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.

Marrow and Cabanossi Pasta

It seems Pick 'n Pay has livened up their cured meats and cheese section. They are now importing tiny French cheeses, such as the original Roquefort from Roquefort-sur-Soulzon and selling them at outrageous prices (R80 is a bit much for a few grams of cheese). Anyway, despite the price it's nice to have the very expensive option of buying these fancy cheeses as well as the less pricey option of buying international style prepackaged hams and sausages such as Cabanossi (from Namibia).

Marrows don't make me feel very creative, so it helps when you're married to someone with ideas about how marrows can be added to a dish and become a fantastic taste sensation.

Ingredients

A blob of butter

A pack mixed marrows (slice in 1cm pieces)

A 400g can of chopped tomatoes

2 thinly sliced Cabanossi sausages (can be substituted with another sausage, or bacon)

1 tsp freshly grated garlic

A big squeeze of lemon juice (or of one lemon)

A finely chopped chilli

Olive oil

Pasta shells (about 250g)

Method

Fry the Cabanossi in the butter. Add the garlic and when lightly browned, add chilli and the marrows. After a few minutes of frying, add the tomatoes and lemon juice. Once the marrows have absorbed some of the tasty sauce, they will become slightly soft, almost like cooked pasta. Take them off the heat.

Get your pasta boiling with a teaspoon of salt in water and drain when ready. Serve with the marrows and sauce on top. Dress with a swirl of olive oil.

Serves 3

Ginger Tomato Beef

My husband just made this delicious meal for supper....hmmm. If you're patient enough for it to cook, it's easy to make and tasty to eat, so you should try it.

Ingredients

Enough cooking oil to half cover the pot

A handful of cake flour

800g cubed beef

1 kg tomatoes (skins removed by briefly boiling in water until split)

1 finely diced onion

1 heaped tsp fresh garlic (finely chopped)

1 heaped tsp of fresh ginger / about 2 tsp dry ginger

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp dry clove

A generous pinch of freshly ground pepper

1 tsp salt

2 chopped chillies

Enough orange juice to half-cover all the ingredients once in the pot

Method

Fry the onions and garlic in a little bit of rice bran / canola oil until lightly browned. Add the meat pieces and let them brown. If water starts appearing (from the meat), generously sprinkle over the flour while stirring. The flour will absorb the water and turn into a kind of roux that sticks to each piece of meat.

Add all of the other ingredients and measure out the right amount of juice to half-cover all those ingredients.

Boil with the lid on at a medium-high heat for half an hour. Take the lid off and let it boil on a lowish heat for an hour. If the liquid all disappears (it most probably won't), just add a little more juice.

Serve with the rice of your choice.

An Italian Twist

With the same basic ingredients, you can change the recipe into something Italian, but using Italian herbs and a red wine with the beef, garlic, onion and tomatoes. Serve with a hard cheese grated on top and some fresh basil. I haven't tried this, but I will soon!

Here pasta would match better than rice.

Quick Pea and Bacon Soup

This s the first time I ever tried this type of soup which is closely related to the pea and ham soup. I thought that the ham might as well be replaced by anything porky such as gammon or bacon. It really is easy to make and required very little preparation time.

Ingredients:

1 onion

2 cups split peas

125g bacon

6 cups boiling water

3 tsp stock powder

A dash of cayenne pepper

Method:

I half fried the bacon and used the oil to fry the chopped onion so I didn't add any extra oil. When the onions where browned I added the bacon (now chopped) back in with all the split peas and water. I only ended up adding the stock powder at the end- I think that extra salt might influence the cooking of legumes, but I'm not sure about the credibility of that...

Cayenne pepper is probably my most favourite spice and even ends up in dishes that aren't supposed to tingle the tongue (not that it dis in this case, it just adds another dimension to the taste).

Simmer that all on a medium heat for half an hour to an hour. The split peas should be cooked by now (test a couple). Reduce it for about 5 minutes and while the soup is still hot add it to a blended and blend it before it cools (and becomes all thick and starts challenging your blenders motor). If necessary, add it back to the pot to reheat and enjoy it garnished with some cheese, such as feta on the top, a dash of cayenne pepper and perhaps some toasty garlic bread.

