Malnourished No More

Mmmmm…we get plenty of fruits and veggies and a fair amount of dairy and meats, but one way in which our diet is definitely suffering is in the area of chocolate. Sure we can buy some chocolate at the supermarkets but either the prices still seem too high to us or we don’t feel like we’ve been here long enough to deserve such a treat.

Well last night our taste buds were reminded of the beauty of chocolate. You see, on the morning that we left our Wisconsin home in April, we were visited by two very dear friends and their two children. The children had made some things for us, putting together a care package for us and they wanted to drop it off on their way to school. Inside were a number of fun things: a little rubber ball, some Bible activity books, deodorant, soap, PB pretzels, gum and M&Ms.

Although we appreciated all of the items they gave to us, the M&Ms must have been extra special since we have been saving them for these past three months. Believe me I’ve wanted to eat them MANY times already but practiced self control. However, self control has its limits and so last night, Andrea and I made some peanut butter cookies with M&Ms. Because Addis Ababa is at a high altitude, baking is always an experiment. We added double the egg and held back some of the baking powder, baking soda and flour. We had done similar adjustments with other baking and had good results, but this time was different because we could be jeopardizing our precious M&Ms.

We were relieved when the first batch (and subsequent ones as well) came out perfectly and the taste of warm Peanut Butter M&M cookies has never been better! Now if we can just figure out how to make ice cream…