Life goes faster on protein

What a gorgeous day it turned out to be.  The weather played its part, and we managed to have clear skies here in Gaborone.  The annual Pot and Biltong Festival held by the Dutch Reformed Church was in full swing by the time we got there.  I have to say this is a very successful organized event and we had a good time eating sosaties, biltong, desserts, curry and rice and pancakes.  The make shift butchery provided the opportunity to buy rump steak, boerewors, mince and chicken at very decent prices.  We are now stocked well for the next 5 braais.

Today's recipe is a copy that I picked up from a hand written note in my green monster recipe book.  This is where I keep all the secret stuff, like my mother's peri-peri sauce of which I only have three ingredients listed, because my brother is guarding it with his life, but I am determined to strangle it out of him soon (grin).

Ingredients that you will need for 8–10 people
2 tablespoons oil
2 onions, chopped
3 garlic cloves, bruised
1 red chilli, seeded and chopped
2 tablespoons mild curry powder
1 teaspoon ground turmeric
½ teaspoon ground coriander
3 bay leaves (for the marinade)
1 piece of fresh root ginger (as big as your thumb), grated
¼ cup apricot jam
1½ cup wine vinegar
2 cups buttermilk
1½kg lamb, mutton or pork, cut into 2,5cm cubes
soft dried apricots
bay or lemon leaves (for the skewers)

The day before method:

Heat the oil in a pot and sauté the onions and garlic until tender.
Add the curry powder and fry for another 2 minutes.
Add the chilli, spices, bay leaves, ginger, jam and vinegar, and simmer for 10 minutes.
Remove from the heat, allow to cool, then stir in the buttermilk.
Put the meat in a non-metallic bowl (a Tupperware container with a sealed lid works best). Pour the marinade over the meat and leave it in the fridge for 24 hours.

The next day braai:
Thread the meat cubes, dried apricots and bay or lemon leaves onto the skewers.
Braai the sosaties over mediumhot coals until cooked. Baste the meat regularly.

Rocket, Pear and Brie pizza, what an affair!

"I love my pizza so much, in fact, that I have come to believe in my delirium that my pizza might actually love me, in return. I am having a relationship with this pizza, almost an affair." - Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat Pray Love.

 

Ingredients:

1 x 10 g sachet of instant yeast
240g/500 ml cake flour
10 ml sugar
7 ml salt
300 ml luke warm water

30 ml sunflower or olive oil 

±120 g/250 ml extra cake flour

Method:

1. Mix yeast and first measure of cake flour in a mixing bowl or into the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the dough hook and mix to combine.  Add all the remaining ingredients except the extra flour and mix well.
2. Add enough of the extra flour to forma soft dough and knead for 4 - 5 minutes in the mixer or turn out onto a floured surface and knead for 5 - 6 minutes by hand until smooth and elastic.  Add a little more flour and shape the dough into a ball.  Return the dough to the bowl, cover and let rise for about 30 minutes until double.
3. Punch down the risen dough and roll out the dough to a thickness of 1 cm.  Cover with a cloth and allow to rest for about 10 minutes.
4. To make mini pizzas, I divide the dough into 4 balls, then follow step 3 for each of the balls.
5. Brush pizza with olive oil, spread a thin layer of tomato topping onto each.  You can choose to bake as is at 180°for 8-10 minutes at this step, or continue to step 6 for toppings.
6. Cover with selected additional ingredients, such as cheese, mushrooms, bacon, avo ect, bake at 180° for 8-10 minutes.

Rocket, Pear and Brie Affair

I bake make crust first, when it comes out of the oven, I add rocket, fresh pears, and brie cheese for.  It is an absolute must, and a fresh departure from your ordinary pizza toppings.

In the past chickpeas were used to cure warts

At some stage it was believed that you could cure warts by touching it to a chickpea plant at new moon.  So unless you are related to Harry Potter or Liewe Heksie, I suggest you stay away from these babies.  But I did find some interesting health facts and thought it would be good information while preparing this salad.

Chickpeas are a helpful source of zinc, folate and protein.  They are also very high in dietary fibre and hence a healthy source of carbohydrates for persons with insulin sensitivity or diabetes. 