A Note on The History of Pea Soup

While pea soup seems mostly an English sort of dish, it was being sold in the streets of Athens as far back as 500 - 400BC and cultivated by the Romans as well as the Greeks!

Split peas are cheap (and could, in olden day England be seen as a sign of poverty), easy to store and if kept dry, can last a decent while. This made them a common meal for sailors- accompanied by salted pork.

It also used to be referred to "pease pudding" or "pease porridge" back in the 1700's in England because of it's consistency, as mentioned in the 1765 rhyme:

Pease porridge hot,

Pease porridge cold,

Pease porridge in the pot

Nine days old

It's consistency also inspired the London Fog, or London Particular to be called "Pea Soup". The smog caused by the burning of coal covered urban areas in a thick layer and claimed a substantial amount of deaths particularly in the early 20th century until the Clean Air Act was put into place in 1956, prohibiting the domestic burning of coal in urban areas.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pea_soup

Bombay Chicken with Dahl

I visited Vintage India in Garden Center in Cape Town today to take some photos for a virtual tour that I am compiling as part of my job. It put me in the mood for Indian food and gave me motivation to try out something new for supper. I stumbled across a curry that had no vegetables in, and all the ingredients that I already had at home so I decided to try out the Bombay Chicken (link below) and modified the recipe as described directly below (I left the indian names next to the ingredients as they are useful to know!).

This whole meal shouldn't take you more than 30minutes to prepare and cook.

Bombay Chicken - serves 2

1 tblsp olive oil (tel)
1 finely chopped onion

1/2 cups (125gms) desiccated coconut (narial)
2 cloves of crushed garlic (lasan)
1 tsp cayenne pepper
1/4 tsp black pepper corns (kali mirch)
1/2 tsp grated, fresh ginger (adrak)
3 curry leaves (kari patta)
1/2 tblsp sugar (cheeni)

500g chicken breasts

3/4 c hot water

Deviating from the recipe, I fried up all the ingredients in the olive oil (I read that olive oil is a good substitute for ghee, but I stand to be corrected) and then added the boiling/hot water and my four chicken breasts once the coconut was toasted and brown. I cooked that on a medium-high heat with the lid on for about 20min resulting in tender chicken breasts. There shouldn't be much water at the bottom - if there is, let it reduce in volume by cooking with the lid off. I shredded the now-cooked chicken and added it back to the pot to give it a final mix. I served that with the dahl recipe below and a huge dollop of double thick plain yoghurt sprinkled with more cayenne pepper (i found the chicken could have done with more spice). Add some chutney on the side too if you like it.

Original recipe: http://www.indianfoodforever.com/non-veg/chicken/bombay-chicken-curry.html

Coriander Dahl - serves 2

1/2 c dried split peas

1 1/2c water

1tsp coriander

1/2 tsp dried mint

1/4 tsp dried ginger

2 cloves

Salt

Pepper

Boil the mixture together on a medium heat for about 20- 30min until mushy.

Enjoy :)

Crêpes with Pomme-pote

My recent trip to France put me in a mood for good wholesome green salads and the deliciously unhealthy: crêpes. I decided it was time to make some crêpes and I also had some apples lying around, and as apple puree/compote is a popular snack in France, it also goes well with crêpes! So, I ventured out to make my own.

What are crêpes?

The most basic definition would be "French pancake". The word comes from the Latin crispa, meaning "curled" - as the edges do curl up as the crêpe is cooked.

I found that in France crêpes seemed to be filled with all sorts of sweet things (from the simplicity of sugar, to the fantastic combinations of chestnut cream, Nutella and vanilla ice-cream or flambeed citrusy Grand Marnier), while savoury fillings were often left for galettes (a French buckwheat pancake). Often accompanied by cider, crêpes are a delicious and affordable treat when travelling and an easy dessert to make at home!

How are they different to pancakes?

Firstly, they are thinner and more fragile. Therefore they are sometimes only cooked on one side and not flipped. I also think that they are easier to make (for example, the recipe I found omitted the use of baking powder and sugar - ingredients often found in regular pancake recipes).

