Seasons Eat-ins

Custard tarts

2011-04-01T08:11:00.000+02:00

And so we arrive at the last of the four tarts I made for book club last week. This is also the last tart I made that day, and what fun it was! Had the smallest mishap. I some how managed to put a little to much custard into the middle of the tarts, and being the first time i baked custard, I was not aware of the fact that it expands at first! So a lot of the custard spilled out of the pastry onto the baking tray and made a lovely mess! I think my dear mom was was quite glad I had put tinfoil down under the tarts, because otherwise we may have risked a bigger mess :D

A major bonus is that I think with my short cut kind of ways, most of you will be pleased to see how very easy these were to make! Saved the easiest for last I guess you could say!! Lookie lookie!

Ingredients:

One roll of puff pastry
Golden syrup for glazing the pastry
About 350ml of store bought pre-made custard
1 egg
1 Teaspoon of sugar
Icing sugar and water mixed together for a thin icing (mix till the right consistency)

Directions:

Pre-heat your oven to 200 degrees Celsius.

Cut the puff pastry into 8 squares and fold up the edges of each square in order to create a hollow in the center of each.

Coat each of the squares with golden syrup.

Mix about 350ml of custard with one egg and on teaspoon of sugar and spoon this custard mixture into the hollows of each pastry square.

Bake the pastry until the pastry is golden brown.

Once the tarts are cooked, leave to cool for a bit and drizzle each square with the icing sugar and water mix.

Ta da!! final product. cute little custard tart.

Apple tarts

2011-03-30T09:49:00.001+02:00

And now! Sweets for my sweets, sugar for my honey! Yes... that is from a song I think, and no I suppose it has nothing to do with this recipe other than the fact the we have now moved on to one of the two sweet pastries I made for book club last week :)

I am also told that one of the left overs of these tarts was given to Baby Birdie who also writes a very nice blog (if you click on her name it'll take you there :p) and she, from what I can tell also is into her food, so I was very happy and super complimented when she posted about the little apple tart on twitter. Therefore from my family and friends opinions and her opinion, I am making a claim that these little light, crisp, sticky, sweet, fruity and nutty delights are worth a try and this is how it's done!

Ingredients:

1 Roll of puff pastry
1 Tin of pie apples
Ground cinnamon for sprinkling onto each pastry
1 Packet of crushed almonds
4 Teaspoons of brown sugar for sprinkling on to each pastry ( about 1/2 a teaspoon per square)
Apricot jam for glazing

Directions:

Pre-heat your oven the 200 degrees Celsius

Cut the puff pastry into 8 squares.

In the middle of each square spoon on the pie apples (about a tablespoon each).

Sprinkle the apples with brown sugar, some cinnamon and some nuts.

Glaze the pastry around the apples with the apricot jam, and bake for about 20 minutes, or until the pastry is golden brown.

An apple tart topped with some wild lavender to make it look pretty. Although this garnish is edible, I wouldn't suggest actually eating it :)

Caramelized onion and courgette tarts

2011-03-28T09:42:00.000+02:00

This is the second of the four tarts I made for book club last week. I would say that this one is possibly a more acquired taste compared to the tomato and chevin tarts. This I would say is just because of the blue cheese in it. Not everyone likes the pungent taste of blue cheese, however I find the pungent blue cheese is nicely complimented by the sweet onion and if you are inclined to spoil yourself with a good blue once in a while, this is worth a taste.

Ingredients:

1 Roll of brown bread puff pastry
2 Tablespoons of margarine or butter
3 Onions thinly sliced
2 Tablespoons of brown sugar
1 Tablespoon of balsamic vinegar
Salt and pepper to taste
2 Courgettes finely sliced (use a peeler to slice thing ribbons)
2 Tablespoons of olive oil for drizzling
60g Blue cheese crumbled
8 Pinches of fresh thyme for sprinkling

Directions:

Pre-heat your oven to 220 degrees Celsius.

Lay the brown bread puff pastry out on a baking tray and cut into 8 squares.

Cook the onions in the margarine/butter until they begin to caramelize.

Add the sugar and the balsamic vinegar and cook the onions for a further 5 minutes. Once the onions are done, add salt and pepper to taste.

Then on each of the pastry squares, layer the ingredients in this order; the crumbled blue cheese, then a dollop of onion on each, arrange a few courgette ribbons on top, sprinkle each with a pinch of thyme and finally drizzle each with a bit of olive oil.

Bake the pastries for 15-20 minutes or until the pastries are golden brown.

Serve garnished with rocket leaves.

looking like a little piece of art, the caramelized onion and courgette tart with its garnish of rocket.

Tomato and chevin tarts

2011-03-25T08:25:00.003+02:00

I was very worried that I wasn't going to make my 3 posts this week, but then I was reminded that I have book club tonight (Thursday) and we are always supposed to bring our own drink and some snacks and so what a nice excuse to get into the kitchen and make some nice small snack like things again for a change, rather than large meals.

So I have "cheated" so to speak, and I made four different puff pastry tarts so that i would have one to write about for my last post of this week (Friday) and then another three so that I won't be disappointing you with yummy treats to read about next week. I suppose unfortunately though it's now going to look like I've gone from soup week into a tart week and you may be starting to think this blog is ending up about themed weeks, but I assure you this is not the case.

Here's the first of the tarts I made. the rest you'll need to wait for next week to see.

Ingredients:

1 Roll of brown bread puff pastry
12 Teaspoons of basil pesto
Olive oil for drizzling
Salt and Pepper to taste
60g Chevin goats cheese or a soft goats cheese of your choice
250g Cocktail tomatoes halved

Directions:

Pre-heat your oven to 200 degrees Celsius.

Cut the puff pastry into 8 squares and place on a baking tray.

On each pastry square spread a teaspoon and a half of pesto.

On to of the pesto, share out the chevin equally onto the squares.