In short chickpeas prevents diabetes, reduce heart disease, it is low in GI (not GI-Jane) and reduces cholesterol, but if you have kidney stones you should limit your intake of chickpeas (bummer).

Chickpea, feta and coriander salad
(From Falling Cloudberries by Tessa Kiros)

400g tinned chickpeas
250ml olive oil
1 large red onion, chopped
5 garlic cloves, very finely chopped
1 or 2 red chillies, seeded and finely chopped
250g crumbled feta cheese
4 spring onions, green part only, chopped
25g chopped coriander
30g chopped parsley
Juice of 1 lemon

1. Rinse chickpeas and place them in a bowl.
2. Heat 3 tbsp olive oil and fry the red onion gently until it is cooked through and lightly golden. Add the garlic and chilli and cook for a few more seconds, until you can smell the garlic. Take care not to brown the garlic. Leave to cool completely.
3. Add the feta, spring onion, coriander, parsley and lemon juice to the chickpeas and season. Add the onion mixture and the remaining oil and mix through.

Apple Tart Jeans, Boots with the Furrrr, everyone in the kitchen is looking at herrrr

In order to stay in tune with one's teenager, you need to roll like they do.  This is why I like to be in the know with all the latest crib music.  Its called being "In Tha Muthahood".

Nowadays having them plastered on a Facebook wall, takes even more courage to keep up to date.  But at the end of a hectic school day, they still come home and ask "What's for dinner?", "What's for dessert?".

So I keep them entertained while baking my favorite Apple Tart Jeans Number.  We whip out Flo-rida, dress up in furrr and we bake them apple tarts!

Ingredients:
Batter:
60 ml butter (1/4 cup)
2 eggs
190 ml castor sugar (3/4 cup)
250 ml Self Raising Flour
60 ml milk (1/4 cup)
385 g Tin Sliced Pie Apples

Syrup:
190 ml castor sugar (3/4 cup)
5 ml caramel essence
190 ml cream or evaporated milk

Method for Batter:
Mix eggs and castor sugar together until creamy
Add the milk and melted butter
Add self raising flour mix well
Pour batter into an oven proof dish
Arrange apples on top of batter

Bake at 200°C for 30 minutes

Method for Syrup:

Boil castor sugar and evaporated milk or cream for about 5 minutes

Add caramel essence

Remove from stove

Remove apple tart from oven when done, pour hot syrup over the apple tart.  I like to run a knife around the edges, and pull the pudding away from the corners, so that the gorgeous caramel sauce can slide in around the dish and soak into the sides.  

Serve with cream or with a spoon of really good vanilla ice-cream.

Chicken Makhani aka Indian Butter Chicken

This tastes better than the Indian Butter Chicken at that well known, you know who, expensive Indian Restaurant in Pretoria.  You can make this as mild or spicy as you wish by adjusting the cayenne pepper.  Now a word of caution, don't try and pull "this is vitamins" on the kids, they will not buy it this time. 

 Ingredients:

Indian Butter Chicken

For the sauce:
1 tablespoon peanut oil
1 shallot, finely chopped (optional)
1 white onion, chopped
2 tablespoons butter
2 teaspoons lemon juice
1 tablespoon ginger-garlic paste
1 teaspoon garam masala
1 teaspoon chilli powder
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 bay leaf
¼ cup plain yogurt
½ cup milk
½ cup cream
1 cup tomato puree
¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper, to taste
Salt and black pepper, to taste

For the chicken:

1 tablespoon peanut oil
500 – 700 g skinless chicken thighs, cut into bite size pieces
1 teaspoon garam masala
1 pinch cayenne pepper (if you must)

At the end:

1 tablespoon cornstarch
¼ cup water

Method for the sauce:

1. Heat  1 tablespoon peanut oil in a large pot over medium high heat.
2. Saute shallot and onion until soft and translucent.
3. Stir in butter, lemon juice, ginger garlic paste, 1 teaspoon garam masala, chilli powder, cumin and bay leaf.
4. Cook, stirring, for 1 minute.
5. Add tomato puree and cook for 2 minutes, stirring frequently.
6. Stir in milk, cream and yogurt.
7. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 10 minutes, stirring frequently.
8. Season with salt, pepper and cayenne pepper.
9. Remove from heat and set aside.