Basic Crêpe Recipe - Makes 8 (I only made 7 as mine were a tad too thick)

Simply beat the following into a cup of sifted cake flour:

2 eggs

1/2 c milk

1/2 c water

2 tablespoons of melted butter

Use about 1/4 c batter to make one crêpe with a flat pan that has a little bit of melted butter in it to prevent sticking. Continue as if making pancakes and use the spatula to spread the batter thinner.

Tips:

1. I would suggest a change in the method of the link pasted below - as above: Instead of adding the ingredients one at a time, I found it works better to add all the liquid ingredients to the flour before beating/whisking. An electric beater works fine.

2. I also found that adding an extra 50- 100 ml of water allowed me to make thinner crêpes.

3. Working with a higher-than-medium heat worked better.

4. I did flip my crêpes (without them breaking), because I didn't have the special batter-spreading spatula or the rimless flat pan that is used to make sure that your crêpes are super thin.

5. Using a spatula to spread the batter can be ungracious and make holes, so be careful. And perhaps use a different one for the cooked crêpe to avoid putting raw batter on the finished product.

The recipe I used:

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/basic-crepes/detail.aspx

Pomme-pote

2 tablespoons of treacle sugar

1 pinch of cinnamon

1 pinch of ground cloves

4 cubed and cored apples

1/2 c boiling water

Boil the mixture together until soft and then blend it when cool. Add more water to help the blender, if necessary.

This resulted in a thick, brown, creamy (surprisingly creamy!) sweet apple sauce. It went very well indeed with the crêpes! The leftover compote we will use as a dessert with plain yoghurt. Yum!

Chicken and pea salad

This is a great recipe if your cupboard is fairly bare. The less bare it is, the more interesting you can make the salad.

- Fry 4 free range chicken breasts with salt, thyme, origanum and a squeeze of lemon juice and slice medium thickness

- Boil 6 small potatoes and chop

- Microwave or fry a small bowl of frozen peas with 2 tsp of fresh garlic

- Chop up a small orange pepper and small red pepper

- Chop up half an onion finely and add to the above

- Chop the other half of the onion finely and fry in a dash of balsamic vinegar (you can skip this part)

- Mix together with a generous amount of Greek Yoghurt (don't add too much or else it will be too rich)

- Sprinkle with salt and some coriander (fresh leaves would also be nice)

- Serve with chutney on the side if you are feeling adventurous

Other things you could add include raisins, nuts, olive oil in stead of yoghurt and chutney, grated carrot and fresh chilli. Strange...but tasty and useful!

Pork with Savoury Corn, Buttery Sweet Potato and Sour Cabbage

We had a delicious and quick supper tonight: a giant pork chop accompanied by the following:

Savoury Corn

If you want to be industrious use fresh corn (use a pot of boiling water), if you want to be lazy, use frozen corn (microwave for 2 min).

Once your corn is cooked, sprinkle it with

- Macadamia nut oil

- Salt

- Chilli flakes

- Danya/Coriander powder

Buttery Sweet Potato

This is unhealthy, but delicious...

- Mash the cooked sweet potato (2 medium white ones)

- Add 2 tsp of butter

- Add 2 tsp of treacle sugar, or dark brown sugar and let it melt in

- Sprinkle over cayenne pepper according to the level of heat that you like. It's not supposed to be too dominating, just a hint of spice.

Sour Cabbage

This is a sour and sweet cabbage recipe.

- Chop half a head of purple cabbage finely

- Throw it into a hot pot

- Add a small glug of lemon juice (this will sweeten as it cooks)

- Add a big glug of balsamic vinegar

- Once the cabbage is limp and half cooked, serve with a dollop of sour cream and a fresh squeeze of lemon juice to add back in the element of sourness.

Yum.

Cassoulet a la Sud Africain

Last night's supper originated, traditionally, from the south of France: Cassoulet. It's basically a white bean stew with different types of meat such as sausage, duck and pork. Fresh duck isn't easy to find in South Africa, so we opted for chicken. Other, more fancy and traditional, recipes use goose and mutton.