Arrange the halved tomatoes on top of the cheese on each square, and then add salt and pepper to each square of pastry to taste.

Drizzle the pastries with olive oil and bake for 20-30 minutes, or until the pastry is browned.

tomato and chevin tart garnished with a sprig of basil. so cute :D

Mulligatawny Soup

2011-03-23T08:51:00.004+02:00

This was the last soup of soup week and I am sure a couple of you are glad to see it and are sick of seeing soups. The catch however is that it didn't make it into the week which was soup week, but actually the following Monday after soup week. This is because the day I was meant to make this soup, they were painting our kitchen, and I couldn't get into it to make my soup. Further complications with the painting in our house also caused for me to move out of our house for a week, so instead of making the 4th and final soup for soup week for my family, I ended up making it for my fiancée's family as a thank you for letting us stay with them and luckily for them, it was another rich and meaty soup, so they were in for quite a treat.

Ingredients:

3 Tablespoons of olive oil
6 Chicken breasts cut into strips
2 Medium sized onions
3 Medium sized carrots
1/2 Cup of celery
3 Tablespoons of garlic and ginger paste, or alternatively 1 and 1/2 table spoons of garlic paste and 1 and 1/2 Table spoons of ginger paste
1 and 1/2 Tablespoons of yellow curry powder
2 Tins of chopped tomatoes
6 Cups of chicken stock
4 Apples peeled, cored and chopped into quarters (the apples can stay quite big because they boil into almost a puree)
1 Tin of lentils
Salt and pepper to taste
4 Tablespoons of lemon juice
A tub of plain yoghurt for serving

Directions:

Heat half of the olive oil in a pot and saute the chicken with some salt and pepper until the chicken is golden brown and then remove the chicken and set it aside for later.

Add the rest of the olive oil to the pot and fry the onions, garlic and ginger paste, carrots, celery and curry powder until the onions are soft.

Add the tins of tomatoes, stock, apples and then bring the mixture to the boil.

Once the soup is boiling, reduce the heat and simmer for another 40 minutes.

Add the tin of lentil and simmer the soup for another 20 minutes.

Add salt and pepper to taste, as well as the lemon juice, and return the chicken to the pot and simmer for another 30 minutes so that the flavour can penetrate the chicken a bit.

Serve the soup with a dollop of yoghurt on top and with crusty bread or poppadoms.

Extra Notes:

As a "professional" I taste my food during the cooking to make sure the flavours are doing what I want them to do, and I must admit I tasted the soup before adding the chicken back, and this soup is so hearty, that it would have been good even without the chicken

Also the soup was such a hit, 2nd's and 3rds were had, and my future-step-dad-in-law thought it was so good he tried to steal the credit and tried to ask me if i enjoyed the soup HE made :)

Also. If you don't like your soup too thick, feel free to add extra stock to thin the consistency, I added an extra cup at one stage.

AND final note, if you would like a warmer winter style soup, do half and half of yellow curry powder and red curry powder. (In other words, add 3/4 tablespoons of yellow curry powder and 3/4 tablespoons of red curry powder)

Mulligatawny soup, funny name for a yummy soup :)

Roasted peppers and tomato soup

2011-03-21T09:37:00.002+02:00

This is the soup which I made for day 3 of the soup week I declared. Day three's soup was originally going to be another meaty soup, so it would've been meat soup, veg soup, meat soup, veg soup, but day three of soup week just happened to fall on my dad and middle sisters birthday, and my dad made a request that there should be cottage pie, so therefore I swapped day 3 and 4 soups around and made the roasted pepper and tomato soup so that there could be a nice veggie starter for the cottage pie which my mom was making.

You'll also notice I've decided to label this soup for Summer, Autumn and Winter. I've decided to do this because I find tomato soups are really quite light, even with the added cream, so it doesn't really have the rich, heavy, comforty-type of consistency to grade it a soup for the colder months of Autumn and Winter and therefore I would say it's nice to have on occasions as the Summer gets colder into Autumn and then even more colder and rainier (in Cape Town at least) into winter, and as the weather cools down, add an extra drop of tobasco sauce to give that little warm kick you need in the chilly seasons :)

Ingredients:

2 Yellow peppers
4 Red peppers
10 Tomatoes
A dash of olive oil for drizzling over the peppers and tomatoes
1 Can of Italian peeled tomatoes
2 Teaspoons of crushed garlic
A tablespoon of white sugar
100grams of tomato paste
4 Cups of vegetable stock
2 Teaspoons of tobasco sauce or add to taste according to how hot you feel like having it
1 Teaspoon of paprika
A drop of truffle oil (optional)
125ml Tub of cream
12 Fresh basil leaves finely chopped
Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Pre-heat your oven to the highest setting it has, or to at least 220 degrees Celsius.

Halve all the peppers, remove stalks and seeds and most of the white fleshy bits and place them on a baking tray or in a baking dish with the cut sides facing up.

Halve the tomatoes and arrange them on a separate baking tray or dish with the cut sides facing up.

Drizzle the tomatoes and peppers with olive oil and salt and pepper. For the tomatoes, sprinkle them with the tablespoon of sugar as well.

Roast the tomatoes and the peppers in the oven until the edges begin to turn black, at this point turn your oven down to 140 degrees Celsius and roast for a further 20 minutes.

After the 20 minutes, remove the tomatoes and peppers and peel off any excessive bits of black skin.

Place the tomatoes and peppers into a blender (you may have to do this in stages) and blend until smooth.

Put the blended peppers and tomatoes into a pot.

Then blend the tinned tomatoes, garlic and tomato paste and add this mix into the pot as well.

Add the stock to the pot and bring the mixture to the boil.

Once the soup is boiling, reduce the heat down to a simmer and add the cream slowly, as well as the tobasco, paprika and the optional truffle oil and allow to simmer for another 30 minutes while stirring occasionally.

