyway I am just glad I finally put a stop to it.

Blogmas is like Vlogmas but for bloggers. YouTubers put out vlogmas videos everyday in December until the 24^th of December and I blog everyday whenever I can in December and title it BlogmasJ Content creator solidarity you know...it’s sort of like a countdown to Christmas of sorts.

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BLOGMAS - The Bill Splitting Edition!

 

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What are everyone’s thoughts on splitting the bill equally after having a meal in a restaurant with others?  Oh this post is inspired by recurring bill splitting stories on twitter. I have got so many stories on this but I will share just a few...

One time years ago while working retail, a couple of us decided to go out for an impromptu meal after our Sunday shift, there was like 14 or so of us. One of the girls was off that day but lived close to the restaurant we were going to, so we called her up to see if she wanted to come along. By the time she got there our food and drinks had been served and since she was coming from home and had eaten already she decided to have green tea only. So please tell me why when the bill was brought someone who actually saw this girl come in late and order green tea decided that the bill should be split equally among us all! Fam it was chaos this girl protested and some of us joined her in the protest as well, she was like there is no way she is paying 10 times more for what she ordered, no way, finally it was resolved and she paid for what she ordered while the rest of us split the bill equally since everyone else’s meal and drink combo came to pretty much almost the same price give or take a few.

On the other hand....

In another very recent scenario, went out for dinner on a work trip a couple of months ago and one of the colleagues offered to settle the entire bill when it came, since according to her someone else could do the same the next day (we were there for 4 days). I told her I was perfectly ok paying my own bill since, one there was no guarantee that we would all have dinner together the next day, and two even if we did there was no guarantee that the bill would be to the same amount or near to make it equitable not just to her, but to the rest of us as well if her I pay today you pay tomorrow idea was to work. Imagine settling the entire bill on day one with the knowledge that someone else would do the same the next day, only for everyone to go MIA on you. No thanks not happening. In the end we got separate bills as we should have from the beginning. Turns out the waitress had actually asked her while the rest of us were cackling away so we never really heard the question...if we wanted one bill or separate bills...and she asked for one bill. Why lady why?

To be fair if I am with my homegirls or close family/friends then one person settling the bill is not even a problem because we do that all the time and it’s no biggie. I have also been in situations where I have gone out with a group of people and two or three people decide to split up the entire groups bill (despite everyone else’s protest) amongst themselves which is ok too. The difference with this scenario and my colleague is that these people were doing it out of the goodness of their hearts, no expectations whatsoever, while she was doing it in the hopes that someone else would do the same the next day. It doesn’t always quite work out like that lady...

 

My opinion on this -  don’t be that person that orders an entire bottle of wine and lobster while everyone else is drinking juice and eating chicken and expect people to split the bill equally...don’t, just don’t.

 

Blogmas is like Vlogmas but for bloggers. YouTubers put out vlogmas videos everyday in December until the 24^th of December and I blog everyday whenever I can in December and title it BlogmasJ Content creator solidarity you know...it’s sort of like a countdown to Christmas of sorts.

As an Amazon Affiliate I may earn a commission from qualifying purchases.