The recipe gets it's name from the earthenware that it is traditionally cooked in which is called a cassole. Here's a picture from christinecooks.blogspot.com to give you an idea of the shape:

It is made in Carcassonne, one of the medieval gems, which I will be visiting in June (yay!):

Image from: http://www.destination360.com/europe/france/cite-de-carcassonne

We did a basic version as usual because we lacked access to some of the real ingredients such as duck.

The Breadcrumbs

- Roughly tear up, or belnd, about 2 slices of white, or French bread

- Put them in a pan and start heating them (med-high) with a drizzle of olive oil and a sprinkle of thyme until crispy and dry

The Cassoulet

- Fry one chopped onion

- Add 500g chicken with bone and skin (this isn't supposed to be healthy :) )

- Add half a sliced chorizo sausage (we don't have much choice in local supermarkets, but you can buy some from Spar or Woolies)

- Add 3 chopped/sliced carrots

- Once onion looks translucent, add 2 450g white or butter beans, a can of chopped tomatoes, 2 bayleaves, a teaspoon of time and 2 teaspoons of stock powder with about a cup of warm water

- Cook for about 50min, or until chickken is cooked to the bone (may be quicker)

- Serve topped with chopped parsley and crispy breadcrumbs.

Wikipedia links: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassoulet

Bon Appetis! (This is Occitan, not French)

Broccoli and Cauliflour Soup

This recipe is from a vegetarian cookbook that I bought a few years ago. It has become a favourite because I find it particularly quick and easy to do. It's also really flexible in terms of ingredients and always tasty. You can add in new ingredients, or even leave some out depending on what you have at hand.

Serves 6

With all complicated routine aside, this is the basic version.

- Fry some garlic (about 3 cloves) in a little bit of oil.If you like you can add a chopped onion and a chilli at this point.

- Add 2 teaspoons of stock powder after a few minutes, or dissolve it in the water mentioned later.

- Add a head of cauliflour and a head of broccoli (washed and chopped).

- Once the broccoli starts going dark green as it's getting steamed, you can add half a litre of stock and half a liter of milk - or just enough to cover the veggies.

- If you want to make the soup more filling, add 2-4 potatoes. But it's good without them too!

Other ingredients that would add to the taste include a heaped teaspoon of paprika and a 125ml tub of cream, but they aren't essential.

- Cook the soup at a gently boiling speed for 20min at which point all veggies should be soft and ready to be blended.

- Only blend half the soup, and if you don't have a blender, you can roughly mash it with a potato masher for a similar effect: thick creamy soup!

- Add 75g of grated Gruyère (blue cheese such as Roquefort, or even Parmesan or Cheddar would work nicely). The cheese is important, so whatever solid cheese you have would be great. You should stir in half and keep half for sprinkling over the top when you serve it for extra yum-factor.

Serve with some French bread with a blob of butter and enjoy!

Gnocchi with Bolognese Sauce

I had only eaten Gnocchi twice ever (this year, at 2 different restaurants). When I found out how easy it was to make, I set out to make my own, with my helpful and encouraging assistant: my husband :)

Origin of Gnocchi

I find the history of food interesting. If you don't, skip this part.

Apparently the word Gnocchi may come from the Italian word nocchio ( as in Pinocchio), meaning "knot in wood", or nocca meaning knuckle.

It originated in Roman times about 2000 years ago! The Roman Legions used to make it with semolina instead of potato. People only started using potatoes in the 16th century, but the idea is still pretty old anyway!

The Gnocchi Recipe

First off, I attribute my success to the following link: http://www.wikihow.com/Make-Gnocchi

Serves 5 people with the sauce.

It's really simple! So simple in fact that you should make some for supper tonight! I had never made it before and had no problems at all, except for getting flour all over.

Cook and peel 1kg of potatoes (Woolworths organic potatoes are cool because you can keep the peels for making an onion and cheese omlette later on). Mash it up, or use a whisker (I used an electric beater), add in one egg and slowly add 300g of plain flour. Use a knife and then your hands to mix and knead it together, but don't over do it. Apparently it has to be kind of fluffy. Don't forget to add a teaspoon of salt into the dough.