Add salt and pepper to taste and just before serving stir in the chopped fresh basil leaves.

Serve topped with a basil leaf, a swirl of olive oil and crusty bread.

Extra Notes:

I found the soup served very well as a starter and the bonus to it was that serving it as a starter in starter-size portions allows for some leftovers for lunch the next day :D

Also another option for serving the soup is to crumble some feta over it, my eldest sister assures me that this is what they do at a lot of restaurants and that it is very yummy.

Look how pretty the roasted peppers and tomato soup looks served, such lovely colours.

Creamy blue cheese and potato soup

2011-03-18T08:27:00.007+02:00

Have you ever told someone what you were cooking for supper and they liked the sound of the supper so much that they just invited themselves? I have, it happened with this soup. Luckily I wasn't upset or offended, because this friend and I just have that kind of forward, say exactly what you're thinking, sarcastic, kind of relationship :D and I must admit, I love her for it :). For the purpose of this blog, I shall refer to her as my colleague, not because we are in a professional working relationship, but because we have studied together for the last 5 years, and I can honestly say that of all the people I have had to work on projects with in tertiary education I work the best with her and the rest of the awesome foursome (a story for another day) and so because we've worked so well together over the years, she's the colleague :)

Anyway, enough of the ode to a colleague, this is supposed to be about food and the fact that the food sounded so appetizing that my colleague invited herself...twice! Once to my face informing me she was staying for supper and then she wrote it for all to see on facebook :D I'll admit to feeling extremely complimented in all honesty. The selling point was the blue cheese, and so if you love blue cheese, this recipe is for you, however if stinky cheese is not for you, you may want to give this recipe a skip.

Ingredients:

1 Tablespoon of margarine or butter
1 Tablespoon of olive oil
2 Medium sized leeks, washed and sliced
2 Teaspoons of crushed garlic
10 Medium sized potatoes peeled and diced
10 Cups of chicken stock
A large pinch of salt and pepper, or to taste
1 Container of cream
A round of blue cheese

Directions:

Heat the oil and the butter/marg in the pot and add the leeks and garlic.

Saute the leeks and garlic until the leeks have gone soft.

Once the leeks are soft, add the potatoes, stock, salt and pepper. Bring this to the boil, and then reduce the heat to a simmer. Cover and leave to simmer until the potatoes are cooked through, this takes about 1 hour.

Once the potatoes are cooked, remove the soup from the heat and immediately ad the cream and crumble in the blue cheese.

In a blender in stages, or with a hand held blender, blitz the soup until it is smooth.

Serve the soup drizzled with olive oil and crusty bread, or cheese rolls for extra cheesiness.

Extra Notes:

This soup is actually another one which I cheated with. The Ninja Blender was still new in my house, and blitzing just the soup at the end wasn't enough play time for me, so I cheated and pre-blitzed the leeks and potatoes so that I could play more, and then in the end I didn't need to blitz the soup, because everything was smooth already and the cheese just melts in. I however would not advise my method of cheating, and I am probably unlikely to do it again with this soup. The pre-blitzed potatoes creates a mash like texture when cooking, and this caused it to try and stick to the bottom of the pot and could have risked burning, so I do not advise my "short-cut" I took to play with the blender more.

creamy blue cheese and potato soup. ta da!!

Tuscan beef and bean soup

2011-03-16T10:26:00.001+02:00

This was my first soup for the soup week I decided on. Why this soup to start the week you wonder? well for one, it has the word Tuscan in its title and Tuscany is somewhere I'd loooove to go one day and if you haven't noticed yet, I absolutely love Mediterranean flavours and cuisine! A second reason why I chose this soup to kick off my soup week which i was putingt my family through was because it has beef in it. Yes beef! A random reason to choose a soup, but let me explain; beef is rich, and comforting and I think often it's any meet enthusiasts main choice, and I must be honest that I myself and 2 of the males in my household are meet enthusiasts, so to eeeeeaaaase the family into soup week, I decided to go with a soup that wasn't completely out of the box, or watery/brothy vegetarian, but to choose the safe option, maybe even get them a little exited at the prospect of a soup week, and I served up the yummy, comforting beefy, tomato, nom noms Tuscan style soup!

Ingredients: (Serves 6)

1 and 1/2 Tablespoons of olive oil
2 Onions finely chopped (can be red onions or white onions or I had both and for fun I did one of each :D)
3 Teaspoons of crushed garlic
6 Rashers of back bacon chopped into rough chunks
4 Carrots peeled and chopped
+- 750 grams of beef shin or stewing beef, or a mixture of both depending on what is available in stores
6 Celery stalks chopped
100 Grams of tomato paste
2 Tins of chopped tomatoes
7 Cups of beef stock
120ml Chopped fresh parsley
3 Tins of butter beans
Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Heat the olive oil in the bot, and saute onions until they are soft.

Add the garlic, bacon, carrots and celery, and cook for about 5 minutes, or until the bacon is cooked.

Add the beef and brown the meat.

Once the meat is browned, add the tomato paste and stir so that the meat is coated in the paste.

Add the tins of chopped tomatoes, the stock, and the parsley and bring the mixture to the boil.

Once the mixture is boiling, reduce heat, and allow to simmer for 40-60 minutes while stirring occasionally.

After the 40-60 minutes, add the tins of butter beans, salt and pepper to taste and allow the soup to simmer for another 25 minutes.

Serve with a crusty bread like a baguette or a french loaf and garnished with a piece of the fresh parsley.

