Karyn in the Kitchen

By way of explanation

2012-01-03T07:59:00.000-08:00

I owe you an explanation. We had a good thing going, you and I. And then I just disappeared. That was rude, and I'm sorry.

So what happened?

Well, early in September, my family of four became a family of five.

Normally, new arrivals to a family come with several months' advance notice, and weigh in at about 3.5kgs. Not always, as it turns out. Some of them arrive fully grown.

Skye is 19 years old, stands at least 6'1"(185cm) and weighed a very scrawny 55kgs (less than 9 stone or around 120lbs). I am pleased to say that he now weighs considerably more than that, and he continues to gain weight and build muscle mass. He has had a very difficult life, and is torn between a burning desire to turn things around and an abject fear of losing his identity.

Originally, he just needed a place to stay. He had arrived in our town - having walked 40 miles from another city - in search of his estranged father because he had nowhere else to go. He had exhausted all his other options, and was in a rather dark place. Living with his father (for reasons I am exploring in a book he and I are writing together, but do not feel released to reveal here) was a very stressful and traumatic experiment. He was on the brink of returning to a life on the streets of London. Yes, I said 'returning'.

By this time, he had befriended our sons, and was spending many nights sleeping on a mattress on the floor of my elder son's bedroom.

Permit me a proud mother's moment to interrupt my narrative in order to brag a little: my elder son has the smallest bedroom in the house. A mattress on the floor in there takes up all remaining floor space, but this has never stopped him from offering friends the opportunity to stay over when visiting the town (of course, when the friends are girls we have to make a different arrangement, but that is another story). We have several regular visitors, and have grown very fond of them. By the time we became aware of Skye's plans to head for London, many was the morning that I would go into my elder son's bedroom and find him sleeping on the mattress on the floor, while Skye had the bed.

But back to my story.

We couldn't stand by and let this lad head back to a life that had nearly killed him on more than one occasion, so we converted my studio in the loft into a bedroom and offered him a home with us. I checked with my younger son that he was okay with this arrangement, and he said two things: first, he had had a dream in which he had introduced someone to "my brothers, Björn and Skye" and secondly, that he believed that God had sent Skye to us for us to love.

People keep telling us what a wonderful thing we're doing, but that's not how it seems to us. And actually, I wish they'd stop. There was a while there when I started to 'believe my press' as the saying goes, and very nearly broke the fragile, precious thing we hold in our hands as a consequence. "Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might" (Ecc 9:10). So we do this, and we do it unstintingly. It isn't always plain sailing, as you can imagine. There have been and will continue to be some very rocky moments, and new challenges around every corner. But we love him. Simply put: I used to have two boys, and now I have three.

From left: Skye (19), Torvald (18), Björn (20)

His background is almost as far removed from ours as it possible to be, but I don't give a fig. He never had a champion before, but he does now, and woe betide the person who threatens, insults or judges him!

So what does this have to do with you, you might ask?

Simply this. I have been so occupied with the change in my family's structure and dynamic, that I have stepped down from several of my projects, including this one.

I just felt that you had the right to know.

Oh... and our younger son now frequently introduces people to "my brothers, Björn and Skye."

Plum jam

2011-08-24T08:48:00.000-07:00

I was recently given a large bag of slightly overripe plums, so I did what one does with large quantities of fruit that won't get eaten. I made jam.

Before we get started on the actual recipe, I should just debunk a few jam myths:

'Pound for pound' for all jams, i.e. use a pound of sugar per pound of fruit. Not all fruits work well with these proportions.
Only use fresh fruit, preferably under ripe. You can make jam with frozen fruit, and you can also use very ripe fruit, but you might want to add a source of pectin.

Ingredients
Plums - as many as you have
Sugar - equal weight to plums (if you ca get preserving sugar, great, but it's not essential)
Water 30ml per 500g of plums
Lemon juice - half a lemon per 500g of plums. If your plums are very ripe, up the lemon juice quantity
Jam jars with lids (see below for yield information)

Method

Wash plums.
Place the plums and water in a large saucepan (better to err on the large side, you will need extra space when it boils up) and stew slowly until the skins are soft. I have a tendency to assault them with a wooden spoon during this stage, to release the juices.
Add the sugar and stir until the sugar has dissolved.
Add the lemon juice and boil rapidly without stirring until the jam reaches 105C (220F). I use a sugar thermometer, but there are other ways of testing a jam for readiness. I found that this stage went very quickly for purple plums, but it varies from fruit to fruit and also depends on the ripeness of the fruit.
While the jam is boiling, sterilise the jars. You can expect a yield of 1.66 times the weight of the fruit you used. Make sure you have enough bottles!
Before bottling the jam, prepare the bottles with boiling water, or they will crack from the heat of the jam.
Fill the jars right up and immediately screw the lids on. As the jam cools, it will shrink slightly, drawing the lid down and sealing the jars properly.
Wait for the jam to cool and set and enjoy on toast with cheese.

Zucchini (aka courgette) and carrot muffins

2011-08-16T08:24:00.000-07:00

I finally get to add a recipe to the Z section of my recipe index. Woohoo!!

This is not a recipe with a back story, more's the pity. This is one of those google-and-tweak jobs that you do when you have a boatload of something-or-other and need a recipe to use it up.

Oven temperature
180C

Ingredients
175ml vegetable oil
2 eggs
175ml sugar
125ml dark brown sugar
5ml vanilla extract
500ml plain flour
2.5ml baking powder
2.5ml bicarbonate of soda
Pinch salt
10ml cinnamon (or you might prefer ground cardamom seeds)
375ml grated raw zucchini (skin and all)
125ml grated carrot
125ml chopped pecan nuts (optional)

Method

Pop about 12 cupcake cases into muffin trays, or grease up muffin trays for about a dozen muffins.
Beat the oil and sugars well.
Add eggs and vanilla and beat some more.
Sift together the dry (powdered) ingredients into a separate bowl and then stir into the wet ingredients.
Stir in the veg and nuts.
Divide between the muffin cups/cupcake cases. These should be about 3/4 full to allow space to rise.
You might like to sprinkle the top with more cinnamon (or cardamom).
Bake for about 20 minutes until done (test with a skewer).

What do I do with....courgettes?

2011-08-11T08:06:00.000-07:00

Courgettes, aka zucchini or baby marrow are a lot more versatile than people give them credit for. These vegetables, if left to their own devices can grow very large indeed, but are (in my opinion) at their best when harvested young - anything between finger and banana sized. Speaking of bananas, courgettes may have green or yellow skin. One thing to note - they have tiny hairs on the skin which can trap little grains of grit... adding a most unwelcome crunch to the eating experience. So wash them well before using, but don't peel them.

Let's explore a few things you could do with them once you've done that.

I have encountered cooks who can't think of a use for one lonely courgette (or carrot, or whatever) when cooking for more than two people. A single courgette doesn't have to be left to rot in the veg compartment of the fridge. You can do things with them so that they don't go to waste.

Raw:
Pretty much as you would with a cucumber (although it tastes comp-uh-letely different), you could slice a courgette into your salad. You could also cut it into 'fingers' to use as crudites with dips.

Steamed or boiled:
Courgette works really well as one of the veg in the traditional meat-and-two-veg meal. You can steam or boil it for this. I suggest either halving them lengthwise or cutting them into fat chunks, rather than the sort of thin slices that you would for a carrot. They cook quickly!

Stir fried:
Absolutely yummy in a stir fry, this might be where you want to slice the courgettes fairly thinly. Unless of course, you're using the teeny weeny ones (finger sized), then I'd just halve them lengthwise. Courgette is also one of the traditional ingredients of ratatouille.

Roast/baked:
If you're doing a huge joram of roasted mixed veg (beetroot, carrots, potatoes, peppers, etc.), try throwing in a few large chunks of courgette. As an alternative, you could use them with (or even instead of) cauliflower and/or broccoli in a cauliflower cheese bake.

While in Australia on his gap year, my elder son spent some time with the Kitchen Crusader, and he taught me one of her tricks with courgette. Thinly slice lengthwise and use the slices to line an oiled loaf tin. Fill with cheesy mashed potato. Bake in a moderate oven for about half an hour or so and turn out onto a plate. I'm just imagining adding bacon to that... among other things.

Soups:
Because they cook so fast, and can disintegrate, they may not be at their best in a stew, but there are some fantastic courgette soup recipes out there!

Cakes:
Just yesterday, I was given some courgettes straight from someone's garden. I used some in a stir fry for dinner, and the rest were used to make courgette and carrot muffins. They were absolutely delicious, and I will share the recipe with you next week. But if you happen to have some courgettes to hand and you don't want to wait for my recipe, get googling - the Internet is your oyster!

So... happy cooking!

Image by raven_ryyder

Carrot, beetroot and banana cake

2011-08-10T07:04:00.000-07:00

You may already know that it is possible to use beetroot (beets, to you Americans) in cakes. Or you may think I have wigged out. But I haven't. Honest. Try it.

I mentioned recently that I had found some beetroots on the marked-down-for-quick-clearance shelf at my local supermarket. Well, on that same day, I also found some past-their-best carrots and a bag of totally over-ripe, bruised bananas.

Please don't ever throw your over-ripe bananas out. I know how it goes: you have a family of banana-lovers, and you buy a large bunch because they're on a special. Then, just that week, the kids decide they're not in the mood for bananas and your spouse goes out of town on business. So they begin to look a little unsightly.

I don't enjoy the taste of over-ripe bananas on their own like that, but in this state, they are at their best for use in baking or smoothies, because the flavour is strong and sweet. So bake a banana loaf, or make up some smoothies. Both these things can be frozen.