Once this has made an amazingly textured dough, divide it into about 8 pieces. Divide each of those balls into 2 and roll into a sausage shape with a 3cm diameter. Then chop them into 2cm wide pieces and lay them on a tray so that they don't touch.

If you want to be fancy, use a fork to indent each piece> I didn't do that. I didn't lay them on a tray either and they all went weirdly shaped and stuck together. I also forgot to salt them, but they turned out just fine!

For the cooking: Get a pot of water boiling and throw in a quarter of your gnocchis at once, being careful not to get burnt by splashes. When they rise to the top, be ready with a colander and a slotted spoon to remove them. Put them in a clean bowl and drizzle with olive oil. Repeat until they are all done!

They don't taste fantastic alone, but with the below sauce.. it's filling and amazing!

The Bolognese Sauce

My husband made this part, and it was really good! Sometimes we cook by intuition, this is a good example. He fried 1 chopped onion, 2 medium-hot chillis and 3 cloves of crushed garlic in a little rice bran oil (we get the Paddy brand from Pick 'n Pay because it has a higher smoke point so is probably healthier). Then he added one 500g pack of lean free range mince (can only get that from Woolies > Free range makes it half as lean as regular lean mince). After a few minutes he added 3 grated carrots,1 400g can of tomatoes, a glug of red wine (Shiraz), a teaspoon of marjoram, a teaspoon of stock powder (anything works, except fish stock), one red pepper. If you want the mixture to thicken over the stove, sprinkle over 2 teaspoons of flour and mix it in. It doesn't make lumps if you stir while sprinkling like a snow fairy.

Traditionally, for this sauce from Bologna, Italy, you are supposed to add a tad of milk, and use white wine and maybe even some mushrooms and celery! If you have those in the fridge, you could try adding some in.

The Alternative: Blue Cheese Sauce

We also tried this out and found it easy to make, very rich to eat, but super tasty.

We heated 150ml of cream slowly in a pan with 50g of blue cheese (like Roquefort, or Gorgonzola) and 50g of Parmesan (we actually used 25g Swiss Gruyère). Once melted nicely together but never boiling add in 2 teaspoons of lemon juice and freshly ground black pepper.

Buon appetito!

Kerala Chicken Curry

Sometimes I prefer chicken to red meat, and that's ok, because it's mostly healthier. As part of our Indian Food Month at home, I made some chicken curry (also a first for me). And it was really yumm!

I found a weird website with I will mention at the end, that guided me most of the way. Some Indian recipes like to do things in stages, maybe it's traditional, or maybe there are real reasons that effect the taste. Anyway, most of the time I'm just lazy and throw everything in the pot, taste it, add salt and taste it again, adjust necessary flavours and then eat. Sometimes I just leave one or two of the steps out as in this case:

I fried ½ tsp mustard seeds (a teaspoon is ok too) and when they started popping (if they don’t pop it’s ok, move on and try it again another time, but be careful not to get burnt) I added 1 piece of cinnamon, 1 or 2 bay leaves, 2 cloves, 3 tspn grated garlic(6 cloves) and about 3-4 curry leaves. Before it burns, add 2 chopped onions, 5cm piece of grated ginger (or 2tspns), 3 green chillies. When the onions look like they’re about half done, add the chicken (about 900g is fine, 1kg will do as well as less) and stir it around until it goes all yellow and coated. I got chicken pieces with the skin on. Remember that free-range has more protein than the non-descript “surprise” chicken option, and so you get more bang for your buck. You also don't get hormones, added chlorine flavouring... etc. (

Add about 4 big potatoes chopped up, 4 chopped carrots, a teaspoon of garam masala, about 2 handfuls of peas (frozen peas are far more affordable on this side of the world). Let that cook with the lid on for 5 minutes.

Add 1.5 cups of coconut milk. I added a can of reduced fat coconut milk (about 440g) and cook for about 40min to make sure its well done and thoroughly tasty throughout.

Serve with brown rice to be healthy, and put some plain yog(h)urt, chutney and atchar on the side for an added taste sensation.

Should serve 4 hungry people with a little bit of seconds.