Extra Notes:

I'm hoping a couple of my fiancée's colleagues will be happy to see that I have finally found the time to post this recipe. I was told that when he took some of the left over soup for lunch to the lab the next day it got quite a bit of attention, and they asked for the recipe. So here it is :D hope you can figure out my method of writing the recipe and you can try it out yourself, or ask a loved one veeeeeery nicely to make it for you, or I'm willing to make you some at a price?? Lol, just kidding...or am I? :D

I also found while cooking this soup a certain satisfaction, I would guess it could be compared to the satisfaction another South African would maybe find from making a potjie (if you aren't South African, that's a stew made on a fire in a cast iron pot)? There's something very satisfying about the "layering" of different mixes of ingredients when making a soup, stew or potjie. The onions, the meat, making sure the different ingredients are added at the right times so as to have a perfect outcome, and then the satisfaction of the final product as all the flavours are combined and come together to serve up a meal all in one that everyone thoroughly enjoys :D

The beautiful bowl of Tuscan beef and bean soup!

Creamy Cauliflower and Haddock Soup

2011-03-14T08:54:00.003+02:00

So random opening to this post, but I have decided that one day in the far future when I am pregnant I will hopefully have other signs pointing to the pregnancy other than food cravings, because if all i have is food cravings, I WON'T know I'm pregnant, because I ALWAYS have food cravings! For example, my current craving is SOUP all I want to do and eat right now is soup, and a whole bunch of different kinds of soup. It's still the last little bits of summer here in Cape Town, but it seems my stomach has already skipped ahead in seasons and all I want is winter warming rich lovely soups.

So here's your warning. this is the first soup I made to try and curb the craving. Since this recipe however I have declared a soup week in my house (whether my family like it or not) and there WILL be another four soup recipes to follow.

This soup was a major experiment for me actually. Reason being, I don't usually like cauliflower! The reason I don't usually like cauliflower though is the little floret bits... hate the texture...but otherwise I don't hate the taste, so I decided to try the soup out, plus it had some fish in it for my lovely fiancée which always makes me happy because it makes him happy :D

Ingredients:

2 Teaspoons f crushed garlic
2 Tablespoons olive oil
4 Leeks
3 Cups milk
A tablespoon of dry thyme
1 Bay leaf
1 Tablespoon of chopped fresh parsley
2 Fillets of smoked haddock
2 Cups of vegetable stock
1 Medium cauliflower
Salt and pepper to taste
A pinch each of yellow curry powder and turmeric

Directions:

Add the garlic, olive oil and leeks to a pot and cook until soft.

Once the leaks are soft add the milk, thyme, bay leaf, parsley and smoked haddock. leave to simmer until the haddock is cooked, then remove the haddock and set aside till later.

To the remaining liquid in the vegetable stock, cauliflower, salt and pepper, curry powder and turmeric. bring to the boils and cook until the cauliflower is cooked.

Once the cauliflower is cooked, blend the soup until smooth.

When the soup is smooth, remove the skin from the haddock that was set aside and break it into chunky pieces and add it back into the soup.

Extra Notes:

I must admit to you, I have a secret trick that i do when I'm making a smooth soup like this cauliflower soup. I don't like working with scolding hot soup in a blender, so I cheat and pre-blend the uncooked ingredients. For example in this soup, I added already blended uncooked leaks and already blended cauliflower. This was super easy for me though thanks to the blender we bought recently :) this purchase could be part of the reason I started craving soup in the first place, I just REALLY wanted to use the new blender.

surprisingly very tasty even though it is cauliflower :p

Chilli Poppers

2011-03-11T09:27:00.002+02:00

So let me just start with the obvious and an apology, yes I am fully aware that these are deep fried, full of cheese and most likely quite fatty. Not exactly what you're expecting on a blog where we are trying to eat more healthy. BUT I mean some times you have to tread yourself right? Plus there's always that other thing that you need to consider when trying to practice a healthier lifestyle, and that's portion control! So yes! lets just cheat a little, just don't eat 15 of them and it surely can't be too bad for you can it? Can it?? :s Oh well, seriously, sometimes you just really have to treat yourself.

Ingredients:

2 Tubs of plain cream cheese
2-3 Large handfuls of grated cheddar cheese
2 Teaspoons of garlic paste
2X 210 Grams of pickled whole jalapeño chillies
Flour, enough to cover the chillies
2 Eggs
A container of bread crumbs
Vegetable oil for deep frying

Directions:

Mix together the cheddar, cream cheese and garlic.

Make slits into the jalapeño making sure that you don't cut them the entire way through. Use the back of a spoon or your finger to scrape out the seeds.

Using a teaspoon, stuff the chillies with the cream cheese mixture.

Once the chillies are stuffed, roll each chilli in flour, egg and then crumbs.

Fry each one until golden brown.

Extra Notes:

If you have left over cream cheese mixture like I did, I was actually very nice to serve this left over mixture with the chilli poppers to dull the hotness of the chillies if you stumble across a particularly hot one :)

Nice little snacks

Steak Tart

2011-03-09T12:43:00.003+02:00

The scene: twas valentines day, the first valentines day since I had gone from girlfriend to fiancée and the pressure was there to produce something tasty to impress, but still try and keep it healthy. So I remembered that earlier in the month I had read a magazine which had a valentines meal in it. I didn't want to do an entire meal, but the meal did have an idea of a steak tart. So I stole the recipe and put my own little spin on it. Now I know it says tart, but I claim it says healthy, because it's not actually like a tart to me. In my thoughts, a tart will have cream and eggs and maybe even cheese, but this one just has a little bit of sour cream, and A LOT of salad leave, so my thoughts of healthiness remained and my conscious was clear :D. Needless to say the steak tart went down a major hit with the important person of that day (he had two helpings!) and my dad said that it tasted even better than restaurant food!

Ingredients: (Serves 8)

1.8 Kilograms of sirloin steak
6 Tablespoons of olive oil
4 Teaspoons of crushed garlic
The zest and juice of one lemon
2 Brown bread puff pastries
1 Egg
About 2 handfuls of salad leaves of your choice
About 2 handfuls of rocket
1 Yellow pepper julienned
About a handful of cocktail tomatoes
3 Salad onions thinly sliced
About a handful of kalamata olives de-pipped
250ml Sour cream
4 Teaspoons basil pesto
3 Teaspoons whole grain mustard
Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Marinade the steaks in the olive oil, garlic and zest and juice of the lemon for about an hour at minimum.