Method for the chicken:

1. Heat 1 tablespoon oil in large heavy skillet over medium heat.
2. Cook chicken until lightly browned, about 10 minutes.
3. Reduce heat and season with 1 teaspoon garam masala and cayenne pepper.

Method for the END:

1. Pour the rest of the sauce onto the chicken
2. Mix together cornstarch and water, then stir into the sauce
3. Cook for 5 to 10 minutes, or until thickened.

Serve with Jasmine rice.

30 minute Bolognaise, during the week that works for me!

I am sure many of you have had a blue, pink or green Tuesday before, I had a very blue one today.  So dinner had to be quick and funky.  Please excuse the repeat of chillies, but i had some leftover from the peanut chicken curry, and I just had to dress up this Tuesday dinner plate for its photo shoot.

Ingredients:
2 tbs olive oil
1 medium onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 medium-large carrot, finely diced
1 large stick celery, sliced
500 g lean minced beef
1/2 tsp dried basic
1/2 tsp dried marjoram
400 g can whole tomatoes in juice
300 g can tomato puree
1/2 - 1 tsp salt
black pepper to taste
500 g long pasta (spagetti, fettuccine, etc)
1/4 cup of white wine (always cook with wine :)
Method:

Heat the oil in a very large pan.  Add the onion and garlic and saute for 2-3 minutes, stirring frequently, until the onion is soft.

 Add the carrot and celery, stir then cook for 1 minute longer.  Stir in the beef mince and cook until this loses its pink colour.  Turn and stir frequently to break up any lumps.  Add the dried herbs, tomatoes in juice and tomato puree. Mix together and allow the mixture to come to the boil.

Reduce the heat to a gentle simmer and cover with a lid.  Allow the sauce to simmer gently, for 10 - 15 minutes, stirring occasionally, while you cook the pasta.  If you think the sauce is getting too dry, add 1/4 cup of white wine to thin it down.  Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Drain the cooked pasta.  Toss it in a little olive oil or butter and arrange on individual plates.  Pour or spoon over the sauce and serve topped with chopped fresh parsley, coriander or chillies and grated parmesan or cheddar cheese.

Butternut Bake With Vitamins

My trusted Butternut Bake, we usually have this with a braai or even a roast chicken, always a charm, and everyone always asks for the recipe, so here we go.

Ingredients:

1 or 2 butternuts cubed. ( I also use the already cubed butternut packets that you buy either from Woolies, Spar or Pick n Pay.)  In our case today, these packets didn't make it across the border, so we had to cube some ourselves, its hard work.

1 packet of White onion soup
250 ml cream
175 g plain yogurt (Lana uses Bulgarian yogurt, but even that didn't make it across the border)
1 tsp crushed garlic

Method:

Mix together white onion soup, cream, yogurt and crushed garlic.  Pour over butternut cubes add some black pepper if the kids will allow it, otherwise just sneak it in there and tell them its vitamins.  

Place in ovenproof dish, cover with foil.  Bake at 180°C for 35 minutes.

See now this is full of vitamins

Expensive Sunday Chocolate Guinness Cake

The reason this one turned out to be an expensive round was because on a sunday the bottle store is closed here in Gaborone.  So of course the only alternative is to send my husband to the local Keg to buy one Guinness Beer for 35 Pula.  I think he stopped trying to explain that he needed it for a chocolate cake recipe when the waiter just continued to have this blank look on his face, took the money, handed him the beer, turned around and walked away.

The recipe asks for 400 ml Guinness Beer, a can of Guinness measures 440 ml.  At this point you can masterfully crack the can open, slurp the 40 ml that bubbles up and keep the rest for the cake.

Ingredients:

225 g butter, softened
350 g brown sugar
4 large eggs, lightly beaten
225 g plain flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
400 ml Guinness beer
100 g Cocoa Powder

Pre-heat your oven to 180°C

Butter and line a 20-25cm cake tin with greaseproof paper

Method:

Cream the butter and sugar until pale and creamy.  Slowly add the beaten eggs, mixing well to incorporate.  Sift together the flour, baking powder and bicarb.