Here is the weird website with the original recipe (I like to add more vegetables where possible):

http://www.indianfoodsco.com/Recipes/chicken_images/ChickenCurries.htm

Butternut Curry Wrap

I had a take-away meal from an Indian restaurant, The Maharajah, months ago, but I can still remember how surprisingly tasty it was, although it was mostly a butternut roti. In fact, that's all I can remember: tasty indian butternut roti.

So since my husband has declared March "Indian Food Only" month, I took up the challenge to make a similar recreation of that surprising, and tasty meal. And the results were, with a bit of deviation from the recipe: surprisingly tasty to eat three times in a row.

I put a chopped butternut into a big pot and lightly fried it in minimal oil (5min). I added a 300ml chicken stock (recipe says veg stock, but I didn't have- can't taste the difference) and cooked the butternut with the lid on for 20min. I added a teaspoon of grated ginger, 2 of garlic, 1/2tsp cumin, 1/2 tsp coriander, 1/2 tsp tumeric, 2 cloves, 3 star anises, 3 cardamom seeds, 2 small pieces of cinnamon (try get cinnamon rather than cassia if possible- cassia's not healthy), 1 small tin tomotoe puree, 400g canned chickpeas (actually I used dry ones that I saoked and cooked seperatley in a presure cooker for speedy results- it's cheaper) and then 2 chopped tomatoes. You can let that cook for another 10min and take the lid off if you think there is too much liquid for a curry consistency.

Butternut + tomatoes? It's surprising. Never would have invented that flavour combo on my own.

Basically all the spices can be substituted for any curry paste/powder, but I thought I would be authentic and reckless, but it turned out perfectly. If you like it spicy and your curry powder/paste isn't, add 2 chillies chopped up finely.

Serve with wraps (was lazy and got mine from Woolies), coriander (and or cos lettuce), chutney of choice and large dollops of Greek yog(h)urt!

The curry can also be mixed into couscous for a different twist.

Serves 2 fairly skinny people for 2 dinners and one lunch. That's 6 meals, the original recipe only serves four, so maybe butternuts are smaller in the land of BBC.

Here's the original recipe: http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/775642/indian-butternut-squash-curry

Colcannon mash with rump steak and chutney

I discovered this : Good Mood Food (cool because I like the recipes and the pictures, although the site functionality itself is not so cool): http://www.thegoodmoodfoodblog.com

I got inspired to try out some colcannon mash. The word colcannon means "white-headed cabbage" in Irish, according to the trusty Wiki page. It's basically potatoe mash with things like cabbage in it. In Belgium they have a similar thing: mash made with root vegetables, called "stoemp" which is also delicious.

We deviated a bit from Donal's recipe and fried 2 chopped onions and a quarter head of white cabbage. We then added that, some pepper, salt, butter, milk and finely grated parmesan to a generous amount of cooked potatoes (about 8 medium sized ones). We mashed it all together, adding liquid to attain a nice thick, stodgy subsistency. And it was done! Easy as that.

It was enjoyed with a plain cucumber salad, a rump steak, some chutney (a South African sort of savoury jam-sauce) and a Paulaner.

A note on chutney: The wikipedia page on the subject has informed me that "Chutney is a loan word incorporated into English from Hindi describing a pasty sauce in Indian cuisine." And they do also come in a powdery, dry form.

However, here in South Africa, well, in my home at least, we only really knew of one type of chutney: Mrs. Balls'.

Durban Style Bunny Chow

In Durban, South Africa, there are many Indian people, and so, much Indian food. It's really fun going there for both those reasons. There's also a nice warm sea, lush vegetation, lots of rain and lots of mosquitoes.

Bunny Chow involves a spicy curry being placed inside a hollowed-out bread (instead of a traditional roti)- eliminating the importance of using a plate. According to Wikipedia, it all started in Grey Street in the 1940's at the restaurant Banias. Well, that's the one version, pick your choice from the source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bunny_chow#History

My dad grew up in Durban, and we used to go there almost every year before my gran died. So, I got nostalgic and made my own version, even though I had never eaten one before!