Line 2 baking trays with tinfoil and on each tray lay out one of the brown bread puff pasties. Score the edges of each sheet of pastry, but make sure not to cut all the way through. Brush each pastry with egg, and bake according to package instructions, or until they turn golden brown.

In a large pan or griddle pan, cook the steaks until they are medium rare (or to your preferred choice) and allow to rest. Once the steak has rested, cut the steak into thin strips.

On the two pastries, sprinkle equal amounts of salad leaves, rocket, yellow pepper, cocktail tomatoes, salad onions, kalamata olives and steak strips.

Make a dressing of sour cream, basil pesto and wholegrain mustard mixed together, and drizzle this over each tart to serve and sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste. Bon Apetit!

Extra Notes:

I just feel I should note/give some credit here to he who shall be known as "the flat-mate" (he's not actually my flat mate, but my sisters, but we all live on the same property in close quarters). I asked him very nicely to please help me cook the steaks so that they were medium rare, because he has more experience cooking steak than I do, and I feel the recipe wouldn't have been as much of a hit if the steaks hadn't been perfectly done like they were, so some of the success of the recipe is definitely owed to him :)

Also a hint for people preparing this themselves, If you know how many people it needs to serve, a good idea may be to actually cut the pastry into the individual size portions before you bake it and make individual size tarts, this is because it is actually quite difficult to cut the tart once everything is on.

what it looks like when it's all put together, but before you destroy it to cut it into portions :p

Carrot Cupcakes

2011-03-07T20:36:00.004+02:00

I have a friend who has a birthday 2 weeks before mine, we've been friends since primary school, and as much as I am very fond of this friend, I have begun to dread her birthday since I turned 21. This is because in my brain I would like to have stopped aging at 21 and unfortunately, because her birthday is 2 weeks before mine, her birthday has always felt like a reminder for mine which became rather annoying when I turned 22, 23, 24 and now this year the dreaded quarter of a century 25! However! As much as her birthday has become an annoyance for me personally, I remain very fond of the friend and therefore wanted to make her a little something special for her birthday drinks and snacks.

Like me, she also tries her best to watch what she's eating, (Although I think she's a little better at it than me :s) so in an attempt to make something birthday like, but still claim to be healthy, I found these carrot cake cupcakes! I like to claim these are the healthy option because it has the word carrot in it. The word carrot probably doesn't make these healthier, but it makes me feel better. These are really super tasty little treats! My fiancée, who claims to dislike carrots and who turned up his nose at the thought of carrot cake, was forced into trying one and he was pleasantly surprised and even helped himself to seconds! So you other carrot haters out there, give these a chance.

Ingredients:

1 Cup cake flour
1 Teaspoon baking powder
3ml Bicarb
A pinch of salt
3ml Cinnamon
1 Cup grated carrot
125ml tin of Crushed pineapple, drained
2 Eggs
1 Teaspoon vanilla essence
100ml Castor sugar
1 Cup sunflower oil
1 Tub shop-bought/pre-made vanilla icing
Metallic cake balls

Directions:

Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius.

Line a muffin tray with muffin cups.

Sift together the flour, baking powder, bicarb, salt and cinnamon. To the dry ingredients add the carrots and the pineapple.

In a separate bowl whisk the eggs, vanilla extract and sugar until fluffy.

Add the wet wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir. Once stirred through, add the oil and stir through.

Spoon the mixture into the muffin cups until each muffin cup is about three quarters full and bake for 25 minutes.

Once cooked allow to cool down and ice with vanilla icing, and top with metallic cake balls.

Extra Notes:

I thought is sounded like a lot of oil, and it certainly felt like a lot of oil when I added it to the batter, but it turned out not too bad, and i think it also helps so that the cupcakes don't stick.

The original recipe also rather used a cream cheese icing, but I had some issues with it, it curdles :s doh! but if you are more skilled than me in icing making, I am sure that it'd be a nice replacement to the store bought stuff.

All the cute little cupcakes :D

Black Forest Ham, Grape, Camembert and Rocket Skewers

2011-03-04T16:56:00.003+02:00

I made these as part of the picnic my eldest sister and I took with us to the Imogen Heap concert we went to.

There really isn't much to say about these skewers other than the fact that they are oh so very VERY good. So much so that my eldest sister and I actually have found ourselves craving the little mouthfuls of heaven since!! Smoky ham, complimented by a sweet juicy grape, smoothed over by creamy camembert and that last little peppery kick of the rocket!! mmmm, yummy... well just try it for yourself!

Ingredients:

1 Packet of black forest ham
1 Container of green grapes
1 Camembert cheese
1 Large handful of rocket
A packet of bamboo skewers
Olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Thread the ingredients onto a skewer as follows:

1 Grape, 1 piece of black forest ham rolled up, 1 block of camembert and one leaf of rocket rolled.

Continue threading the skewers until you run out of either ham or cheese, as these seem to be the ones you run out of first.

Place the finished skewers into a container, drizzle them with olive oil, and add salt and pepper to taste.

Serve chilled.

Extra Notes:

When rolling the rocket leaves I found that if you roll it from the stem side first, if the stem bits start to snap, it's not the end of the world, because it just gets tucked into the rest of the leaf.

If your mouth is big enough, try eating the ingredients in one mouthful to fully appreciate the way the flavours compliment each other (avoid poking yourself with the skewer though).

MOST IMPORTANTLY when rolling the black forest ham, please avoid eating all of the ham before it makes it on to the skewers. Tasting one piece of ham is understandable, that's just quality control, eating half the packet (as tempting as it was for me too) is just plain greedy :D however if like me you are known to want to eat it all, buy 2 packs to satisfy all cravings!!

