You just may have read about the Tangerine Oatmeal. If you haven’t please click HERE. Today, I am bringing you Vegetable fortified Oatmeal, and not just Oatmeal, but Nigerian Starchy Solids under one big Umbrella. The beauty about this post is that it signifies the greatness that we can achieve when women come together as one. Gosh, our sex is famous for division amongst the ranks, pulling each other down, jealousy, fighting and all that embarrassing stuff that the men just stand by and let us do, just so that we can be distracted, while they continue ruling the world. I know in light of what is going on in Nigeria right now with those beautiful young girls whose futures have been stolen from them, this comes up as insignificant, but I want to use this post to at least try to pass on a message of when we focus on a goal instead of on each other, there is nothing we can’t do. The #bringbackourgirls campaign is gathering momentum because women are championing it. We have come together as one to demand those girls be brought back home. I feel quite helpless and disillusioned to be honest, but last night, even though this unison of females was about food, it was another lesson in what we can achieve when we come together. There will always be small mindedness amongst us, that will never change. Some women just take pleasure in tearing another woman’s success down, but we won’t let envy cause dissension within us. We will recognise the divisive elements within ourselves and render them useless. A good volition is ten times more powerful than a bad one. Remember that when next a fellow woman is up to her tricks. You are stronger than her, you just need to pull more good women to your side and watch her power snuff out. I have learnt that myself recently.

This post is dedicated to Remmy Tee and Temitope Arike Adedayo of Stunnababez Cuisine. Temitope came up with the idea of blending spinach and adding to oatmeal which is then stirred on the stove till it solidifies. Of course, giving the oatmeal a shocking green colour that is so unexpected. I looked at it and thought nice one, but nah, this gal aint blending nada. I made some green smoothies while I was deceiving myself during my now abandoned January Health Drive, that have traumatised me. Kale and Spinach to be precise, so when I saw hers, I shuddered and said Dunni no, that is not one to try. Before anyone tries to assuade me, trust me I tried adding banana, avocado, honey to the green smoothies, still YUCK!!!! I feel like washing my entire mouth and throat when I think about it. I knew no way in hell (pardon my French) would I be blending any veggie to add to oatmeal. Pigs would fly first. Then it occurred to me, I don’t need to blend the vegetable do I? Why not add it whole but in chopped bits. Ah ha. Idea sold. Now, I can attempt it. Saved by the whisker of my imagination. Looool. Try it I did and it was pretty with green and white flecks. This is where Remmy Tee comes in.

Remmy Tee looked at Temitope’s work and she was also thinking in another direction. She left a comment under my oatmeal post “I have been wondering how it can be incorporated into “eba”. I have had this image of rolled white and green eba in my head since I saw Temitópé Stunnababez Aríké Adedayo post.” Just as I tried my modification and posted it, she too was inspired to try hers and she posted it last night too. You should have seen the excitement beaming through her post from three of us. Really, it was leaping off the page and palpable. Temitope is going to try and work this in with Poundo flour, I am going to try to work it in with pounded yam made in a food processor. We have been bouncing ideas of each other, working in unison and Rita T. Adaba has joined in too saying she would try it with another coloured vegetable, Beetroot. How cool is that? Our mothers and grandmothers never gave us coloured starchy solids, we will be the generation that introduces it to our children.

I told them it would be a great idea to tie in all our ideas into one Blog post, giving life to the phenomenon (yes it is a phenomenon) on a platform outside of Facebook. Everyone who needs to see this would not necessarily be on Facebook and there is no point limiting this kind of information to just within a group. That is one of the advantages a public access blog can provide which a closed group on Facebook can’t. We need to learn to think bigger sometimes and not see the “glory” as belonging to one person, but all of us. I have christened us #crazygreensolidladies. Hehehehehe.

Here is Temitope’s initial idea which set the ball rolling

1. Blend spinach with your oatmeal, till you have a green oatmeal paste, place on the cooker to thicken

2. Leave it on the heat as you would with other starchy solids, till it thickens and solidifies.

Ta dah!!!!!!1

Serve with your choice of Nigerian Soup

Here is Remmy Tee’s idea. Blended the spinach with the amount of water that I know will make the portion of eba I need. Boiled the water and added the gari. Then I made regular eba and the rolling began. The rolling was challenging !!! One thing I noticed though, with the eba if it stays too long on the stove, the green color starts to go brown. So once you pour your gari don’t let it stay to long on heat to retain the nice green colour.

As I guessed, which I told her to do when she said she had problems rolling it. She came back and said Dunni, i did exactly that. Lol. She rolled the green eba separately, from the white eba. Placed the flat rolled white eba on top of the green eba and rolled together to form a sausage.

Green and White Eba.

It gets even more fun, introducing the pink Eba. This was posted by Angela O. Awunor. She aded beetroot powder to create this. We had quite the back and forth banter over the colour resembling raw meat, but I know this can be tweaked and tweaked into something really fun.

So, there you have it. Vegetable Fortified Nigerian Starchy Solids. I very much welcome more ideas from you guys. What vegetable would you be willing to experiment with to change the colour of our well known starchy solids. Would you be willing to try this to surprise your family? I sure hope so.