Just as an added extra to today's recipe (and I will get to it, I promise), here's a smoothie I used to give my kids when they were little and feeling unwell enough to be off their food (all quantities are 'some'):
banana
honey
plain yoghurt
vanilla ice cream (just a smidge)
raw porridge oats

Just zhoozh that lot up together in the blender and serve with ice and a curly straw.

Anyhoo, back to what I did with the rest of the beetroots and the other things I found that day:

Oven temperature
180 (you might have to reduce this - see method below)

Ingredients
250ml sugar
250ml oil
3 eggs
375ml plain (cake) flour
7.5ml baking powder
7.5ml bicarbonate of soda
10ml ground cinnamon
250ml grated carrot (about one 5"/12cm carrot)
250ml mashed banana (about 3 smallish bananas)
250ml grated, raw beetroot

Icing
250ml icing sugar
'Some' cream cheese
Little lemon juice
Little water, if necessary

Method

Cream sugar, oil and eggs well.
Sift flour, baking powder, bicarb and cinnamon together and add to the creamed mixture.
Add remaining ingredients. Blend well together.
Pour into a deep cake pan and bake for about an hour. Check from time to time with a skewer. I found this baked really slowly, and the top started to burn a little, so I lowered the oven temperature and covered the cake with foil.
Allow to cool on a rack. Don't ice it until it has cooled down completely.

Icing

Mix a little icing sugar with the cream cheese until creamed.
Keep adding icing sugar and mixing in.
Add a little lemon juice for bite.
If it gets too stiff, add just a tiny bit of water.
Spread over the cooled cake.

Just so you know, this cake lasted less than an afternoon in my household! Oh, and that saucer (in the photo) is one of only two left from my late grandmother's tea service. I am very fond of it.

(Sort of) Borscht

2011-08-08T09:45:00.000-07:00

You've probably realised that I'm a pretty transparent, heart-on-my-sleeve sort of person. I'm no good at dissembling (and have no interest in acquiring the skill, either, come to that). So if you are connected to me in other spaces, you will know the brutal truth that the reason that I have not been posting many recipes here, lately, is that I simply can't afford the ingredients. It occurred to me that, if I was being so up-front about it on Facebook and Twitter, there was no reason to be coy about it here.

We are currently in a fairly difficult financial position that is set to get immeasurably worse within the next few months. Of course, we continue to hope for a miracle and to work hard at making sure we have left no stone unturned, but, for now, it is what it is. We have been blessed by friends who have given us food hampers, which has been wonderful and kept us all fed, but I have been uninspired recipe-wise. I hope you understand.

Be all that as it may, my local supermarket has a shelf where they sell fresh produce that has passed its best. I decided to pull my head out of my... erm... navel and get creative with what was on offer there. This is what I did yesterday, with a bag of no-longer-firm beetroot (beets, to you Americans) I found. Variations of beetroot soup (probably best known as borscht) are very popular in most East European countries.

The thing you need to know about this soup is that it is extremely low in fat (apart from the soured cream, that is, and you could always choose to leave that bit out) and highly nutritious.

Ingredients
15ml olive oil
1 onion, finely chopped
1 stick celery, sliced (optional - I leave this out because I have one son who loathes it)
3 or 4 beetroots, peeled and grated
1 large potato, peeled and grated
1 carrot, scraped and grated
1.25l stock - meat for omnivores, vegetable for veggies
Black pepper
Splash of red wine
Generous pinch of sugar
Soured cream

Method

In a large saucepan, heat the oil and saute the onion and celery until the onion becomes slightly translucent.
Add the carrot, beetroot and potato just briefly.
Add the stock and bring to the boil.
Reduce the heat and simmer for about 40 minutes.
Season with black pepper (and salt if you feel compelled) to taste.
Add the red wine and sugar. Stir until the sugar has dissolved.
Serve, with a dollop of soured cream and crusty brown bread.

Some things you can try with this soup:

Add a sprig or two of dill - it's surprising how well dill works with beetroot!
Add about 15ml of freshly grated ginger root (instead of the dill, not as well as).
Instead of either of the above, about 5ml horseradish will put hairs on your chest, if you like the stuff (I don't).

What do I do with...eddoes?

2011-08-04T07:22:00.000-07:00

This is one of those things that regularly appears on the 'exotic' stand in the fruit and veg section of our larger supermarkets, along with mooli, yams, okra and dudhi. It's one of those things you might pick up and look at from various angles, wondering "What's one of these? To which cultural group is this an everyday thing? What would I do with it? Would the kids even eat it if I bought one and had a go?" Okay, you might not. But I did. So now you don't have to!

They are found in places like the Caribbean and are popular with West Indian cultures. We have a great many people of West Indian descent in our area, so it's no surprise that our supermarkets stock these corms - they know their target market! Apparently, they are also a staple in parts of Africa, but I never encountered them in any of the parts I visited. I must not have visited the right parts - after all, it is a large continent!

Eddoes look a bit like hairy, striped potatoes, and you can pretty much treat them as you would a potato. Chips, mash, roast, sauteed... the whole shebang.

To be honest, that is really all I need to say about them. They have a slightly different taste: sweeter and slightly nutty, with a silkier in texture. They feel a little slimy when you're working with the raw version, but don't be put off, they don't taste slimy when cooked.

Our eddo experiment...

We tried this recipe, which has them coarsely mashed with sauteed onion and a dash of chilli. Very nice, they were, too. All four members of the family approved. Tesco has also provided a few recipes that are worth exploring.

What do I do with...cauliflower?

2011-07-28T09:05:00.000-07:00

I suspect that, for most people, the knee jerk thing to do with cauliflower is to serve it with cheese sauce. But, my very earliest childhood memory of cauliflower is fishing it out of the bottle of pickled veg before my Dad got to it. They were his favourites, too, so competition was hot!

From this, you will deduce that you can pickle it very successfully.

It can also be eaten raw, chopped up into small pieces in a salad or larger pieces to serve with a dip.
It works very well in a stew. You should pop it in fairly late, though, because it contains high levels of water and could go a bit mushy otherwise. Mind you, some people like it like that. In fact, if you cook it long enough to go fairly soft (don't destroy it!), you can mash it up with potatoes.

Served as a veg in its own right, it can be steamed or boiled (I prefer steamed, you won't be astonished to hear). If you fancy adding the cheese sauce, or even just white sauce, you go right ahead, but don't be misled into thinking that this is the only option and that cauliflower is off the menu if you've run out of milk and/or cheese.

I once ate a cream of cauliflower soup that was absolutely delicious and was astonished to discover how easy it was to make. Here's one example, but there are many others. I have also found that a cream of cauliflower-and-butternut soup works very well, and you can make it by following the cream of cauliflower recipe, and just adding some cooked butternut at the blending stage. As far as I'm concerned, butternut and cauliflower were made for each other (a bit like Forrest Gump's peas 'n keerits).

If you like a bit of bite to your food, try this cauliflower curry. Veggies may like this chickpea and cauliflower curry, which adds the protein source.

Image by Ian Britton.

What do I do with... carrots?

2011-07-21T13:55:00.000-07:00

When I was a child, my grandfather had a vegetable garden in which he grew carrots. My grandparents' home was where we spent our Christmas holidays (which were in the height of summer, remember), as did all the rest of family: my mother's siblings and their spouses and - in due course - children. The cousins all played in the garden. When we got thirsty, we drank water straight out of the garden tap. If there was a hosepipe attached to the tap, we drank straight out of that. It didn't occur to us to do anything else. When we felt peckish, we dug up a carrot or pilfered some beans.

I still remember the taste of a just-washed carrot straight from the garden.

So, yes. You can eat them raw. Just like that, or dipped in houmous or sour cream and chive dip. You can also grate them up and pop them in a salad.

And before I go getting all sensible, they make a wonderful cake ingredient (but the icing absolutely has to be cream cheese icing!).

They can also be steamed or boiled (I prefer steaming) until just soft to serve as a vegetable. If you're not accustomed to cooking carrots, it is better to err on the side of raw rather than slushy and completely overcooked. If you saw Forrest Gump, you will know that 'peas 'n keerets' are a very good combination!

You could mash them together with potato and swedes, which is very popular in Sweden (although they don't call swedes by that name there, as you might expect).

Carrots can also be roasted. Just pop them in with your parsnips and/or beetroot next time.

And there is an endless supply of soup recipes involving carrots to one degree or another. Too many for me to even start trying to link to them all.

One really great thing about carrots is that you can grate them up into mince dishes while cooking (a) to make the dish go a bit further and (b) to get some veg down the neck of your picky eaters without their even noticing.

Image by kumarnm

Lemon and poppy seed cupcakes

2011-07-20T06:59:00.000-07:00

My boss's husband is a keen gardener, and he has been collecting up the seeds from the many poppies in his garden, ready for next year's crop. I decided to put some of them to culinary use. I genuinely had every single ingredient in the cupboard, so I was able to make these without spending any... what's that stuff called again?

Every second person you speak to has a recipe for these, it seems. This is the one I used. I reckon (predictably enough) that they'd be even better with lime!

Oven temperature
180C

Ingredients
Cupcakes
275g caster sugar
200g butter, left at room temperature for a couple of hours to soften
540ml self raising flour
4 eggs, separated
Juice and grated zest of 3 small lemons
2.5ml vanilla extract
Poppy seeds (some)
Cupcake cases (about 18ish)

Icing
250ml icing sugar
Juice and grated zest of 1 lemon
Little water

Method

Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.
Beat in the egg yolks, one at a time.
Sift in the flour and mix well.
Add lemon juice, lemon zest, about 10ml of poppy seeds and vanilla and beat some more.
Beat the egg whites in a separate bowl with clean blades and then fold into the main mixture.
Place your cupcake cases into muffin pans and spoon in the mixture. The cases should be about 3/4 full.
Bake for about 20-25 minutes until done (test one or two with a skewer).
Cool in the muffin pan for a little while before placing them on a cooling rack.
Ice as follows: mix together the lemon juice, zest and icing sugar. If it is a little stiff, add just a bit of water.
Plop a dollop on top of each cooled cupcake and then sprinkle with some of the poppy seeds.