This is how your skewers should look :) Ah the little mouthfuls of JOY!!

Cream Cheese Spheres (Aka cream cheese balls)

2011-03-01T18:11:00.003+02:00

I decided to name this recipe cream cheese spheres because when I told my middle sister about this recipe, I called them cream cheese balls like the original recipe and then I got laughed at and told, "Well if you want dodge comments written on your blog, then that's a sure way to do it". So Spheres sounds a little less... well dodge I guess and therefore no dodgy comments please.

The reason I was making these cheese spheres was for a picnic basket that my eldest sister and I would be eating for a very special occasion indeed. We were off to a concert to go see Imogen Heap! Now if you don't know who Imogen Heap is, google her immediately! She's amazing! The setting was beautiful because the concert was in a valley amongst tall trees on a wine farm. The venue screamed for classy super tasty nom noms, and these cheese spheres made the list. Serve these with a french loaf or biscuits and you cannot go wrong.

CHEESE SPHERES WITH FRESH GARDEN HERBS:

Ingredients:

About 1 table spoon fresh green basil
About 1 table spoon fresh red basil
About 1 table spoon fresh marjoram
About 1 table spoon fresh thyme
About 1 table spoon fresh origanum/oregano
About 1 table spoon fresh sage
1 tub of plain cream cheese

Directions:

De-stem and chop all herbs finely and put onto a plate (I quite enjoyed this first step, because it smells absolutely divine).

Take about a heaped teaspoon of the plain cream cheese, dip this into the herbs on the plate to cover, and then roll into a ball with your hands. repeat this until all the cream cheese has been coated in herbs and rolled into balls. The end product should be a ball with a few herbs mixed into the cheese, but with herbs all over the outside of the ball.

Place the balls in a container and refrigerate for a few hours before serving to allow the cheese to harden.

The amount of herbs your should have on your side plate

what your herb coated cheese sphere should look like

All herbie! nom nom!

SWEET CHILLI CHEESE SPHERES WITH GROUND BLACK PEPPER AND MIXED SESAME SEEDS:

Ingredients:

Mixed sesame seeds, enough to cover the bottom of a side plate

About 1 table spoon of ground black pepper corns

A tub of sweet chilli flovoured cream cheese

Directions:

Take about a heaped teaspoon of the sweet chilli cream cheese, dip this into the sesame seeds and black pepper on the plate to cover, and then roll into a ball with your hands. repeat this until all the cream cheese has been coated in the sesame and black pepper mix and rolled into balls.

Place the balls in a container and refrigerate for a few hours before serving to allow the cheese to harden.

Take about a heaped teaspoon of the plain cream cheese, dip this into the herbs on the plate to cover, and then roll into a ball with your hands. repeat this until all the cream cheese has been coated in herbs and rolled into balls. The end product should be a ball with a few herbs mixed into the cheese, but with herbs all over the outside of the ball.

Place the balls in a container and refrigerate for a few hours before serving to allow the cheese to harden.

How much sesame and black pepper you should have in a side plate

A finished sesame and black pepper cream cheese sphere! Looks a little like sushi :D

All sesamied up!! and actually quite spicey

Fish stew with couscous, AKA couscous with fish because that's how it turned out. LOL!

2011-02-01T21:42:00.003+02:00

I have been looking at recipes in magazines and on the internet to find some inspiration for my blog and have stumbled upon a site which has become one of my new fave places to browse recipes for hours. On this favourite site I found what was called a Sicilian-style fish stew with couscous... apparently...hmmm.

Knowing that my fiancée loves fish and would probably eat fish every day if he could, I thought I would be nice and cook this "fish stew" that I found that looked quite edible. It all started out according to plan, I followed the recipe just as it was written, not changing anything other than to add a little more wine than it says, and I added some thyme with the lemon peel and parsley, but otherwise I swear I didn't change anything! However, something clearly went wrong and instead of ending up with something that looked like a stew with some couscous I made couscous with fish. hmmm? Any which way! It still tasted yum yums! and this is how it went:

Ingredients: (Serves 8: I feed a lot of people in the week, but I did go a little overboard on this)

About 2 table spoons of olive oil
2 Onions
12 Cloves of garlic roughly chopped
About 8 stalks of celery chopped
A pinch of dried chilli flakes
Salt and pepper to taste
2 Cans of whole peeled tomatoes
2 Cups of dry white wine
6 Cups of vegetable stock
4 Cups of couscous
1 Kilogram of firm white fish (I used hake)
1 Grated lemon peel
About 2 table spoons of fresh parsley
About 1 table spoon of fresh thyme

Directions:

Heat the olive oil in a large pot.

Add the onion and fry it until it is soft and has gone translucent.

Add the garlic, celery, chilli flakes, salt and pepper and cook for about 10 minutes stirring quite often so that the onions do not burn.

When the onions have browned a bit and the celery has softened a bit, add the 2 tins of tomatoes and cook for a few more minutes breaking the tomatoes up a bit with the spoon. The tomatoes would have cooled the mixture in the pot down a bit, so cook until the mix is bubbling slightly again,but not boiling.

When the mix is bubbling slightly, add the wine and stock and then bring it to the boil. At this step the pot is looking more like a soup than a stew, but I assume this amount of liquid is needed for the couscous to soak up and cook?

Once the ingredients are boiling, reduce the heat and add the fish. Then cover and allow to simmer for about 10 minutes or until the fish is cooked.

When the fish is cooked remove the pot from the heat and add the couscous.

Allow to stand for 5 minutes for the couscous to swell and cook. (This is the point however when my stew became a couscous dish... lol)

Serve garnished with the lemon peel, thyme and parsley.

Extra Notes:

If you like a bit more of a bite to your food, you can garnish with the lemon peel, thyme, parsley and an extra sprinkle of chilli flakes.

