Butter Rum Sauce with Nectarines

 Serves 4.

Ingredients:
2 tsp rum
2 tsp butter
4 tsp brown sugar
4 ripe nectarines/ peaches

Method:
Melt the butter over a medium heat and then add the rum and sugar. Stir until dissolved and boil for five minutes (to thicken) before adding the fruit (roughly chopped) and the juices (that resulted from chopping).

Boil this on a medium heat until slightly thickened (5- 10 minutes). Note that the moisture in the fruit will change the consistency of the syrup.

Tasty served hot over ice-cream - reminiscent of a fruity Tin Roof. Yum.

Strawberry Sauce

Great with pancakes... And maybe some vanilla ice-cream too!

Ingredients:
2 tsp brown sugar
2 tsp water
1 tot Kirsch
400g ripe strawberries

Method:
Melt 2 tsp brown sugar in a pan with a little bit of water. When it starts bubbling and thickening, add a tot of Kirsch and 400g chuckily chopped strawberries. Boil for 5 minutes and serve hot, or cold and slightly sticky.

If you would like it thicker, use some corn starch (1 tsp) and stir that in on the heat until it thickens.

Tomatoe-y Cottage Pie

If you find yourself lacking in some of the ingredients necessary to make a traditional cottage pie, why not change it to something new with the ingredients you do have, give it an Italian twist.

Ingredients:

For the tomato-beef:

1 onion

1 chilli

1 tsp Italian herbs

1 pack minced beef

1 can red kidney beans

2 tsp vegetable stock powder

4 chopped fresh tomatoes

1 small tub of tomato paste

A cup of dry red wine

2 orange/ red peppers

1 small tub of yellow baby tomatoes

2 tbsp lemon juice

2 tbsp balsamic vinegar

For the potato topping:

5 medium potatoes

Boiling water

Salt and pepper to taste

1/2 c milk

For the sauce:

1 tsp Italian herbs

1 tbsp butter

2 tsp fresh garlic, grated

1/2 milk

Salt to taste

2 tsp flour

A half-palm sized piece of cheese, preferably Italian

Method:

The topping:

Wash and peel 5 medium potatoes. Take out all the eyes, but don't use them if they are green as this means that they have become poisonous and should not be eaten! Put them in a pan with boiling water covering them and add some salt. Cook for 20min, or until soft, and almost breaking. Drain them and add a sprinkle of pepper.

Mash them with 1/2 c milk until fluffy. If you have added to much milk, put the potatoes on the heat until they have sucked up all the liquid.

Tomatoe-y Beef:

Chop and fry 1 onion, 1 chilli in a little oil and add 1 tsp dried Italian herbs. Add in your pack of minced beef (or ostrich if you prefer) and keep stirring it until it's all broken up into small pieces (otherwise the protein will all cook together into one big gross lump). Sprinkle over 2 tsp vegetable stock powder - you can taste it towards the end to see if you need to add extra salt or not. Add in the drained kidney beans. While this is all frying on a high heat, you will need to add some moisture: 4 chopped fresh tomatoes, 1 small tub of tomato paste, a cup of dry red wine and 2 finely chopped orange/ red peppers. By this time your meat should no longer be pink at all. Let this cook for a few minutes with the lid on, maybe 10 minutes, then while you are getting the below ready, let it reduce so that there is no more liquid left at the bottom of the pan.

Wash the small tub of yellow baby tomatoes and put them in a hot frying pan over a high heat. Add the following after about 2 minutes: 2tbsp lemon juice, 2 tbsp balsamic vinegar and let it cook until sticky. Keep the tomatoes whole.

Sauce:

Melt 1 tbsp butter with 1/2 milk over a medium heat and add in 2 tsp fresh garlic, grated. Add a sprinkle of salt to taste. Get 1 tsp flour and sprinkle over your mixture while stirring it in slowly- avoid making lumps.

Final Steps:

Sprinkle 1 tsp flour over the bottom of your casserole dish (to suck up additional moisture) and scoop in the beef and then the baby tomatoes. If you have fresh basil, you can put a layer of leaves between the beef and tomatoes. Next, scoop in your mashed potatoes and smooth it over the other ingredients. Pour over your sauce and sprinkle with your cheese and 1 tsp Italian herbs. I only had Young Amsterdam and I didn't grate it finely - it was delicious just like that.

Put this under the grill for 10 minutes, or until the cheese starts browning and bubbling and enjoy with a fresh rocket and spinach salad drizzled with olive oil.

Hot Chocolate: Coconut; Cinnamon

We use cocoa to make hot chocolate instead of that hot chocolate powder, its tastier, variable and healthier. Nestle got it right and kept it simple in France but in South Africa they decided adding lots of salt and other things to their powder recipe, bleh. Anyway, you're probably better off making your own.

Basic Hot Chocolate

Ingredients:

2tsp sugar (or less if you only like 1 tsp sugar in your tea, or none)

1 level tsp cocoa

200ml cup milk

50ml boiling water

Method:

While the kettle's boiling, put your sugar and cocoa in your mug.

Add the boiling water and stir until dissolved.

Add the milk and microwave for about 50 seconds until warm, but not too hot to drink.

Coconut Hot Chocolate

You could keep aside some coconut milk from cooking Savoury Carrot Soup, or Thai Green Curry and put it to good use. Sometimes if you open the can of coconut milk without shaking it you can get a thick layer of cream on top. This is the kind of tastiness that you would want to add to hot chocolate and desserts. Yum.

Method:

When your hot chocolate comes out of the microwave, stir in 3 tsp coconut milk/ cream.

Cinnamon Hot Chocolate

Alter the basic hot chocolate recipe above by adding a pinch of cinnamon before putting it in the microwave.

Savoury Carrot Soup

So I had 1kg of carrots and they needed to be eaten, hence my attempt at a savoury carrot soup. In short, it turned out pretty bland when I followed the recipe (link below) so I had to improvise until it was deliciously tasty. Next time I will make it from scratch, recipe-less.

Ingredients:

Oil to coat the pan
1kg baby carrots - sliced/grated
1 onion - chopped
2 tsp freshly chopped garlic
A pinch of cloves
3 cups water
5 tbsp coconut milk
5 tbsp lemon juice
2 tsp curry powder or a chopped chilli
1/4 cup whipping cream
Fresh coriander - for garnish

1 tsp Nando's hot sauce (may be too spicy depending on the chilli- do a taste check).

1 tsp salt

Method:

Fry onions and garlic in the oil and when translucent add the carrots, clove, curry powder and saute for a few minutes.

Add the water (the hotter the better) and simmer for 20min.

Add in the other ingredients and stir while simmering.

Taste and add in more ingredients if necessary.

Swirl coconut milk over soup served in bowls and top with fresh coriander from the garden (very easy to grow).

I got the original recipe here: http://funnfud.blogspot.com/2008/10/creamy-carrot-soup-recipe.html

Use at own risk.