Here is the original recipe: http://www.grouprecipes.com/63962/mutton-bunny-chow.html

Heat a small bit of oil in a big pot and add in 2 x 2.5cm cinnamon sticks, 3 cardamom pods, 3 cloves, a bay leaf and 1 tsp fennel seeds. After frying for a few seconds, add 2 curry leaves, 1 chillies, 1 medium onion, 3/4 tsp turmeric, 1 tsp crushed ginger and 1 tsp crushed garlic.

Mix 1/2 tbs vinegar, 1 tsp sugar, 1 tp garam masala with 2 tbs level mixed masala powder and add with the meat (750g beef/ostrich mince or goulash) and coat it.

Add 2.5cups of water as well as 1/4 cup tomatoe puree and 1 chopped tomatoe. Add in 3 - 6 potatoes (chopped) and when they're cooked through add in the fresh coriander.

If you're eating indoors, I recommend the use of a plate, because it gets messy :) You can also use beans instead of meat to be vegatarian, or you could add half as much meat and twice as many vegetables. Or just add more vegtables to the same amount of meat.Take you pick and enjoy experimenting.

Greek Potato(e) Salad

We got some doubled smoked garlic olives from a quaint Lebanese/Mediterranean restaurant in Rondebosch, called The Olive Station. I depipped them (which was easy since they were so well cooked) and threw a round of crumbled feta, olive oil and pepper over some chunky potatoe mash.

To make the mash I simply halved the potatoes and cooked them in water for about 30 minutes.

The flavours of the feta and olives were quite strong, so I didn't add too much.

Adding olive oil to mash rather than milk and butter is a healthier and tasty, alternative.

Trying Out Broadbeans

A few months ago, there was a shop across the road from where we stay which always had interesting stock. Broadbeans aren't a regular occurance in South African markets, so we thought we would try some out. The preparation process was laborious and involved peeling the beans, washing them, cooking them, letting them cool, peeling them again and then cooking them again - at which point you realise you have a fraction of the volume you started with.

We then fried them in butter and I remember them tasting a bit like asparagus, with a very particular un-beany taste - yum.

First peeling process includes separating the spongy outer pod from the big waxy beans.

The second peeling process included seperating the soft (cooked) outer layers of the beans, which are apparently tough, from the slippery beans in side.

Red Delicious

Checkers often stocks interesting fruit at fairly reasonable prices, such as golden kiwis, orange water melon and American apples. It's always fun trying out a new, beautiful fruit!

Berry Snack

Berries and yog(h)urt with nuts, honey and finely cut up dark chocolate is one of my most favourite desserts. If you add in less chocolate then it's basically all healthy (minus the fat content in the yog(h)urt).

My favourite chocolate at the moment is the "dark chocolate mountain bar" that you can get from Woolies. A great find recently includes the fact that the Checkers near where I work also has imported Swiss chocolate for less than R5/100g!

Blackberry Icecream

Unfortunately I can't remember how exactly we made this, but we did (a long time ago and it was TASTY!) When I find the recipe again, I will post it here! :)

Habenero beef, basil and blue cheese burgers

These were my first homemade burger patties. It's easier and less gross than you would expect. I did a little improvisation with the ingredients to make the burgers more exciting.

I simply put all the ingredients in a bowl: a pack of fresh mince (I used lean and it worked fine); a chopped habenero; half a chopped onion, two stalks of spring onion chopped and an egg. I mixed it together using a spoon, added a big dash of soya sauce (instead of salt to make it taste more meaty). Then I turned the mixture out onto a glass chopping board and added breadcrumbs as I kneaded it to the right texture.

The "right texture" means that the mince sticks together and can survive being flipped once or twice in the pan.

I fried the patties for about 5 minutes on each side.

In the mean time I cut up some chunks of blue cheese for the rolls (in this case, a chopped up baguette). And I started frying some baby tomatoes in balsamic vinegar, olive oil and garlic.

I served it with fresh basil and asian baby leaf salad in the burger and the tomatoes on the side. Yummmm!

Carottes Vichy

Vichy is a town in France known for it's mineral springs, style and to me as a great way to make carrots.


They are simply made by cooking the sliced carrots until soft, and then frying them and fresh parsely in butter. If you're feeling tempted, add about two teaspoons of sugar to the cooking water, and maybe a pinch while they're frying lightly.

