Always be prepared

As I'm writing this, we're recovering from quite a long blackout. It started quite early- when we woke up for fajr (morning) prayer today at 04:00 AM, we found that our bedroom fan wasn't working so we figured it must be a blackout. That happens quite regularly, as in a few times a week, especially during the summer. But we didn't anticipate that it would be the longest blackout yet to experience. Assuming the blackout didn't start at 04:00 but, say, half an hour before that, and the electricity came back at 11:45, we were roughly 8 hours without electricity- possibly even a bit more. Since we experience blackouts every so often, I honestly don't really panick. Yes, it's annoying especially if you can't use a fan, or air conditioner when it's warm. 

I'm actually more concerned with the fridge. Even though the fridge is quite full and the two top shelves are nearly a freezer temperature during the summer, still, 8 hours is a long time for a fridge to be without electricity, especially in this heat. The same goes for the freezer. I've learned to be prepared for a blackout by storing a lot of bottles in the freezer. Usually it's broth, but if there's room left the gaps are just filled with bottles of water. Those bottles can go straight into the fridge in case there's a blackout. I put a few bottles in the fridge, just in case, and it probably did help, as those 8 hours powerless didn't seem to affect the temperature a lot. We did try not to open the fridge unless strictly necessary, so that helped too. Fortunately, I wasn't planning on using the washer or oven today, so that wasn't an issue. Another way we prepare ourselves for these kind of small calamities is to have an alternative source of light. Even during daytime, our house doesn't have that much sunlight, as our house was built to be insulated against the heat- not so much against the cold or to let sunlight come in, just like pretty much all houses here. We usually need to use lamps, especially in the kitchen.  Today it happened to be a cloudy day so that definitely meant we needed more light. Apart from our phones, we bought a lamp that can be charged either by electricity or by solar power (there's a tiny solar "panel" on the lamp). It's a very strong light so that comes in very handy. Much easier than candles. So even during daytime blackouts, we need to think about light, but obviously during nighttime blackouts that's even more of an issue. 

Water being cut off is more rare than electricity blackouts here, but still it does happen, especially since there is water scarcity. In our city it doesn't happen as much as in oather areas, but we've still found ourselves in situations with the water being cut off. Usually that happens a bit gradually, with the tap stream becoming weaker and weaker until no single drop of water comes out of the tap. There have been instances when neighbours had to ask us for water since they didn't have any. Honestly I don't really like asking others unnecessarily, even though I know my neighbours wouldn't mind at all. 

This is why I think it's important to be prepared. And I've noticed that a lot of people, even more so frugal minded people, talk about preparedness. But this preparedness is usually about greater calamities such as possible war or terrorism, wildfires, floods or earthquakes. To be honest, even if there is a chance that would happen, I think it's also good to look at the smaller calamities and it's much more likely we'll have to deal with them at some point. Now I understand that where we live blackouts are more common, but not so long ago, there was a blackout in a huge area in Spain, Portugal and even some areas in Morocco. I bet those people weren't really anticipating that either. It's not a major crisis (in most circumstances, anyway), but it's always good to be prepared. And yes, we should be prepared for bigger calamities, in my opinion, but also for the smaller ones. I would be quite annoyed if there's a blackout and my phone's battery is almost empty. Or our spare lamp wasn't charged. Or we didn't have enough cold water in the fridge. Not insurmountable problems, but still problems I'd rather be prepared for. 

                     Our nifty rechargeable lamp, in the kitchen

Tunisian kesra bread

I believe that everyone should be able to make homemade bread. Not necessarily difficult artisan bakery style bread; just a simple recipe will do. Baking bread, in my opinion, is an essential life skill or at least something that can come in very handy.

Today I'm sharing my kesra recipe. Kesra is a Tunisian bread that's made on the hob and very delicious. It's also known by other names in some countries, such as tachnift or batbout in Morocco. 

I learned how to make it many years ago from my mother in law and my sister in law, and tweaked it a little bit to suit our taste, but other than that it's the same as theirs. And my mother in law, on her turn, also learned it from her mother- so I'm proudly sharing a real family recipe here! 

For 6 medium sized round breads, you'll need: 

9 cups of fine semolina flour 

2 heaped spoons of instant yeast 

2 teaspoons of salt, or more depending on your quality of salt 

5 cups of warm water (could be more depending on the quality of the flour) 

Oil to grease your bowl 

Some seeds, such as sesame or nigella seeds (optional) 

Start by mixing the dry ingredients in a big bowl. Add the water until you're able to make a dough that isn't sticky. 

Knead for 10 minutes. Ideally more, but I've found 10 minutes of kneading to be sufficient. 

It should look like this: 

Then devide it into 6 equal pieces. I don't have a dough scraper or other special equipment, so I just use a good old knife. 

Then I formed nice round balls from the dough, rubbed it with a bit of oil and devided it in two bowls: 

I covered both bowls with big round trays, as I try to avoid disposable plastic as much as possible, but you could also use plastic wrap. Or don't grease it and cover with a clean dish towel. Now let it sit and rise until it's at least doubled in size. The bigger the better, so don't do this when you're in a rush! Since my kitchen is very warm during the summer, it didn't take long. 

It's good when it looks like this: 

(Now compare it to the picture with the two small balls of dough in it...) 

Get the dough out, punch the air out and make two balls again. Now heat your pan on the hob. I have two cast iron pans that are purposely used for baking breads, but you can use a "regular" cast iron pan or just a regular frying pan. Just whatever you have will probably work, although I would recommend cast iron (some people here even bake their kesra in clay pans, especially in the villages)

Make sure there's enough room on your counter and that it's clean. 

I always thoroughly clean my counter after making dough 🙂

If your pan is ready (it shouldn't be really really hot!), you can start to form your bread. Just gently push it down in a rotating way so you end up with a nice round bread. Prick a few times in the dough with a fork.

Now you can transfer it into the pan. I usually fold my bread and then when it's the pan immediately turn back the piece of dough that was folded over, to make picking up the dough a bit easier. 

When it's starting to bubble, it's probably time to turn around the bread. I used a spatula for this.

Then bake the other side as well. 

Then, and this is optional, when the other side has browned enough, it's time to bake the sides. Some people prefer the sides to be more on the dough side but we like them a bit more cooked. 

It's a bit of a blurry picture lol. This was the best picture I could take with using just one hand. Just turn the bread little by little until the whole side has a nice golden brown colour too. 

Now bake all your breads like this. I use two pans at the same time so it's a bit faster, but one pan definitely works fine too. Pile them up on a tray/plate with some towels (I use old t-shirts) and try to let them cool off completely...which is probably the most difficult part!