What do I do with...cabbage?

2011-07-14T07:14:00.000-07:00

I find it surprising how many of the people in those healthy eating type programmes, where the person's diet is given a makeover, don't recognise a cabbage, let alone know what to do with it. It strikes me as being one of the most commonplace of vegetables. However, just in case you're not familiar with it, here are some ideas as to what to do with this versatile vegetable.
When I was a child, I loathed cabbage... except for my Gran's pickled red cabbage (note: the link doesn't go to my Gran's recipe, that is lost to the grave, more's the pity), but then I was pickle-mad, it has to be said - I had been known to eat an entire bottle of gherkins in a sitting, and then drink the vinegar!

This iffy relationship was not improved when I went to boarding school and was regularly served a grey-ish substance that had once been cabbage, until the life was boiled out of it.

My relationship with cabbage now could hardly be further from that. And the same is true of my family. In fact, it is a miracle that my husband still has all ten fingers, because he regularly steals raw cabbage as I'm chopping it, and eats it straight into his mouth with a look of sheer bliss. Nor have I ever had to put up with the whinging my mother used to get at the dinner table: both my sons have happily eaten cabbage from the get go.

Until I moved to the UK, I only knew one kind of cabbage (other than red), and that was the sort that is known as green cabbage, here. There are also white cabbages which (as the name implies) are almost white, and very tightly packed. The leaves are much firmer and more brittle. But I think my favourite must be savoy cabbage. It is much darker, with curly leaves and has a stronger taste, somewhere along the road to Brussels sprouts, but not quite that strong.

Cabbage can be eaten raw in salads. There are scores of recipes out there for salads that involve cabbage. In the UK, the most popular is coleslaw. When I was a child, my Mom used to make a salad she (perhaps unimaginatively) called 'cabby appy' for family barbecues: cabbage and apple salad. This involved chopped cabbage and apple with raisins (and sometimes roast peanuts), all mixed up with mayonnaise.

All cabbages can also be steamed or boiled, but take care not to destroy the stuff completely until you're left with a barely identifiable, watery mass. I tend to steam mine and I like to add caraway or cumin seeds.

You can also use finely sliced cabbage very successfully in a stirfry with carrots, onions, bean sprouts, bell peppers, baby corn and sugar snap peas (and meat, if you like).

Cabbage is absolutely delicious in soups and stews, and it features heavily in a great many traditional European dishes, some of which I have even shared on this site, such as kåldolmar.

Cabbage is also the main ingredient of sauerkraut. You could make your own, or buy it from the supermarket and then use it in Polish bigos.

In researching this post, I have come across some fabulous sites offering cabbage recipes. Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall has some great ideas for red cabbage, while Cherie Stihler has dedicated an entire page to cabbages in general.

Image by richcd.

You may notice some service interruptions

2011-07-11T09:20:00.000-07:00

For personal reasons I won't lay at your doorstep, I am going to have to reduce the frequency of my posts on this blog for a while.
I have tried to avoid having it come to this, but reality got in the way, as it does. I toyed with the idea of posting recipes without photos, but thought better of it. I like to provide you with evidence that the recipe I'm posting works with current ingredients and equipment. For example, I have noticed that my older recipes call for far more salt than more modern recipes, and I want to give you an accurate run down of what I actually use, not what the original recipes ask for.

I hope that you will continue to swing by as and when I am able to share recipes. I will keep posting links on Twitter and Facebook, so that you are still notified when there is something new to try.

Lime drizzle cupcakes

2011-07-08T09:05:00.000-07:00

I recently made these for my neighbours' 58th wedding anniversary. I promise to make something far more splendiferous for their diamond anniversary in a couple of years' time.

Oven temperature
180C

Ingredients
100g butter, kept in a warm place for a couple of hours to soften it slightly
125ml caster sugar
1 large egg, separated
5ml vanilla extract
175ml plain flour, sifted
10ml finely grated lime zest (or you could use lemon)
5ml baking powder
60ml milk
juice of half a lime

Icing
25ml lime juice
60ml icing sugar

Method

Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.
Whisk in the egg yolk and vanilla.
Add the sifted flour, zest and baking powder and beat until it is all blended together.
Add the milk and beat a little before adding the lime juice and beating a bit more for good measure.
In a separate bowl (with clean blades) whisk the egg white until it forms peaks.
Fold egg-whites into the rest of the mixture.
Grease your cupcake pan, or pop a paper cupcake case into each hollow.
Divide the mixture among about 8-10 cupcake spaces and spread it evenly.
Bake for about 20-30 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.
Cool in the baking tin for a few minutes, then remove and place in a huddle on a flat plate. Poke a few holes in their tops
Whisk the juice and icing sugar together, then drizzle over the cupcakes.
Pop the cupcakes onto a cooling rack until cooled.

What do I do with....parsnips?

2011-07-07T09:09:00.000-07:00

Parsnips something look like anaemic carrots. In fact, in Afrikaans, parsnips are called 'witwortels' (white roots) to distinguish them from 'geelwortels' (yellow roots). Because the yellow roots are more common, they are usually simply referred to as 'roots' (wortels).

However, they have a very different taste. I can remember being surprised to find them so sweet and not even slightly turnip/swede like in taste.

I have previously shared a recipe for roast parsnips, which is my favourite thing to do with them, but you can also:

Roast them with honey a la Jamie Oliver (who also seems to like them with cumin)
Add them to a salad
Boil/steam them as you would carrots. In fact, you could mix them together with carrots for a bit of interest
Use them in a soup as an additional ingredient - just grate some into your existing recipe
Use them as the main ingredient of a soup (or even this)
Make them into chips (which you can also do with carrots and beetroot, by the way)

In fact, in my research for this post, I came across an entire site dedicated to parsnip recipes. So I shall leave you with a link to said site and urge you to go off on a parsnip-fuelled adventure.

Cardamom babka

2011-07-06T11:59:00.000-07:00

This is a variation on Tessa Kiros's recipe for 'Bobba's babka' from her book Falling Cloudberries. Kiros is ~~one of~~ my favourite favourites. She has a mixed heritage, has lived in various parts of the world, and loves preparing food for people. What a brilliant combination!

Her beautifully presented books are what inspired me to attach a little back story to each of my recipes on this blog. You can curl up and read them even if you're not in the mood for cooking that day... mind you, chances are that you soon will be.

This recipe is quite time consuming, but there are long periods when you can get on with other things while it looks after itself in a warm place.

I made this on Saturday to take to church on Sunday, but it didn't quite work out as planned, due to a rookie mistake on my part. Does it serve to encourage you to learn that I also make rookie mistakes, or does it cause you to lose confidence in my recipes? I'm going to take a chance. I shall reveal the rookie mistake at the appropriate moment.

I used a bread maker to mix up the dough, because yeast is my nemesis. Before I got my bread maker, I never produced a successful yeast-including product. Since I got my bread maker, I have never failed to produce a successful yeast-including product. Simple as.

I am going to share the recipe as per the original (non-bread maker) instructions, and then explain what I did differently.

Oven temperature
180C (adjust for fan assisted ovens)

Ingredients
625g plain (cake) flour
5ml salt
80ml caster sugar
15g dried yeast
250ml tepid milk
60ml vegetable oil (plus a little extra for brushing)
2 large eggs, lightly beaten

15ml ground cardamom (Kiros calls for cinnamon)
100g dark brown sugar
60g butter, softened

1 egg yolk
10ml milk
30g soft brown sugar

Method

In a large bowl, mix together the flour, salt.
In a smaller bowl, mix together the yeast, milk and oil and leave for 10 minutes to let the yeast start to do it's thang.
Scrape out the yeast mixture into the larger bowl (make sure you get it all - it tends to be reluctant) and mix well.
Add the eggs and mix some more.
Tip it out onto a floured surface and knead it well for about ten minutes.

OR... bung all the above ingredients into a bread maker and set it to 'dough' then proceed as below.

Brush the top with oil and pop it oily side down into a large, clean bowl. Brush the surface that is now on top with oil, too.
Cover with cling film (Saran wrap) and leave in a warm place for about an hour and a half to rise... and it will rise. It should now be about twice the size it was.
Split the dough in half and roll out one half on a floured surface. You need to get it about .5cm thick. It should preferably be a roughly rectangular shape of about 25x45cm, but don't panic if the shape isn't perfect.
Mix the cardamom with the butter and brown sugar and spread half of this over the rolled dough. Spread it well and evenly.
Roll the dough into a sausage along its longest edge and set aside, while you repeat this process with the rest of the dough.
Now lay the two sausages side by side and sort of twist/braid them together. Pinch the ends together well. When you've entwined them, give them a few extra twists, to tighten up the loaf.
Pop them into a greased 30cm loaf tin (and this is where my rookie mistake came in. I forgot to grease the loaf tin. I mean... really???) and leave in a warm place for another hour or so, to rise some more.
Mix together the egg yolk and milk and brush the top of the loaf. Sprinkle with brown sugar.
Bake for about 30-40 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean when you poke it right in the middle.
If the ends are cooking too quickly, and the middle too slowly, Kiros recommends you cover the ends of the loaf with foil.
Cool for a few minutes in the tin before turning out onto a cooling rack. For those of us who have made rookie mistakes, this is the moment when half the loaf empties out and the other half stays behind in the tin. It tastes, just as good, mind... it just doesn't look good enough to serve to guests.
Serve slightly warm or totally cooled (if it lasts that long) with or without butter.

