This meal is a perfect combo when you want to jazz up your traditional meal, it is also kiddie friendly, healthy, filling, delicious and best of all easy to clean up as you will not use too many pots.

Mushenye or Omushenye is a traditional meal from Western Kenya. It is amazingly simple to make and so delicious. You can have it on its own or with a nice saucy beef stew and some vegetables.

You can have it for breakfast, lunch or dinner. How simple is it? Well, all you need are sweet potatoes and beans. That’s all. I know! Easy peasy!

Soak and boil your red beans in advance, but you can also use fresh red beans that cook faster. I like boiling my beans with a thumb size piece of fresh ginger. The ginger helps reduce the gassy effect of the beans and also imparts a nice smoky flavour to the beans. Discard the ginger once the beans are ready and drain them. Peel and chop your sweet potatoes, then boil them till ready. Now mash both the beans and potatos into a smooth mash. They taste amazing without adding any spice, but I sometimes add a pinch of cinnamon or some butter if I am feeling indulgent. And as always; salt and pepper to taste.

This time round we had ours with garlic tandoori masala meatballs. Quite a mouthful I know. I used this amazing recipe from Kaluhi’s Kitchen who is one of my favourite food bloggers. You can find the recipe here.

I made a few changes to my recipe though. I used one grated potato instead of breadcrumbs, and baked the meatballs first for about twenty minutes instead of frying them then added them to the sauce, then added the yoghurt. I also skipped the chilli because of the kids.

I was pleased at how well all the flavours meshed together. The aroma of this dish will definitely tempt the neighbours to come over!

If you’re lucky enough to have some leftovers, it tastes even better the next day!

Worth a try isn’t it?