This meal is of the quicker sort, and a good way to make sure that you eat enough carrots. It made a great addition to our lovely Sunday lunch of Trout from Woolies, brie, toasted sourdough
olive bread and a crude cucumber 'salad'.


As an aside, I would like to amke note of a real cucumber salad I made a while back. I soaked some freshly sliced cucumber in the brine of gerkhins, added some thinly sliced gerkhins, a splash of vinegar, small pinch of salt and a rather generous amount of black pepper. Letting it stand for a while means that the cucumber becomes slightly pickled.



Here's some useful info on carrots:
- It can increase tomatoe fruit if planted with tomatoes.
- If left to flower, it makes lovely white flowers, much like those of cow parsley and cariander, which attracts wasps that kill other pests.
- The leaves are edible.
- They come in white, yellow, red, and purple
- carrots are full of dietary fibre, minerals, vitamin A and antioxidants, but the beta-carotene can turn your skin slightly orange if you eat too many - apparently.
- Carrots don't really increase your ability to see in the dark: "The legend arose during the Battle of Britain when the RAF circulated a story about their pilots' carrot consumption as an attempt to cover up the discovery and effective use of radar technologies in engaging enemy planes, as well as the use of red light (which does not destroy night vision) in aircraft instruments.^[4][5] '


The map and badge picture are from Wikipedia, where you can learn more about Vichy; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vichy

And to learn more about Carrots: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrots

Couscous with Dried Olives

I recently whipped up a quick couscous recipe which I ate for lunch - yum! I started mixing some soft couscous with a splash of balsamic vinegar, a glug of olive oil and two tablespoons of tomatoe paste. I cut up some dried olives that I got from the Tokai Piggy Market and wished for some fresh herbs, maybe basil.

Even fried aubergines and fried onions would have made a good addition

Garden Update

I might have mentioned that we have a tiny herb garden on our balcony- which grows more and more overcrowded as time goes by...

Below are some tiny peppers that I planted from regular green and red pepper seeds gathered from peppers bought from the shop. My husband and my theory is that the seeds are genetically modified to last only a certain amount of harvests - there's not much chance of growing perfectly normal peppers from the seeds of peppers found in the shops.


Recently I had a brilliant thought > it tasted quiet brilliant too: frying red peppers with balsamic vinegar and chilli. They were extra sweet and super tasty. Other ideas are red peppers and red wine (haven't tried that yet) or roasting red peppers with baby tomatoes and whole cloves of garlic which makes a delciously sticky and tasty mess (according to my friend Charlene > I'm yet to try this as our oven is rather out of action lately).



Speaking of Charlene, I got her a Pineapple Sage for her birthday and recently got myself one too. They make beautiful cherise/red flowers and the leaves smell like pineapple even though they're a type of sage. The apparently come from around Mexico and the leaves are edible (in a fruit salad for example, although they don't taste like pineapple!).


I recently got a red/black basil from the same Charlene, and they are, as we discovered more hardy than the green type. She put some lovely nut shells in the pot on top of the soil. They seem so useful, being so sturdy and strong.



Below you can see that our latest coriander harvest is ready. What I like about coriander as a plant is that you can use the shrubby leaves, and the ones that get all long and straggely can also be used later on when they make those lovely white flowers and seeds!

I've never managed to keep coriander alive for long, as pruning it seems counter intuitive, although, I always end up replanting the seeds and never have a shortage of them as planting one seed can produce many times more seeds.



For fun, I plant beans now and again, but it's never really enough to use in a dish (when I have a garden I will plough through it and turn it into a mini-farm, perhaps then I will have enough beans to make a tasty chili). Below you can see the sugar bean pod. I just leave it on the plant until it's dry and then end up planting it again, most often. The colour of the pod is quite dramatic and interesting though - from far away it could double as a flower.




We bought a granadilla plant last year and at first it grew very well and then slowed to almost a complete holt after bearing two beautiful flowers and one small granadilla. I was pleased to see that it's starting to grow some new tiny leaves!



And at last! Our creeping thyme plant has decided to flower! I hope the camomile will soon follow...


If it does decide to flower, I'll post a picture!