Chicken madras

2011-07-05T09:45:00.000-07:00

Since I appear to have deleted my photos of this dish, I have opted to use a photo of coriander leaves/cilantro. Image by beglib.

The Indian foods I have eaten since moving to the UK have been so very different from the Indian foods I used to get in Durban, South Africa. It makes one realise what a large, multicultural country India is.

The Indian descendants living in South Africa are largely Tamils, whose forebears hailed from from the southern parts of India. The food they now eat in South Africa has of course been adapted over the generations based on the ingredients available to them.

It didn't occur to me at the time, but I never ate at an 'Indian' restaurant all the years I lived in Durban. I don't even remember seeing one. I guess it would be a bit like having an Italian restaurant in Rome, since Durban is often referred to as 'the capital of India', boasting over a million people of Indian heritage (possibly the largest in the world outside of India itself).

Nevertheless, while I was teaching at a performing arts school in the Indian sector of town, I got to know all the take-away places and greasy spoons nearby. My students, to whose parents a white teacher at the school was still something of a novelty, used to bring me Tupperware dishes of this or that "my mother made for you, mem." Sadly, I never got the recipes of all these wonders. In many cases, I didn't even get the names. But, as a struggling student, I was enormously grateful for the free meals!

I always knew when there had been a wedding in the family, because then I'd get burfi or jalebi. Maybe both! My housemates used to love that!

The Indian foods on offer in England usually owe their heritage to Kashmiri or Punjabi traditions. So it's naan bread instead of roti, more meat, less beans... and in general the food is more aromatic. Oh, and I haven't seen a chilli bite in aaaaages!

There are of course, 'Indian' dishes which have been invented in both England and South Africa, just as macaroni cheese is an American dish with a nod to Italian roots. But even those tend to follow the patterns of the cultural heritage of the local populations.

Over the years, my palate has become less hardy, and there is no way I could eat the fiery hot samoosas I used to scoff after the final class on my way to a singing gig 'back in the day'.

Today's dish has a bit of bite to it, but is still within what I would consider a reasonable range. It's one I learned to make in the UK, even though it hails from the more southerly parts of India (Chennai).

Ingredients
800g chicken, skinned and cut into bite sized pieces
1 large onions, finely chopped
6 tomatoes, finely chopped
2-3 small green chillies (adjust to taste), chopped
2.5cm piece of ginger root, peeled and grated (or just use the 'very lazy' kind in a tube)
4 cloves garlic, crushed
5ml chilli powder
2.5ml ground cumin
2.5ml ground coriander seeds
5ml turmeric
5ml nutmeg
2 cloves
3 cardamom pods
Garam masala (some)
Bunch coriander (cilantro) leaves
Pinch salt
75ml oil

Method

Heat the oil over a moderate heat in a heavy-based saucepan. Pop in the cloves and cardamom pods.
Add the onions and fry them well. Not just to the translucent stage you may be used to, but until they are well browned.
Stir in the green chillies, ginger, garlic, red chilli powder, cumin, coriander and turmeric. Stir for a couple of minutes.
Season with a pinch of salt and stir some more.
Add the chicken and stir for about 3 minutes to seal it. If it sticks a bit, add just a little water (no more than 50ml).
Add the nutmeg and tomatoes and cover. Simmer for about 20 minutes over a medium heat.
Sprinkle with garam masala and fresh coriander leaves to serve.
Serve with rice, naan bread, roti....or whatever starch your little heart desires.

Granny juice (aka lemon squash)

2011-07-04T09:03:00.000-07:00

When my kids were little, they both had a tendency to wheeze when given any commercially available squashes. We eventually identified the culprit as sulphur dioxide, a commonly used preservative in South Africa in those days, especially in fruit products.

So we avoided them. Since pure fruit juices, while abundant and richly varied in South Africa, were beyond our budget on any grand scale, this meant that the kids' liquid intake was somewhat restricted.

Fortunately, John's Mom used to make lemon squash - which the boys dubbed 'granny juice' - in vast quantities. It was delicious and refreshing. And, yes, it contained a lot of sugar, but absolutely nothing else nefarious.

And of course, it works just as well with limes... or a combination of the two.

Ingredients
12 unwaxed lemons, thoroughly washed
1kg sugar
2l (2,000ml) water

Method

If you're feeling dedicated, use a grater to grate off the zest of about half the lemons. Otherwise, use a vegetable peeler, but be careful not to get any of the pith.
Place the zest, water and sugar into a saucepan (not an aluminium one!) over a low heat and stir to dissolve the sugar. The liquid should be a yellow shade and smell of lemons.
Strain out the zest and set the liquid to one side.
Squeeze the juice out of the lemons and add to the liquid (which will have cooled down a bit by now). It is very important not to boil the juice, or even to heat it up too much, because that will destroy the vitamin C (apparently).
Bottle and keep until needed. Make sure the bottles are well sealed.
To drink, dilute just as you would any other squash to get the strength you require.

Oh... and the photo is my own. Just so you know ;o)

Risotto with an eastern twist

2011-07-01T07:39:00.000-07:00

This is based on another recipe from my 200 veggie feasts book. In the original version were ingredients of the sort not found in the average kitchen (most people I know have never even heard of mirin, for example... and Blogger's spellchecker certain doesn't seem to know what it is!) and I was not about to send you on wild goose chase for the sake of a few mls of this (30mls in the case of the mirin, for example) and a dash of that.

So I adapted.

As you would expect.

Ingredients
1200ml of veg stock (alright, you can use chicken if you must!)
15ml soy sauce
30ml white wine (or use sake or mirin if you have it)
60ml sunflower or olive oil (or replace 15mls with sesame oil, if you have some)
A few spring onions, chopped
2 cloves garlic, crushed
2.5cm piece of root ginger, peeled and grated (or a tablespoon of the 'very lazy' kind in a tube or bottle - don't use dried ground ginger if you can avoid it - it's nowhere near as nice)
375g arborio/paella rice (or bog standard rice, if it's all you have)
4 kaffir lime leaves, ripped up, or the grated zest of 1 lime
250g mushrooms (shiitake if you can get them, otherwise - you know - whatever), sliced
About 30ml chopped fresh coriander (cilantro) leaves with a few extras for garnish

Method

Warm up the stock, wine and soy sauce, but don't let it boil.
Heat 45ml of the oil in a saucepan or large frying pan and throw in the spring onions, garlic and ginger and stir fry on high for about a minute.
Lower the heat and add the rice and the lime leaves. Stir for about a minute until all the grains of rice are coated.
Add about 150ml of stock and stir until absorbed. Keep stirring and adding stock until you have about half a cupful left in the jug. You might like to turn the heat off on the rice while you do this next bit.
Use the remaining oil in a different panto fry the mushrooms for about 5 minutes.
Add the coriander and mushrooms to the rice, with the remaining stock. If you turned the heat off before, turn it back on now, but keep it low.
Stir until the liquid is pretty much absorbed.
Garnish with a few bits of fresh coriander leaf.

What do I do with... green beans?

2011-06-30T09:33:00.000-07:00

You very probably already know this, but in case you don't: you're supposed to eat the pod part of a green bean, too. Unlike other beans, you don't eat just the seed-bit and throw away the outside.

Green beans are readily available in frozen or canned form, but they're so easy to cook, and no initial faff is required, so you might as well buy them fresh and score all the extra nutrients.

I was always non-plussed by the fact that the package labels on green beans in UK supermarkets advise one not to eat them raw. All through my childhood, it was the norm to help ourselves to the green beans and carrots growing in my grandfather's vegetable garden. The beans were eaten as is. The carrots were first given a wash under the garden tap.

I can only think that fears of some dread foreign disease were behind the caution (witness the recent E-coli hoo-ha). But I live dangerously and carry right on eating raw green beans - even those that come from the supermarket!

So, if you're ready for a life on the edge, you can eat them raw, too. Just like that, or chopped up into a salad. Or dipped in houmous. Mmmm. Hust give them a good rinse first.

Otherwise you can boil or steam them (whole or sliced). You can steam them in your microwave or on the hob. Give me a shout if you're not sure about how to do either of those. Don't keep going until the life and goodness have been cooked out them, though! Ugh - the memories of grey beans at boarding school.... shudder.

Some people struggle with the fact that cooked green beans 'squeak on your teeth'. And it's true - they sometimes do. I have a son with tactile issues and green beans were always a challenge for him. I found that cooking them just that little bit longer solved the problem (as does eating them raw).

I once knew a woman who had worked as an au pair in Greece where she had learned to prepare green beans like this:

Blanch them (dip them in boiling water for a couple of minutes), then stir fry them with some crushed garlic in olive oil. Add a little lemon juice for zing. Verrrrry nice!

Then an Afrikaans friend used to mix them up with roughly mashed potato, which she sprinkled with pepper. I have to say, though, that she boiled the poor beans to death first.

Another very popular Afrikaans dish is groenboontjiebredie (green bean stew - and oh boy, did I struggle to find a decent English recipe for you!), which you might like to try one cold evening.

Ginger beer

2011-06-29T08:30:00.000-07:00

I really enjoy ginger beer, but the stuff that is sold commercially under that name is hardly worth drinking. However, I have a recipe (you might have guessed) that you might like to try.

It comes out of a a delightful little book that was put together in aid of Hospice in South Africa many years ago. It contains a collection of recipes from South African 'celebrities' (I use quotes because I'm not sure that the MPs included in the book should be given that label). I will be sharing other recipes from the book at some point, I'm sure, having recently rediscovered it hidden between two larger books on my recipe bookshelf (aka the windowsill in the conservatory).

