Sometimes one of the biggest inhibitors of cooking fun is being bound to a recipe. A series of tasks, a list of ingredients, exact measurements. For me, at least, this takes a lot of the fun out of cooking. This tomato base is one of my favorite things to throw together without a recipe. It's not fancy, there is no removing of tomato skins or parboiling anything; rather, it's a quick way to make a simple pasta sauce, veggie soup, or tomato-based curry.

First a note on cooking in Uganda. My kitchen is equipped with a mini fridge and a double gas-top burner. I am trying hard not to care that our dishes are not very photogenic, but I may have to break down and get a prettier cutting board. But one thing I'm learning is that you do not truly need a garlic press or a lemon zestor or a rice steamer, you can usually get by with just a good knife. We did get a new stove though, and I'm over the moon. Both burners work, and neither have knobs held on by E-6000 glue. There are no occasional burst of giant flame. Also, it doesn't blacken the bottom of every pan, so I haven't been finding ash on the counter top or in weird places on my arms. There must be some standards here. This is my new friend:














You'll also want to start chopping up tomatoes. Remove the tops where the stem attached, then roughly chop them into smaller pieces. A lot of tomatoes is generally a good idea.
Add the garlic and the tomatoes to the cooking onions, and keep stirring them occasionally until you don't really see the tomatoes anymore.
Eventually, things will look about like this.















There are a lot of options at this point, as you can add almost any other kind of vegetable to any of these three items.

I happened to have potatoes, green peppers, and eggplant on hand.

Chop these into small pieces. One thing to keep in mind while you're chopping is that heavier, denser vegetables (like carrots and potatoes) take longer to cook. You can either add those to your pot first, or you can chop them into much smaller pieces.

















This is just a side-note, but look at this beautiful potato. Unfortunately the color disappeared after cooking. I think the potatoes here are a mix of several varieties, so you never quite know what you're going to get.




Now you can start adding vegetables
to the base. For a pasta sauce, you might have to add a little water. If you want to get really fancy, you can take some or all of the tomato mixture out of the pan and puree it in a blender. Some good vegetables to experiment with in a pasta sauce are bell peppers, eggplant, broccoli, and zucchini. You can season it with salt, pepper, and things like basil, oregano, thyme, and parsley. Just add little pinches and keep tasting.


For the curry, you can use different types of dried legumes such as lentils, yellow split peas, or chickpeas. It's a good idea to soak these overnight and cook them first in a pot of water. Drain and mix into the sauce.Try mixing in coconut milk for a creamier curry. Cauliflower, chiles, shredded spinach, potatoes, peas, carrots, eggplant, and zucchini are also good options, and a lot of these can be mixed and matched. Season with salt and pre-mixed curry powder to keep things simple, or experiment with ginger, turmeric, cumin, cumin seed, corriander, cilantro, and other spices. Serve with rice or naan.



As for the soup, add water or vegetable broth to the pot. If you blend the soup and add salt, pepper, and basil, it makes a great homemade tomato soup. You can add a little milk or cream if you'd prefer a creamier soup.

For a traditional vegetable soup, try things like salt, pepper, oregano, potatoes, carrots, corn, peas, green beans, bell peppers, eggplant, and zucchini.

For a southwest spin, add salt, pepper, cilantro, ground cumin, corn or hominy, black beans, chiles, and big chunks of tomato. Serve with hot sauce, sour cream (or plain yogurt with a little lime juice), cheese, tortilla chips, and diced avocado as toppings.


























Good luck!

Hello, my name is Emily Grace. I am an artist and designer, and as of this writing; I live in Kampala, Uganda, where I design accessories for two ethical companies called Ember Arts and Sseko. Both of these companies provide employment to women who have been affected by hard things like war, extreme poverty, disease, or even just lack of opportunity. They are intent on seeing them pursue their dreams, and after several years of traveling to and from Uganda, I'm delighted to say that I see that happening. I'm pretty sure that if my 18-year-old self could see where I've ended up, I'd scream and run in the other direction, because Africa is a long ways away from home, and my life looks incredibly different that I thought it would. But having been all the places I've been, and learned all the lessons I've learned, I can't imagine any other sort of life for myself.

I love writing, photography, cooking for friends, travel, DIY stuff, recycling, nature, gardening, and art. I also really like making jewelry, and want to be more intentional about using the opportunities I have to meet local artisans to work on products that better reflect the places in the world I happen to be. I'm in the midst of re-vamping my jewelry company, Mouse and M.O.E., to reflect those changes. For a long time, I've tried to keep all of these interests in separate categories, but now I'm going to try an experiment in blending them all together. Here are the things you will find:

1. Art/Design: I want this to be a place where I can showcase the things I've been working on, and thus a motivation to get to work a little bit more.
2. Adventures: A combination of travel, writing, and photography, I want to spend more time writing and sharing about some of the incredible places in the world I've had the opportunity to go, and to introduce you to some of the remarkable people I meet along the way.
3. Friends: I am blessed to be connected to many brilliant creatives and entrepreneurs. I'd love to share some of the incredible work they are doing.
4. Gardening/Cooking: Food in Uganda is generally a lot healthier and fresher, because processed food from the U.S.A. is expensive and a little hard to come by. I'm going to take a stab at a big garden this year, and try my best to have a camera by my side while cooking from scratch with the simple ingredients readily available to me here.
5. DIY/Fix-it/Recycling: I love crafty, building stuff, and I also love fixing things instead of throwing them away. There will definitely be some how-to's, and hopefully I can convince my sister to chime in on a few. She lives in a rural area, raises chickens, bakes delicious things, and can fix cars and electronics like a pro.
6. Wisdom: There are a lot of really smart people out there in the world. I want to be better about listening to what they have to say, and sharing it with others.

Usually when you're writing a blog, they advise you to pick a theme and stick to it, not to confuse people with too many categories. But when I limit myself, I get bored and don't stick with things, so hopefully this will give me enough variety to press on. I hope you'll brave the chaos and join in as well.