I would also suggest to add a little less or A LOT less couscous so that your dish does in fact look a bit more like a stew and less like couscous with some fish like mine did, or if you love your couscous, leave as above :D

Also I think the recipe would work best with fresh fish, but if you cannot find fresh fish, frozen fish works, but I think the texture of the fresh fish would be a little nicer :)

Ostrich and Beef Mince Penne Pasta

2011-01-24T22:03:00.004+02:00

To me I have always found that ostrich meet is a lot like beef, just slightly leaner with a mild game-like taste. This must be true I think seeing as though you can buy ostrich mince and beef mince mixed at the shop! This thought patten I have became very evident with the simple statement I made earlier tonight to my fellow diners which was: "well to me, ostrich meet is just beef covered in feathers isn't it?" :D

Seeing as though I am obviously convinced that ostrich and cow is the same thing, I have gone about cooking the mixed mince of ostrich and beef the exact same way I would cook normal beef mince, and that is as follows:

Ingredients:

I dash of olive oil for frying

About 1kg of ostrich and beef minced meat

500g Penne pasta (or your choice of pasta)

1 Onion finely chopped

1 Table spoon of crushed garlic

1 Yellow pepper finely chopped

3 Tins of chopped and pealed tomatoes

1 Tin tomato puree

1 Cube of beef stock

Fresh or dry Italian herbs to taste (I used about a tablespoon of each the following fresh herbs: rosemary, thyme, origanum/oregano, sage and marjoram)

A dash of red wine or red balsamic vinegar

2 Table spoons honey

A bunch of fresh basil roughly chopped (I used about 24 leaves of green and red basil mixed)

Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Fry the onion, garlic, yellow pepper and beef stock cube in the dash of olive oil.

Once the stock cube has mixed in add the mince to brown.

When the mince is mostly browned, add the fresh herbs and allow to cook for a minute or two while the herbs flavours are released.

Next add the tins of chopped tomatoes, tin of pure and dash of red wine or balsamic vinegar. For this recipe I used the balsamic vinegar because of a friend eating with us who can't have alcohol at the moment, and i find balsamic gives a similar flavour as the one I would be looking for in the red wine, but most of the time I would use red wine.

Add about 2 table spoons of honey at this stage as well, this helps break the acidity of the tomatoes if necessary.

Let the mince simmer until the juices have reduced a bit and thickened. I found that while the mince is simmering this is a good time to cook your pasta.

When the pasta is cooked al dente, drain the water, rinse the pasta and stir the chopped fresh basil through the pasta.

Add salt and pepper to taste to the mince, and serve with the basil infused penne.

Extra Notes:

The reason for stirring the basil through the pasta is to keep the full flavour of it and I though the pasta would be cooler than the mince, but another option would be to serve the fresh basil on top of a serving.

Also, I am claiming that this mince recipe counts as me trying to eat healthier, because i'm told that ostrich is a healthier meet, so the presence of ostrich in this must make it an improvement :) hehehe

This pic is just to give an idea of how much herbs I added.

Also another pic to show how much herbs i added to the pasta. I like my herbs, so i add alot, but add to your own taste.

The final product! YUM!

Chopped Salad With Tuna-Mayo!

2011-01-22T12:43:00.008+02:00

After a lovely session of aqua-aerobics at gym - which included the instructor splashing me to try and make me fall off my noodle, really sore arms from the "pool weights" (which actually don't weigh a thing, they float so they give resistance when you try and keep them under the water), and a few near drowning moments when i lost my balance - my eldest sister and I decided to try and keep up the "good and healthy behaviour" and have a yummy salad for brunch. (Even though we were actually deep down wanting pizza :p hehehe).

Was Surprisingly very filling and not a bad option to replace the craving for pizza. If you throw in some basil and tomato to get an Italian feel, the pizza is FORGOTTTEN! Good on us! So here's what it entailed:

Ingredients: (Serves 2)

3 Pieces celery sliced
1 Small green pepper chopped into little blocks
1 Small orange pepper chopped into little blocks (actually tastes a bit citrusy which is pleasant and surprising! However if you cannot find the orange pepper a red or yellow pepper will do)
About 10 cm cucumber quartered and sliced
2 Tomatoes roughly chopped
1 Spring onion thinly sliced
3 Rocket leaves for around the sides
6 Leaves of red basil for around the sides
6 Leaves of green basil for garnish on top
One tin of tuna mixed with mayonnaise (Add mayonnaise to your own taste) also add a dash of balsamic vinegar
A dash of olive oil
Salt and Pepper to taste
Extra balsamic vinegar for on top

Directions:

One bonus, and it's the same bonus I have referred to before, is that it is so easy to make a salad.

Divide the chopped ingredients equally into two bowls. Around the side of the bowls put three rocket leaves as well as three red basil leaves on top of those. (see pictures for how it should look)

On top of the chopped ingredients put on the tuna-mayo mixture, add the salt and pepper to taste, garnish with a drizzle of olive oil and an extra drizzle of balsamic vinegar. On top of all of that place three of the green basil leaves on top for garnish (again see the pictures for how it should look)

Extra Notes:

If you are like my sister and I and you really enjoy the taste of balsamic vinegar, feel free to add some more.

Also if you didn't know already (although you really should know this), with the few basil leaves that are in this salad make sure you have the leaf on your fork with a piece of tomato. Tomato and basil is one of the best tastes on this planet (in my opinion) and should be experienced as often as possible. I think that if i could add tomato and basil to all my food I would be the happiest girl in the world :D

My take on the traditional Spanish gazpacho and another gazpacho with a little added yumminess!! :D

2011-01-08T18:37:00.004+02:00

Although we have been suffering quite the heat wave here in Cape Town, I found myself craving a yummy red pepper and tomato soup on Thursday night. To no surprise however I was told that it's too hot for soup and I had to agree :(

LUCKILY there was an answer to this problem which could still satisfy my craving, and that answer was, make a cold or chilled tomato soup, AKA a gazpacho (fun word, say it with oomf! you'll see :D).