I would like to explain why I purchased the book, if you don't mind:

During my Gran's agony-ridden final days, the Hospice people were a great comfort and help to us, visiting three times a day with the blessed syringe-borne relief for my Gran. Two of the workers even attended her funeral. They had not had the enormous privilege of knowing my Gran as a whole person in possession of a sound mind and a gentle heart, but they came anyway. And I'm glad they did, because they got a glimpse into the sort of a woman my Gran had been before the cancerous scourge had robbed her of her dignity, her graciousness and her humility.

Okay, now that I have utterly ruined my mascara, let me get back to the recipe for ginger beer, which - I should probably mention - takes about 10 days, and you will need a fair few 2l bottles, so get collecting.

According to the book, this recipe is a firm favourite of Nelson Mandela, but since this claim is made by a fictitious alter ego of a female impersonator, who allegedly made it for him, I'd take it with a pinch of salt, if I were you!

Ingredients
Stage 1
10ml yeast
80ml sugar
80ml grated ginger root (or you can use ground ginger, if you like)
500ml water

Stage 2
1,250ml sugar
2l (2,000ml) hot water
4l (4,000ml) cold water
200ml lemon juice

Method
Stage 1

Place the water in a jug or bowl and stir in the yeast, 10ml sugar and 10ml ginger.
Leave overnight.
Each day, for seven days, stir in another 10ml sugar and 10ml ginger.

Stage 2

Dissolve sugar in the hot water.
Add the cold water and lemon juice.
Strain the stage 1 mixture through a muslin and add it to the above.
Bottle and allow to stand for 1-2 days at room temperature. It's probably a good idea to leave a bit of space at the top of the bottles... just in case! And screw those caps on well.
Refrigerate and enjoy with ice and a sprig of mint or a slice of lime.

Cardamom loaf cake

2011-06-28T07:56:00.000-07:00

Years ago, I wouldn't have known what to do with cardamom (and please note that it is cardamom, not cardamon) if my life had depended on it. The first time I encountered it, my sister-in-law had bunged a pod in with some coffee that was percolating. It was thoroughly delicious! I also discovered that it was sometimes used in curries. So I bought some and used it occasionally to flavour coffee and curries.

Then, oh glorious then, we went on our first family trip to Sweden. The Swedes have this very civilised observance called elvakaffe - eleven (o' clock) coffee, which equates to the English elevenses. And of course, with the coffee, there must be a little something. And that little something had quite often been baked with cardamom. Where the recipes to which I was accustomed used cinnamon, the Swedes used cardamom instead, it seemed. Perhaps it was the novelty, but I decided then and there that cardamom was the superior flavour.

This recipe is a sort of amalgam of various cardamom loaf recipes I have acquired along the way. I always buy the spice in pod form and then grind it using a coffee grinder. It's a bit of a faff, but it's well worth it for the way it involves your nose in the flavour sensation.

Oven temperature
180C

Mix well...

Ingredients
125g butter
375ml caster sugar
3 eggs, separated
7.5ml ground cardamom seeds
1000ml self raising flour
5ml baking powder
Pinch salt
250ml water
60ml oil (I like it with olive oil, but you should experiment)

Slice and eat with butter

Method

Cream together the butter and sugar.
Stir in yolks and cardamom.
Add flour, salt, baking powder and water.
Beat egg whites until stiff and then fold into mixture.
Add oil and mix well.
Bake in a greased loaf tin for about an hour.
Cover with a cloth and allow it to cool in the tin for about 20 minutes before turning it out onto a cooling rack.
Slice up and eat with (or without) butter.

Themed children's parties: all the children of the world

2011-06-27T07:10:00.000-07:00

In 1997, we had a party with this theme. I baked the cake in an ovenproof bowl instead of a cake tin to get the curve I was after because, no the world isn't flat (shock horror). I iced it in blue icing. Then I used ready made icing in green and carefully traced on and cut out maps of half the world's land mass. In our case, Africa was foremost of course!

At the time, it was possible to get little flags on toothpicks, and I stuck those into the cake where appropriate

I didn't try to get clever with the rest of the eats, but placed them all around the cake, directly onto the tin foil wrapped table (as is my wont). The space was decorated with flags and pictures from all over the world.

Of course, those two flags had to be there!

This photo shows my sons aged 6 and 4, 'helping' me with the decorating. Our parties were always held in the garage, and the kids didn't come into the house other than to use the loo. Some of the moms took refuge in the house, though - it has to be said!

You could invite the children to dress up if you like, but that might result in stereotypes that some people may find offensive. It depends on how politically correct (and incorrect) your friends are!

Bean and olive salad

2011-06-24T08:47:00.000-07:00

Since it's the weekend (yayyy!!), and we're (finally) promised some decent weather here in the UK (I'll believe that when I see it!), I thought I'd do a salad recipe today. This is a recipe I cut out of a magazine donkey's years ago and have adapted.

This should be made up in advance, because it needs time to chill. Don't we all?

Ingredients
45ml olive oil
1 small onion, thinly sliced or finely chopped
1 clove garlic, crushed
250ml cooked haricot beans
30ml Balsamic vinegar (I'm sure you could use 'ordinary' vinegar - I'm just a fan of Balsamic)
15ml tomato puree
12 olives, stoned and halved
45ml chopped fresh herbs - I used a mixture of chives, mint and coriander leaves. I'd say the chives are fairly important, but experiment for yourself.

Method

Heat oil over a low heat in a heavy-bottomed pan, and saute the onion and garlic lightly.
Cover and allow to 'sweat' for a couple of minutes.
Uncover and add beans, vinegar, tomato puree and olives. Stir for a further couple of minutes.
Remove from heat and stir in herbs.
Chill before serving.

Notes
You could turn this into a main course by adding a tin of tuna.

What do I do with...artichokes?

2011-06-23T00:58:00.000-07:00

By special request, artichokes are my next port of call in this series.

I adore artichokes, but they are very expensive - and pretty scarce - in the UK. The first time I visited Spain, I was stunned to discover how cheap they were, there. Where our 'mixed vegetables' packs consist of peas, corn, carrots and green beans, theirs include artichokes. Alcachofa was one of the first Spanish words I mastered.

If you've never tasted an artichoke, let me advise you to avoid the canned artichoke hearts. They are sort of pickled, and nowhere near as nice as fresh ones. The fresh ones taste a little asparagus-ish.

Many people I know take one look at artichokes and say "Fugeddit!" I was one such. I had never eaten a fresh one (I wouldn't have known where to start to cook one), and the canned ones made me go "Meh." But in 1990, we went to stay with an old army buddy of John's in Pretoria, and his girlfriend cooked up artichokes for us one day. I was terribly impressed, until she told me how very, very simple it was. I was absolutely smitten with them, and they are way up there among my favourite summer veg.

My sister in law in the US knew about this love of mine. She also knew how pricey they are in the UK. and, when I was due to visit her this time last year, decided she would serve some as a treat for me, so she consulted her recipe book and, within minutes had decided that it was just far too much faff.

Perhaps you have a recipe book like that: chop the points off all the leaves, slice the artichoke in half vertically. Snap the stem off. Stand on your head and whistle Dixie.

Just no.

For me, the best and simplest way to cook an artichoke is as follows (and the only tricky part is finding a large enough saucepan!):

Rinse the artichokes thoroughly under running water, or in a basin of salty water. If you're going the running water route, remember to hold them right way up, as you would a flower (because that's what it is, after all), so that the water can reach down between the petals. If you're using a basin of salty water, you want to sort slosh them about quite vigorously in the water.

Bung the artichokes into a saucepan and then top it up with cold water enough to cover the vegetables. You can add a pinch of salt for good measure, if you like.

Bring the water to the boil and then reduce the heat slightly to keep it at a simmer.

Keep simmering this way for about 20-25 minutes. Test whether the artichoke is ready by trying to pull off a petal. If it comes away fairly easily, it's done.

Remove from the water and plop onto a plate and eat the wretched thing. If you fancy, you can eat it with mayo or butter with or without lemon and/or garlic added.

So now I hear you wail, "Yeah, but how do I eat it???"

Like this:

Tear off one of the outside leaves. It will have a small, soft heel where it was attached to the stem. Bite of that heel and throw bin throw away the rest of the leaf. You can dip the heel into one of the things I mentioned before if you like. I don't think it's necessary, quite frankly.

Remove the hairy bit...

Keep going like this, tearing of a leaf and eating the heel of it. As you get closer to the centre, the edible part of the leaf becomes larger. Once you have eaten away all the leaves, you are left with the heart. It looks exactly like a flower, with the petals torn off... which is what it is.

In the centre of the flower are all the pistils or stamens or whichever they are. Scoop those out with a spoon and throw them away. Now relish the best part of all: the heart. Oh bliss!!!

They make a great starter, by the way. One per person.

There are all sorts of other recipes out there for things to do with artichokes. My recommendation is to start with this one. The cooking process is about the same as for a mealie/ear of corn, and the testing for readiness is pretty much the same, too.

Pecan blondies

2011-06-22T08:15:00.000-07:00

You've heard of brownies, right? Not the little girls who go on to become girl guides, but the chocolate tea time treats. Well, blondies are just brownies made with white chocolate. Try these for a tasty alternative.

Oven temperature
180C

Ingredients
125g butter
200g white chocolate or 100g white chocolate and 100g (white or other) choc chips
2 eggs
125ml sugar
2.5ml vanilla extract (or cardamom extract if you happen to have it)
250g cake/plain flour
Pinch salt (even I use a generous pinch, and you know I have a light hand when it comes to salt)
50g pecan (or other) nuts, chopped

Method

Chop the slab chocolate into smallish pieces. If you're using chips, these obviously don't need chopping.

