Oregano & Paprika Taco Meat

In Nairobi, we have a nice stove and other accessories that make cooking easier than in Sudan. One would think that would mean I would be a better cook here. That is not the case. Today I found taco shells in a grocery store and bought everything I needed for tacos. I spent two hours in the kitchen preparing vegetables and other food items for the week so I could quickly through stuff together. I chopped lots of tomatoes, onions, cilantro, lettuce and grated cheese. I even cooked bacon so I could have bacon, lettuce, tomato and avocado sandwiches during the week. I know, I am so domestic. Then I decided make the meat.

We don't have taco seasoning so I looked up recipes online. We didn't have all the items listed by the recipes so I decided to just put in what we had: paprika, oregano, salt, pepper and onions. It looked ok as I cooked it. When it came time to eat, I spread out all my taco components and served myself a generous helping of tacos. My first error was that I burned the taco shells. Yes, they are the pre-made ones that only need warming in the microwave. It's pretty hard to ruin those. Apparently, they can be burned. So I had to throw them out and heat new ones. Once I assembled the tacos, they looked delicious. I took the first bite and thought, "hmmm...that's odd." Maybe it's the cheese that is throwing off the taste. The cheese here tastes different than the cheese in the US. I kept eating, but it didn't seem right. I just was not enjoying them. Then I tasted the meat on it's own and realized, that's the problem. My meat came out terrible. I think the oregano was terribly overpowering. It could have been the paprika. At that point, I just decided to stop eating. I was very disappointed in myself, but not surprised that I messed it up. I couldn't bear to throw it away. Before I knew it was bad, I offered some to Gordon. He's Kenyan and they don't cook Mexican food here, so he won't know what it is supposed to be like. I heated up the meat (after telling him it was questionable) and asked him to try it first. He looked at it and said "I think I'll pass." Bummer. I guess I will still have to eat it.

Despite the problems in the kitchen, I had a nice, low key day. Gordon and I went to church in the morning. The worship was great as was the sermon. The pastor talked about trusting God with our future and used the story of Jacob and Esau to illustrate his point. God had already chosen Jacob to lead his brother, but his mom manipulated the situation to make sure that would indeed happen instead of trusting God to bring it about. As a result, they created problems for themselves. We need to always to the right thing and trust God to take care of our future. Even if the situation seems impossible, God will still prevail.

After church we stopped by the grocery store and headed home. I watched a movie and then worked in the kitchen. I ended the day by watching the Argentina/Mexico game. While I really don't care who wins, I feel compelled to root for Mexico for a few reasons: everyone else here is going for Argentina, Mexico is my neighbor and I like their food (unless tacos are made with oregano and paprika).