Saharan Recipes, Star Wars and Roman Ruins

We are in Tunisis now, on a island called Jerba. Tunisia has been great, I have really enjoyed it.
Tunisia is all about Roman riuns, Star Was sets and really warm, generous people.

We have seen some really impressive Roman Ruins at Carthage and some at a place called Bulla Regia. The ruins here were well preserved and had the most elaborate mosaics in homes that had been built by the Romans under the ground to escape the heat of the summer.

We have been to a few of the Star Wars sights. We stayed in the home of Luke Skywalker at a hotel called Sidi Driss in Matmata, that was cool. It is built under ground by the local Berber tribes. I can see how much inspiration George Lucas got for the films here. A lot of the men here wear big coats that make them all look like Obi Wan and some of the place names are the same as the movies.

We have met some very nice, generous Tunisians, especially down in the South at a place called Tatouine. We spent an afternoon there having cups of tea given to us as we chatted to some of the local guys, not that we understood much of the French. We had shop keepers giving us sweets for nothing and random people offering us food on the street etc, etc. It has been really nice.

We spent some time camel trekking through the desert South of Douz, I know Nick talked about the overnight trip but I wanted to provide you with some recipe's from the trip.

Dinner - Veggie and Mutton/Goat Couscous

Ingedients

• Potato
• Carrot
• Onion
• Garlic
• Unknown vegetable, add your own varieties
• Salt
• Tin of Tomato paste
• Meat...I have no idea what our guide used maybe mutton or goat??
• Water
• Couscous

Method

• Chop vegetables and place all ingredients except couscous in a big pot
• Cook in the pot on an open fire, until cooked
• Cook couscous separately, fluff it around with your hands until it's light and fluffy
• Mix in a bowl and serve with spoons
• Tuck in
• Finish off with a maderine and some drumming and singing on the tom tom

P.S. Don't forget the washing up, thanks to one of the camels

Breakfast - Bread Saharan Style with Fromage (cheese)

Ingredients

• Flour
• Salt
• Water
• Camel slobber
• Sand
• Ash/coals

Method

• First ensure the fire is cracking
• Then get your camel cleaned bowl from previous night
• Mix the the flour, water and salt into the bowl and make a dough
• Make a small mound of sand about the size of a pizza
• Place your hessian sack over the mound and sprinkle some flour onto the sack
• Kneed your dough so it's flat and about the size of a pizza
• Spread your coals out in the fire
• Place the flattened dough onto the coals
• Cover the dough with more coals, ash and sand
• Wait a while then turn the dough and repeat the coal, ash and sand process
• Wait a while longer then remove the cooked bread from the coals
• Beat it with your blanket to remove all the ash, sand and coals
• Serve with triangles of soft cheese

P.S. But hold on the tea, it's full of leaves and very bitter, so bitter you can't taste the piles of sugar you have put in to disguise the taste.

I haven't made this sound very appertising but believe me it tasted very good. So simple.

Anyway, times up I hope you are all well and looking forward to Christmas.
We are off to Morocco next on the 7th Dec.