I always cool things upside down

Line a square cake tin with baking parchment. If you find it tricky to line the sides, then just line the bottom, but grease the sides well.
Use a double boiler or, if you don't have (and I don't), a Pyrex dish over a saucepan. Bring water to the boil in the bottom half and melt 100g of the chocolate in the top, stirring frequently.
Add the butter and stir until it has completely melted and blended with the chocolate.
Removed from heat and set aside for now.
Cream together the eggs and sugar until light and fluffy, then add the vanilla.
Beat the chocolate mixture in to the egg mixture.
Sift in the flour and salt and beat well.
Stir in the nuts and remaining chocolate (or choc chips).
Pour into the cake tin, smooth over with a spatula and bake for about 15-20 minutes.
Remove from the oven and leave to stand for about 20 minutes.
Cut into squares in the pan, and remove carefully with an egg lifter (aka 'fish slice' in the UK) to place on a cooling rack.
Wait until they have completely cooled and, if you have any left (I didn't!), you can pop them into an airtight container.

Notes

You could choose to top them with icing or (even better) with fudge icing as chocolate fudge brownies, but they are very sweet already, so try them as is, first.
Try a few variations: 100g white chocolate with 100g plain (dark) chocolate chips, for example.
Try using different nuts. I reckon pistachios would be the business!

Roast butternut and pine nut risotto

2011-06-21T15:03:00.000-07:00

This is another one of those veggie dishes that are so good you don't find yourself thinking, "All this needs is a bit of meat, and it would be perfect." Even my carnivorous elder son wolfed it down and came back for seconds!

This recipe uses coriander leaves, but sage is just as good with butternut, so try that as a variation.

Oven temperature
200C

Ingredients
1 large butternut, peeled and cut into largish cubes
1 clove garlic, crushed
10ml fresh coriander leaves, chopped
Olive oil
30ml butter
1 onion, chopped
250ml arborio rice
250ml white wine
750ml vegetable stock
Pine nuts to serve
Parmesan cheese, grated, to serve

Method

In a large bowl, mix up about 25ml olive oil with the garlic and chopped coriander leaves.
Toss the butternut cubes in this until they are well coated, then place them on a baking tray in the oven for about 45 minutes until soft right through and just starting to darken along the edges.
Cut the cooked butternut into smaller cubes (when it is cool enough to handle, obviously!). Don't worry if some pieces get a little mushy. If any little bits got stuck to the baking tray, rescue them - you're going to want those babies in the risotto, too - they have a wonderful toffee-ish taste!
Heat 15ml of the butter and another 25ml oil in a heavy-bottomed frying pan and saute the onion until it softens and becomes translucent.
Add the rice and stir until the grains are coated and shiny looking.
Add the wine and stir until the liquid has been absorbed.
Now add the stock. The proper way to do this is to add a little stock at first and then keep adding a little at a time as it is absorbed by the rice. I tend to just add the whole lot in one go... because I'm a lazy Philistine.
Simmer until done. Don't let the rice cook for too long - it is supposed to be al dente, like pasta.
Remove from the heat and stir in the butternut and the rest of the butter.
Place into serving bowls and top with a sprinkling of pine nuts, a little Parmesan cheese, a twist of black pepper and the rest of the coriander leaves.

Themed children's parties: pirates arrrg!!

2011-06-20T00:54:00.000-07:00

In 1996, when my elder son turned 5 and my younger son turned 3, we had a pirate party. I made a treasure chest cake, the food table was designated Treasure Island, and all the kids had to enter the party by walking the plank and shouting "Arrrrg!"

The cake is easy enough to make, just two ordinary sponges, one left square, and one cut into a rhombus shape as shown here.

Then you position the cakes so that one is the body of the chest, the other the lid, ice (preferably not in pink... long story) and trim it to look like a treasure chest and insert 'treasure' in the form of foil wrapped chocolate coins and other such things.

I made palm trees to go around the Treasure Island table, using the cardboard rolls from a fabric store. The rolls on which fabric is sold is lovely and thick. The palm leaves can be made out of card or tissue paper, of whatever you fancy.

You can make it a fancy dress party, if you like. We just opted to give each one a 'scar' on arrival, using one of my lipliners. This is my younger son, aged three, who already had an impressive collection of facial scars of his own by this time (one of which you may be able to make out in the centre of his forehead). The one on the left cheek, I'm sure you don't need me to tell you, is a fake.

Captain Scarface. Arrrrg!!!

We had a treasure hunt as one of the games, with clues scattered all over the garden and a prize at the end. Let your imagination run riot. Go for it. You know you're dying to dress up and shout "Arrrg!!!" and "Me hearties!!!" and all that.

Rock biscuits

2011-06-17T09:43:00.000-07:00

This is one of those recipes that 'takes me back' as they say. Rock biscuits and rock buns were very popular when I was in my yoof, but one seldom hears about them these days.

So I recently took a little wander down memory lane and this is the route I took.

Oven temperature
200C

Ingredients
250g butter
250ml sugar
500ml plain (cake) flour
15ml baking powder
2.5ml ground cinnamon (or try cardamom for variety)
Pinch salt
250ml seedless raisins
125ml pecans, chopped

Method

Place on a cooling rack

Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.
Beat the eggs and then whisk into the butter mixture.
Sift the dry ingredients into the egg mixture and beat well.
Add the raisins and nuts and mix through (better to use a wooden spoon, now).
Drop dollops of the mixture onto a greased baking sheet, or onto a piece of baking parchment on a baking sheet (I prefer the latter).
Bake for 10-15 minutes until they're going golden.
Place on a cooling rack until cool. Don't put them into a tin before they're completely cool or they will go soggy.

You should get about 45-50 biscuits from this recipe.

What do I do with...butternut (squash)?

2011-06-16T07:50:00.000-07:00

In South Africa, this vegetable is known as butternut. In the UK, it is called butternut squash. I gather that Australians simply call it squash. Whatever it is called in your neck of the woods, this is one of my favourite vegetables.

When I was still 'living at home,' as the expression goes (as if after leaving your parents' house you are doomed to nomad-status for the rest of your life), it was a family tradition to make a special dinner on birthdays and the birthday girl (because ours was a single-sex family) got to choose what was on the menu. When it was my birthday, you could pretty much depend on it that you would be eating butternut and cauliflower (with white sauce). When I was a student, I would quite often survive on baked butternut for days at a time.

Butternut is more like pumpkin that squash in both texture and taste. It is firm-fleshed and has a slightly nutty taste.

So... butternut. What do we do with them?

Raw
Butternut can be grated into salads, although it can sometimes give you that feeling of furriness on the backs of your teeth. I do have a recipe for a salad that uses raw butternut, but I have never shared it because it also requires - believe it or not - powdered jelly (jell-o), which isn't readily available in the UK. However, fret not if you live in a country which oozes jelly powder from every pore and you are dying to try something new and different. Here it is, on someone else's site.

Cooked on the hob
There are various ways to cook butternut on the hob. You can

steam it on its own
steam it with chopped onion and/or coriander leaves
boil it (ditto the above two - and countless other - options)
make butternut soup with or without orange, with or without cauliflower, with or without coriander leaves and chilli. Here's Catherine's guest post recipe from a while ago.
make Malay-style cinnamon glazed butternut

Cooked in the oven
Butternut is also fab for

roasting - just do as you would do with potatoes, really. And once you've roasted it, you can use it for a different tasting soup, or for a scrumptious risotto.
baking - cut them in half, wrap in tin foil and bung 'em in the oven at about 200C until you can stick a sharp knife into it with ease. Alternatively, if you have plenty of time (or no foil), just chuck 'em in whole until they're done.
stuffing - cut the butternut in half, scoop out the pips and fill the hole with yummy things like chopped onion, bacon bits or whatever, then wrap with foil and bake as before. You can also fill the hollow after the butternut has been cooked with something like cheese sauce.

On the barbecue
One of my favourite things to do with butternut is to bake it in the coals of the barbecue - either halved and wrapped in tin foil or whole as is. You can stuff them if you like, just as you would for baking.

I'm sure there are endless other things you can do with this delicious and versatile vegetable, like substituting it for pumpkin in a traditional American pumpkin pie. But that should be enough to get you started.

Enjoy.

And feel free to share your own butternut ideas in the comments below, or on my Facebook page.

Tuna steak - the fish for non-fish-eaters

2011-06-15T00:52:00.000-07:00

Some years ago, I discovered the wonder that is tuna steak. I ate it at a wonderful Italian restaurant called Mulinos in Milton Keynes. It wasn't on the menu, but the chef had sourced some fresh tuna steak that day. My elder son ordered it, and I was surprised when the waiter asked him how he would like it done. I mean, it's fish, right? Everyone knows that fish needs to be cooked right through, right? Wrong. Oh, so wrong.

My son ordered it medium rare, which is the way we all prefer our beef steak... and it was sheer bliss. I know. I tasted it. If I hadn't known it was fish, I would certainly not have guessed it from the taste (or the texture). Not that I have anything against fish, mind, but some fish has an overwhelmingly 'fishy' taste. Fresh tuna steak does not. Not even slightly.

Tuna steak should be cooked pretty much the same way you cook a beef steak - very hot pan, and then just a couple of minutes on each side (for a succulent, medium rare steak).

This is what I did with ours last night:

Ingredients

Two fresh tuna steaks

1 kaffir lime leaf, shredded

Juice of half a lime

1 small chilli, finely chopped

5ml grated ginger root

5ml chopped fresh coriander (cilantro) leaves

2.5ml finely chopped lemon grass

5ml olive oil

Method

Mix all the ingredients (apart from the fish) together to form your marinade.
Place the steaks in the marinade, turning a few times to ensure that it is well coated.
Leave for about 10 minutes.
Heat a heavy-bottomed frying pan over high heat until it is very hot.
Give the pan a quick spray of fry light or a light brushing with olive oil if necessary. If it's a really good pan, this won't be necessary.
Remove the steaks from the marinade and fry for two minutes on each side.
Serve with potato wedges and a garden salad.

