Since I am the happy owner of an instant pot, I make many more Indian dahls, legume stews, soups and endless more (freezer friendly) meals. The ingenious device has a timer, so you can decide when your food should be ready. After a long walk in the woods, when you come home from an assignment, after chopping firewood or working in the garden for a few hours?

UGANDA ~ Ever since we visited Uganda, we enjoy making mandazi now and then: light fluffy doughnuts. They are a great snack on their own but we love them paired with bharazi, an East African dish of pigeon peas simmered in coconut milk.

On Zanzibar, an insular autonomous region of Tanzania, I met Zainabu, originally from Mozambique and now frying doughnuts in a road stall.

She fried many a day and taught me how to make them.