To be completely honest, I've never been to sure of the idea of a cold soup, and even things like tomato juice is a bit weird to me. The idea of actually drinking something which is cold and savoury? I guess in my head, if it's savoury and liquid it should be warm.

HOWEVER part of this new little process of attempting to eat more veg and fruit entails trying new things. So a gazpacho is what i decided to try. Say it with me again, GAZPACHO! :D hehehehe.

Googled a couple of recipes, but as usual I couldn't find one to satisfy all my tastes and cravings, so i took my favourite ingredients from all the recipes and combined it all into ONE! Therefore my little take on a traditional gazpacho is as follows:

Ingredients:

1kg of Tomatoes ( I used rosa tomatoes because i thought it would have a nicer flavour, but I assume any fresh tomato would do)
2 Cloves of fresh garlic
1 Large onion
1 Red pepper and 1 green pepper
2-3 Stalks of celery
7 Tablespoons of olive oil (Yes I know I though it sounds like a lot of olive oil too, but really it wasn't :D)
2 Tablespoons of vinegar
1 and 1/2 Tablespoons of water
1 Tablespoon of fresh parsly (just gauge it, I did :p)
2 Tablespoons of fresh basil (again, gauge it, it'll be way to much of a mission actually fitting the nice fresh leaves into a spoon, i mean please! do you see Jamie Oliver measure his herbs? NO!)
2 Tablespoons of lemon juice, or alternatively 1/2 a fresh lemon squeezed
1 Teaspoon of smoked paprika
Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Once again the directions in this recipe is something worth being excited about! Why? Because it's EASY!!

Literally all you do is put it all into a blender, and wait for it... BLEND UNTIL SMOOTH!! ta da! Oh, and put it into the fridge until you are ready to eat it, because the colder it is, THE BETTER!

OK now I must be honest with you... it wasn't that simple for me actually, I did have one little issue... It didn't all fit into the blender :s DOH!

No fear though, this was easily dealt with! All you do is blend it in portions, but make sure each portion you blend is smooth, and then at the end just stir it all together!

Extra Notes:

All the other traditional recipes I saw on the net had cucumber in them, maybe it's something I'll consider for next time. I still found that even though i actually reduced the amount of onion that went in (most recipes added 2 onions) I still found it a bit too onion-ee in taste. So thinking maybe next time I'll only add half an onion or to rather use spring onions so that it's not so strong. Also most recipes say you can soak some bread in water and add some of the soaked bread to thicken it, but I found it was thick enough for me without it and I rather just had the bread there for serving and to eat with it (a French loaf worked well).

Gazpacho with a little added yumminess!

The next day we decided to take what was left of the gazpacho and put a little extra spin on it. In one portion we added about 1-2 table spoons of tomato paste and 2 drops of black truffle oil. Now i know, not everyone can get their hands on black truffle oil that easily, but if you can, DO IT! It added such a lovely flavour that I think it actually improved the recipe 10 FOLD! All I can say to the added extras is NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM!! :D

On the left is the traditional style gazpacho and on the right is the one with the truffle oil. Yum!

Raspberry and Blueberry Salad

2011-01-07T13:48:00.005+02:00

If there's one thing I'm finding about summer so far, it's the fact that I am REALLY enjoying the abundance of berries! raspberries, strawberries, blueberries, blackberries! All of them fresh and juicy!

Originally in my head I thought I wanted to recreate a melon salad that I had at a wine farm in the past, but unfortunately with it still being the end of silly season, the shops didn't have mixed melon in stock. Improvisation needed to take place, so instead of melons with ham and feta in a salad, I replaced melons with blueberries and raspberries and it amazingly works just as well! :D YAY!

So here's what it entailed...

Ingredients:

1 Packet of mixed herd salad greens (with rocket and watercress inside)
1 Pack of raspberries
1 Pack of blueberries
1 Packet of black forest ham
1 Round of feta
A couple of blueberry olives (yummy olives from the riebeeck kasteel area :D)
Balsamic vinegar
Olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Layer with salad greens at the bottom of a bowl, or a serving dish of your choice, on top of the salad greens put on the fetta chopped into blocks, then the black forest ham, followed by the blueberry olives, the raspberries and the blueberries. Drizzle over the olive oil and some balsamic and season with salt and pepper to taste!

The saltiness of the ham and the feta in contrast with the sweet berries was sooooo yummy!! YAY!

such pretty colours in this summery salad

First post, first recipe, and it's a winner because it's one that is fab and nom noms all year!

2011-01-04T09:00:00.006+02:00

Roasted Veg with Balsamic Vinegar, Olive Oil and Herbs:

This is something we made the other night in Struisbaai which turned out sooo yummy that there were comments like "I don't need any other food on my plate if I can have more of the veg" and for veg, that's pretty impressive i think.

May as well warn you now that I am no good at following or giving exact measurements or instructions when it comes to cooking, but here's in brief what the dish entailed

Ingredients:

Butternut cut in rounds
Carrots cut into chunks
Green peppers cut into chunks
A couple of cherry tomatoes
A few whole cloves of garlic peeled
A few sprigs of fresh origanum and marjoram
A sprinkle of dried rosemary
A good dash of olive oil
Balsamic vinegar
Salt and pepper to taste
Garlic and herb salt to taste

AND HERES THE BEST PART OF THE RECIPE!!

Directions:

All you do is throw in all the ingredients, add the salt and pepper and a good dash of the garlic and herb salt (I used Ina Paarmans one), drizzling the olive oil and balsamic vinegar on top, pop in an oven at 180 degree Celsius for bout 2 hrs and TA DA!! delicious!

And that i think is a good way to start :D