Chicken and sesame stirfry

2011-06-14T00:55:00.000-07:00

I don't know about you, but I am mad-keen on the food at Wagamama. Unfortunately, on the last two occasions I visited my nearest branch, the service was iffy at best. On one occasion, it was so bad, that my husband called the manager over to complain... whereupon he (the manager, not my husband, although it was a close run thing) became belligerent and argumentative. Needless to say, my husband simply will not go back. I have since visited other branches and found the service to be of a better standard.

But I digress...

This dish has a flavour combination that reminds me of some Wagamama dishes. It's based on one that I downloaded from somewhere (Tesco diets, I think). It uses chicken breast fillets, but these are so ludicrously expensive in the UK, that I often substitute turkey breast.

Ingredients
2 large skinless chicken breast fillets, sliced into thin strips
1 tablespoon honey
Juice of 1 lime
2 kaffir lime leaves (optional), finely shredded
1 tablespoon toasted sesame seeds (you can toast these yourself, if you can't buy toasted ones)
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 clove garlic, peeled and crushed
5cm piece root ginger, peeled and finely chopped
225g broccoli florets
2 large carrots (you may notice from the picture that I threw in a courgette, too)
1 bunch spring onions, trimmed
250g noodles
1 tablespoon teriyaki sauce
1 tablespoon soy sauce

Method

Mix together the olive oil, ginger, lime leaves (if using) and garlic in a bowl.
Add the chicken strips, toss to mix and set aside until needed.
Blanch the the broccoli florets as follows: place them in a heatproof bowl, cover with boiling water and leave to stand for 1 minute. Drain, refresh under cold, running water and drain well.
Cut carrots into matchstick strips (you may notice from the picture that I was lazy on this!)
Cut the spring onions in half lengthwise and then again crosswise.
Heat a wok or a large frying pan and then add the chicken and stirfry for 2 minutes.
Add the carrots, onions and broccoli and just a little water. Cover with a lid and steam for about 5 minutes (make sure chicken is cooked through).
Cook the noodles as per instructions on the packaging.
Mix together teriyaki sauce, soy sauce, lime juice and honey.
Drain the noodles and add to the chicken.
Add the liquid mixture.
Toss well until everything is evenly distributed and hot.
Sprinkle sesame seedds over the top. Serve.

On the occasion when the photo was taken, I used quinoa instead of noodles, just for a change. It worked. Of course.

Themed children's parties: mice

2011-06-13T10:23:00.000-07:00

Today is the last post drawn from this picture, you'll be pleased to hear. We're looking at the little mice on the left.

Ingredients

Thin, round biscuits such as arrowroot or Marie biscuits

White marshmallows - one per biscuit

Pink marshmallows - two or three should do the trick

Liquorice laces

Red food colouring and a cotton bud (q-tip) to apply it with

A little icing sugar mixed with just enough water to make a paste

Method

Marshmallow on each biscuit

Add a tail

Using a dab of the icing paste, place one white marshmallow on each biscuit like so.
Cut the laces into lengths for tails and stick one end of each lace into one end of each marshmallow to serve as a tail. Save some liquorice for later.
Cut the pink marshmallows into slices and then cut each slice in half.
Using a dab of icing paste, secure two of these semi-circles onto the white marshmallow to serve as ears. They should be quite close to the opposite end from the tail (obviously).
Using the cotton bud dipped in the red food colouring, make three red dots on the front of each mouse for eyes and a nose.
Cut shorter lengths of the laces to serve as whiskers. I cut the whisker lengths in half lengthwise, to create thinner whiskers, but it was quite a faff, so you might prefer not to do that.
Using some of the paste, stick 'whiskers' onto the face end of the mouse.

Et voila!

Lime and coconut tart

2011-06-10T09:36:00.000-07:00

Some time back, the Kitchen Crusader shared (on her 365 project), a photo of a tart she'd enjoyed at Sayers in Perth, Australia. I liked the sound of it and started scrounging for a recipe (as you do). The only one I found, which purports to be a hack of the tart enjoyed by the Kitchen Crusader, calls for a mere 16 eggs.

That struck me as being a little on the expensive side for the likes of you and me. However, I have supplied the link to said recipe, just in case you're feeling extravagant. For the rest of us, I set out to create a cheaper alternative. And this is what I came up with. I tested it on friends and neighbours and they all declared this it deeeee-licious. I hope you enjoy it, too.

Oven temperature
180C

Ingredients
Macaroon crust
250ml caster sugar
4 eggs, separated
500ml dessicated coconut
4 fresh kaffir lime leaves, finely shredded (see note below for further info and alternatives)

Filling
500ml sugar
125g butter
Juice of 2 limes and one lemon
Grated zest of 1 lime
4 eggs

Method
Let's get that crust underway first:

Beat egg yolks and sugar together until thick and pale.
In a different bowl, beat the egg whites until they form soft peaks.
Fold the beaten whites into the yolks.
Gently fold in the coconut and lime leaves.
Line a springform cake pan with baking paper, including the sides (this is important, because, if you don't, the crust will stick like the dickens).
Spoon the mixture into the cake pan and spread it across the bottom and up the sides. If you can't get it to go up the sides, don't panic. I had one that worked and one that didn't and they tasted just the same!
Bake for 15-20 minutes until golden then set aside to cool.

Sprinkle with caster sugar if you like

While the crust is cooling, we can make the lime butter:

Combine the sugar, butter, juices and rind in a saucepan.
Slowly bring to the boil, stirring all the while.
Beat the eggs and stir into the mixture until it thickens.

Final stretch:

When the crust and curd are both cool, gently spoon the curd into the crust.
If you're concerned about it being too sharp, sprinkle the top with caster sugar.
Slice and top with whipped or clotted cream to serve with coffee.

Notes about kaffir lime leaves:
Confession time - it was hugely difficult for me to reach the point where I was able to name that ingredient in my recipe, because of the connotations of 'the k-word' for a South African of my vintage. However, I have decided to get over myself in the interests of culinary delight.

Kaffir lime leaves

Kaffir limes are different from 'normal' limes. The leaves come in two parts: a leaf blade and a flattened leaf stalk which looks like a second leaf.

Dried kaffir lime leaves are widely available in supermarkets in the herbs and spices aisle. However, do not use those - the are yucky! If you are at all able to do so, get fresh ones (my husband swings by a Thai place in London and buys me a bunch for the princely sum of 99p). Whatever you don't use in this recipe can be used in all manner of other dishes - especially curries.

They are also available online. But, if you don't fancy that idea, rather substitute the grated zest of 3 limes. You'll get a closer approximation of the flavour than with the dried leaves. Scout's honour.

What do I do with beetroot (beets)?

2011-06-09T07:00:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the first in my new series, "What do I do with...?"

I have discovered that a great many accomplished people are at a loss as to how to prepare fresh ingredients, and I thought I'd have a go at doing something about that. I decided to start with beetroot because it is so versatile and because it falls somewhere between the everyday things like carrots and cabbage and the 'outlandish' things like fennel and edamame beans.

It is not my intention to provide an exhaustive list in each instance, and I won't always supply links to recipes. But at least you will have a few ideas to set you off on a Google quest.

If you have any special requests, please let me know.

Back to beetroot.

Raw

You may not know this, but you can eat beetroot raw.

Peeled and grated into a fresh salad, it adds colour, interest, texture... and vitamins!
There are also some delicious cake recipes that call for raw beetroot

Boiled

If you're going to boil a beetroot, don't peel it, but cut the stems off about an inch away from the veg itself, this prevents too much of the colour from leeching away during cooking. Boil for about as long as you would a potato of similar size. When you can insert and remove a sharp knife without too much hassle, it's done. Now you can peel it and do any of a number of things with it.

You could serve it hot as a vegetable with your main meal
You could chop it up and use it in a risotto
You could wait for it to cool down and slice or shop it up into a salad
You could slice it and pickle it
On the other hand, there are also cake recipes that call for cooked beetroot

Roast

One of my favourite things to do with beetroot is to roast it along with other veg. Peel and quarter the raw beetroot and roast it in the oven, just as you would a potato. It takes a little longer, though, so test it with a sharp knife for readiness. You can also sprinkle cumin, fennel, coriander or caraway seeds over it before roasting. Yum!

So, off you go, now and experiment with this delicious, nutritious vegetable. I should just warn you though, that the colour erm... "goes straight through you" (as my mother-in-law puts it) so you might notice evidence of it on your subsequent visit to the loo (bathroom) for a day or so. Do not panic.

Later edit:
Doh! And I completely forgot to mention that you can use it to make borscht (traditional Russian soup)!

English summer pudding

2011-06-08T10:35:00.000-07:00

This is an English tradition that was taught to me shortly after I arrived in the UK, by my friend Joan (she of the overnight salad fame here and here). I heard people talking about 'summer pudding' and assumed that it was a generic term for a dessert suitable for the summer time. Joan disabused me, even though she doesn't eat the dessert herself because she can't abide the thought of 'wet bread'.

