Rice and Peas

Every Sunday in my home is "cooking day" as I like to call it...lol.  My husband grew up in a household that had a hearty, home cooked meal EVERY Sunday and so we continue that tradition in our home today.  I, on the other hand, have no recollection of a specific day where food was cooked and we all sat down for a proper meal.  I feel like when the food ran out, my mom cooked another meal and that was it.  Because I grew up that way, that's how I cooked too!  I always just made a meal regardless of the day of the week, but that all changed when I met my husband!  It has been a joking (and not so joking) point of contention in our marriage because I never saw the point of "MUST cook on a Sunday", but because it matters so much to him, I've tried to continue the tradition.  All that being said, my husband has started taking my 2 year old to swimming lessons every Sunday morning which now gives me some time to be alone with baby and to actually cook a thought out meal :)  This Sunday, I went traditional caribbean for him and made some rice and peas, callilou, roasted yam, and chicken wings.  I got lots of compliments on how the meal turned out in such a short amount of time!

Here's how everything turned out:

Baked chicken wings with my secret BBQ sauce (Diane's BBQ sauce brought in from Canada) 

Oven roasted yam

Rice and Red Kidney beans "Rice and Peas"

Callalou - in the same family as Spinach, brought up straight from Grenada and made with Denielle's mom's recipe :) It's a mix of okra, onions, garlic, thyme, salt, pepper, pumpkin, coconut milk, and I put a small piece of salt fish in it for body. After boiling it all down, I put it in the food processor for a few seconds to make it into more of a soup.

This is what my 2 year old had for dinner.  I just mixed the Callalou up with the rice and peas for her.

Here's the recipe I use from the book below.  If you like Caribbean food and don't have this cookbook, you MUST get it. 

My friend Celine got this cook book for me from Trinidad and I use it ALL the time!