Madagascar... one of our favorite movies :)

April 21, 2014:  So, I have to first explain the title of this post.  When we were looking at Google images of Madagascar, almost every other picture was of the kids cartoon movie "Madagascar".  Kind of made me laugh and also think, how sad, this is what America's search engine pulls up for Madagascar and what does that say about us?!  Well, my kids loved it, of course :)  Well, Madagascar was Gavin's choice.  I found a great website from The University of Pennsylvania with tons of great recipes, basically a whole feast of Madagascar food:

http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Cookbook/Madagascar.html

We made the Varenga (roasted, shredded beef), the Sakay (hot red pepper sauce, which Andy enjoyed) and the Vary Amin Anana (rice with vegetables).  It was all SO good.  Andy and I couldn't stop saying "mmmm!"  Rory seemed to like the meat at first, but then Gavin said he didn't think it was very good and then of course Rory started to complain.  Well, ultimately they did eat it.  They both ate the rice, too, but of course, picked out the vegetables.  The rice, I thought, was delicious - a bit like fried rice, but not.  Just really yummy.  I already had some leftover basmati white rice from Easter brunch, so instead of adding the cooked vegetables in with the rice as it cooked (per the recipe), I added the rice into the pan I had the vegetables cooking in, added a little water to keep the rice moist, then I just cooked it all together on low for a few minutes.  I'm sure it would be even more flavorful if you completely cooked the rice with the vegetables.  I did not make the full fruit compote (couldn't find the lichee nuts!), but I did serve strawberries and Cara Cara oranges, and strawberries and oranges were two of the fruits in the compote recipe.  The only tweak I would make is to half the amount of salt in the Varenga recipe.  It was a little too salty for my taste (and I wondered when I saw it called for 2 Tbs!).  This is definitely a re-make!

I forgot to get the original meal's picture, which wasn't as liquid filled, but I did capture my leftover plate the next day: 

Besides the pictures of the movie, "Madagascar", we did note that the real pictures of the gorgeous beaches in Madagascar really did validate the beauty of the cartoon beaches in the movie.  The beaches are gorgeous!!  I also happened to discover at the library a series of videos called My Life on the Farm, and found 3 on countries we have "visited" in our meals:  Sweden, Iceland, and Madagascar!  Each video is told by a native, young child of that country.  So, we watched all of the videos - only 13 minutes long, which was about 8 minutes longer than the boys wanted to watch, but at least they got a snippet of what life looks like in those countries.  The most notable differences Rory noted from Madagascar was that the boy did not wear shoes while harvesting rice for his family (because he didn't want his shoes to get muddy!) and that his water came from a well with a bucket.  I asked Rory where his water came from and he pointed to the refrigerator dispenser :)  I then explained the blessing that is to be able get our water so easily.