Recipe of the Week: Sauce d*arrachides (peanut sauce) avec du riz

A staple food item here...easy to make...best over a fire in a small mud hut, but a stove will do.
Enough to feed a family of 10 for about 2 meals.

1. roast 5 cups shelled peanuts, remove skins, grind into paste
2. also grind ¨condiments¨ - ginger, garlic, basil, pimon (really spicy peppers), and a little celery
2. heat two heaping big (serving) spoons of palm oil at bottom of big, thick-walled pot
3. to hot oil, add 3 diced plum tomatoes (or more) and one diced onion (or more)
4. fry veggies, then mix in 16 to 20 cups water and peanut/condiments paste
5. add salt and stock cubes to taste, let sauce simmer for about 20 minutes
6. add dehydrated shiitake mushrooms (veggie traveler*s substitute for 2 smoked fish), simmer for further 20 minutes
7. serve over rice, in heaping quantities, and insist the everyone eat the whole mountainous plateful