Stir the cocoa powder into the Guinness.

Bit by bit, alternating between the two, add the flour and the Guinness mixture to the egg mixture, mixing well until completely combined.

Spoon into the tin and bake for 1 - 1/2 hours or until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out fairly clean.  The top will begin to crack but the cake should still be moist inside.

Remove from the oven and leave to rest for 10 minutes before turning out on a wire rack to cool.

Once completely cooled, drizzle the top with ganache.

Ganache ingredients:

200 g dark or white chocolate

200 ml fresh cream

15 g butter chilled

Place cream in glass jug and microwave until boiling point, pour over chocolate and stir until chocolate is completely melted.

Add the chilled butter and continue to stir until you have a smooth chocolaty consistency.

Let the ganache sit at room temperature until it cools before you ice the cake. (I don't have time for the sitting around part, so I just pop it in the freezer for a bit to cool down)

Spotty ribbon (Ribnz), courtesy of Elmarie Mentz

Peanut Chicken Curry

So the only Thai Restaurant in Gaborone was closed, due to an armed robbery a while back.  No one was hurt, but it did turn out to be a scary ordeal, as one of my colleagues had been a victim that unfortunate evening.  Apart from the "Son in laws eggs" on the menu, we really felt like Peanut Chicken Curry, and I stumbled upon this recipe in the food section on News24.com.

 

I figured this would be easy enough as you don't have to speak Thai, and all the ingredients are readily available even in Gaborone Botswana. 

 

Peanut Chicken Curry

Have some white wine while cooking

Ingredients

800 g skinless chicken breasts, de-boned

3 garlic cloves, thinly sliced

1.5 tsp crushed ginger

2 heaped tbsp smooth peanut butter

3 Tbs soy sauce

2 Tbs fish sauce

1 tsp brown sugar

1 tsp Thai red curry paste

1 tin coconut milk

1 tin chicken stock/water (using the same tin as the coconut milk)

 

Method

Cut the chicken into chunks and fry in a large, hot wok until browned. Remove from the wok and set aside.  Briefly fry the garlic and ginger before adding back the chicken. Stir fry for a minute before adding the peanut butter, soy sauce, fish sauce,brown sugar and curry paste. Stir fry and allow the peanut butter to melt. Add the coconut milk and chicken stock /water and stir carefully to combine all the ingredients.  Lower the heat and allow to simmer for 10-15 minutes until the sauce has thickened slightly.  If the sauce needs salt/sugar, add more brown sugar or soy sauce.  Serve with jasmine rice and sugar snap peas.

Dress it up with chillies and coriander

Reprinted with permission of Simply Delicious.
To visit Simply Delicious’ blog, click here.

Life is uncertain. Eat dessert first!

Life is definitely uncertain.  We never know what waits around the next corner, or even what the next day would deliver to our doorstep.  It's with this uncertainty that I decided what the heck, let me start this blog and see what the future holds.

I felt like cupcakes and photography today so I whipped out my trusted vanilla cupcake recipe and started shooting.  After dressing up these babies, I lined them up for their photo shoot, which was actually quite easy as it doesn't take much for a cupcake to sit still.

Basic Vanilla Cup Cake Recipe

Ingredients:

150 g Butter - softened

150 g Castor sugar

175 g Self-raising flour

3 eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

Method:

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees celcius.

2. Line a 12 cup cake tin, with cup cake papers.

3. Crack the eggs into a cup and beat lightly with a wisk.

4. Place all the ingredients in a large bowl.

5. Beat with an electric mixer for 2 minutes, until light and creamy.

6. Divide the mixture evenly between the cake cases.

7. Bake for 18-20 minutes until risen and firm to touch.

8. Allow to cool fully before icing.

Butter Cream Frosting

Ingredients:

150 g Butter - softened

250 g icing sugar

1tsp vanilla

2 tsp hot water

Method:

1. Beat together the butter and sugar with an electric beater.

2. Once well combined, add the vanilla and water.

3. Beat until smooth and creamy.