Ingredients
750g (or just loads) of summer berries (fresh or frozen)
125ml water
White bread, slightly stale, sliced and crusts removed
Caster sugar (or alternative sweetener)

Method

Wash your berries (if using fresh) and bung them all in a saucepan with the water over a low heat. Smoosh them just a little to release a bit of juice, but not a lot - you still want whole berries.
Sweeten to taste with the sugar (or alternative).
Drain the fruit, but don't dispose of the juice just yet.
Line a pudding bowl with clingfilm - this is profanity inducing, but I find it necessary.
Dip a slice of bread into the juice and then use it to line the bottom of the bowl. Repeat with further slices, lining the entire bowl, leaving no gaps.
Spoon in the fruit. The bowl should be full when you're done.
Add just a little of the juice, and then cover the whole thing with more soaked bread.
Cover the pudding with a side plate (concave side up) and place a can of baked beans (or something) on top to weigh it down.
Leave in a cool place for at least 24 hours.
Remove the side plate, and turn the pudding out on a serving plate (see note below).
Serve with creme fraiche, fromage frais or (if you must) clotted cream.

Note

Turning out a dessert is easier than you might think. Place the serving plate over the the bowl and, holding it in place with both hands, flip the whole thing over. Gently and slowly remove the pudding bowl and peel away the clingfilm. If you don't use clingfilm, you may find that the pudding sticks a little and the bread tears a bit as you lift away the bowl. It will still taste just as good, so never fear, but presentation may be impacted. Not a problem if it's just the family, of course! Mine would neither notice nor care.

Cabbage bredie

2011-06-07T08:57:00.000-07:00

'Bredie' is roughly the Afrikaans word for stew, but somehow there is a different nuance to it. Maybe that's just my imagination, though, with my dual heritage.

I cook mine in a pressure cooker. If you don't have one, you will need to watch those fluid levels and add more if necessary. You need to know something about cabbage: it is so full of flavour that when it is such a dominant ingredient in a stew, you need very little by way of seasoning. Honest. Try it yourself.

Ingredients
1 whole cabbage, chopped
1 large onion, chopped
700g stewing beef or lamb, cubed
3 carrots, peeled and sliced (my 'slices' are always very large, because that's the way my husband prefers them - carrots are his favourite part of any stew)
45ml tomato puree
Salt to taste (I add none at all)
5ml caraway seeds
250ml stock
A little oil

Method

In a large saucepan/pressure cooker, saute the onions in a little oil until they become soft and translucent.
Add the caraway seeds and the meat. Saute until the meat is browned on all sides.
Add the entire cabbage, carrots, tomato puree and stock.
If you're using a pressure cooker, close it, bring it to pressure and cook for 20 minutes. If you're not, cover, bring to the boil, reduce the heat and simmer gently for about 2 hours, checking the liquid level every now and then so that it doesn't dry out and burn.
Serve with rice, polenta (which is what you can see in my photo above) or quinoa. Alternatively, you can add potatoes into the stew and then serve it without the additional starch.

Themed children's parties: baskets

2011-06-06T00:29:00.000-07:00

Today's post addresses another item from the picture above (which is a scan of an old print, so please pardon the quality). In the centre, at the back you can see a collection of little baskets. This is how I made them.

Cut the tops off

Ingredients

Ice cream cornets - the wafer kind, not the sugar kind.
Some kind of 'laces' - liquorice shoelaces are ideal, but they might not exist where you are. Those dreadfully sour lace things would probably suffice.
Thin, flat round biscuits like Marie biscuits.
Icing sugar.
Green food colouring.
Sweeties to put into your finished baskets.

Method

Carefully cut the tops off the ice cream cones, so that you are left with the bit that bulges outward to hold the ice cream.
Mix the icing sugar with a very little water to make a paste, and then add a few drops of green food colouring.
Spread this paste over one side of each biscuit and (gently) press the cone tops into the paste, wider side up. Now you have the base of your basket sitting on a patch of grass.
Cut the 'laces' into lengths of approsimately 12cm.

Small pockets

All around the edge of the cone are small pockets. Fill two diametrically opposite pockets with the icing paste and press one end of a lace into the paste on each cone.This gives you your handle, but don't try picking the basket up with it until the icing has dried completely (and even then it's more for effect).
Pop a few sweeties (jelly babies, dolly mistures, etc) into each basket, et voila!

Banana Waldorf salad

2011-06-03T08:03:00.000-07:00

This recipe was given to me years ago by my sister in law. It has become a regular feature of my barbecue fare, and is always a hit with guests. I have one (diabetic) friend who used to look forward to my arrival to bring and share barbecues, because he knew the salad was both delicious and safe for him to eat... even when most of the desserts were off-limits.

Since I have mentioned Jonathan and his diabetes, let me digress for a moment to say this:

As you already know, I love having guests over for dinner and, with the increasing incidence of diabetes these days, my guests will often include at least one person with diabetes. Diabetic friends tell me that hosts usually plump for fruit salad when it comes to dessert. I love fruit salad and consider it a perfectly acceptable dessert, but I imagine that, when it is the 'safe' thing that gets trotted out time after time by your dinner hosts, it could become a little tiring. So I always try to find interesting, diabetes-safe recipes for desserts. Some of those recipes will be making an appearance here in due course, but I'm no expert, so please don't expect me to specialise in recipes for people with any particular dietary needs. I would hate to mislead you!

Anyhoo... back to the Waldorf.

Ingredients
All quantities are 'some'. Find your own preferred balance of flavours. I suggest roughly equal volumes of the first four.

Apples, peeled, cored and cubed
Bananas, sliced
Celery, sliced
Seedless grapes, halved
Pecans, chopped
Mayonnaise, preferably a mild one
Paprika

Method

Mix all the ingredients (except the paprika) together.
Sprinkle paprika liberally over the top of the salad.
Make sure that it doesn't accidentally get placed with the desserts!

New series: What do I do with...?

2011-06-02T07:35:00.000-07:00

I've decided to start a new weekly series on Thursdays. Each week, I will take an item and give some ideas on the sort of things you can do with it.
I made this decision for two reasons:

Firstly, although you don't see a lot of comments on the blog posts themselves, I get a lot of feedback via Facebook, email and in person from readers, and some of you tell me that you feel encouraged to try something new - that my posts have given you the courage to step out of a rut. This humbles and gladdens me at the same time. But it also alerts me to the fact that some of you are in a food rut.

Secondly, although I don't have any pretensions to being like her, I watch Gillian McKeith's You are What you Eat and it is a recurring theme that people simply don't know how to prepare different foods, particularly fresh vegetables and grains. I reckon that this is how many of them started down the road that led to a visit from the McKeith (who, while blunt, is nowhere near the harridan she is often made out to be by her many detractors).

I know exactly how it feels to look at a vegetable and wonder (a) what it is and (b) what I'm supposed to do with it. In fact, I recently decided to address my ignorance in respect of eddoes (more of them anon), and it occurred to me that you might have similar frustrations, and that I could help there. I am a compulsive enabler. Always have been.

So, maybe you've always wanted to know what you're supposed to do with parsnips, or green beans, or quinoa. Well, let's see what we can do about that, shall we? Starting next Thursday. With beetroot (beets).

Meringue

2011-06-01T07:08:00.000-07:00

From time to time, whether on this blog or elsewhere, you might come across a recipe that calls for egg yolks, leaving you with egg whites. Perhaps you've always thought "What a waste!" as you've tossed the egg whites in the bin, or given them to the dog to eat.

Well, don't.

Egg whites are exactly what you need to make meringues!

In fact, egg whites and caster sugar are all you need to make meringues. I kid you not.

And, once you've got your meringues (assuming you can prevent your family from eating them as is), there are so many things you can do with them!

Oven temperature
Low! About 100C

Ingredients
2 egg whites
120g caster sugar (or 60g caster and 60g icing sugar)

Method

Whip those egg whites until they're so stiff you can turn the bowl upside down and they stay put. No, I'm not joking. And it happens faster than you think.
Gradually and gently fold in the sugar (oh, alright, you can use the electric beater if you like... since it's you).
Place a piece of baking parchment onto a baking tray (or spray the baking tray with something non-stick-ish)
Place spoonfuls of the mixture onto the baking parchment. If you feel clever, and you own the necessary equipment, you can pipe the mixture onto the parchment, but it tastes the same in the end!
Bake for about an hour and a half. I like my meringues chewy in the middle. But if you like them crispy right through, bake them for about 3 hours.
Remove and cool.

Okay, so now what to do with them (other than eat them as they are, that is):

Spread the flat sides with whipped cream and sandwich two together.
Spread the flat sides with some other kind of cake icing or filling or topping or whatever and ditto.
Layer them in a glass bowl (or individual glass serving bowls) with strawberries, raspberries and whipped cream. If they're too big for that, crush them first. You can fling in some mini marshmallows, too if you like. Shave some chocolate over the top for fanciness.
Ditto the above, but with chocolate-y things such as bits of brownie, maltesers, chocolate sauce.
You could make one large meringue and top it with fruit.

Let your imagination run wild.

Beef sosaties

2011-05-31T08:43:00.000-07:00

Sosaties (soSAHteez) are traditional South African meat skewers cooked on the braai (barbecue). Everybody's granny had the best recipe, including mine, who loved to tell everyone that I had once eaten thirteen of her famous sosaties in a single sitting... and it was no more than the truth.

If you're a purist, you should be using lean pork and mutton fat. But I'm not a purist and I happen to like beef, so my sosaties are made using beef steak. Obviously, if you live in the UK, it's best to wait until there's a special promotion on, because steak is stupidly expensive. But you can also try any other meat, including white meats such as turkey breast or chicken... even firm fleshed fish.

Ingredients
750g beef (or whatever), cut into 2.5cm cubes
2 large onions, 1 finely chopped, the other divided into layers and then into 2.5cm squares
4 cloves of garlic, crushed
15ml medium curry powder
5ml turmeric
15ml brown sugar
4 curry/bay leaves (see note below), finely chopped
45ml brown vinegar
2 lemons, sliced
125ml meat stock
125g dried apricots
1 green pepper cut into 2.5cm squares
A little oil for frying
Wooden meat skewers

Method

Ready for the fire....

Place the meat and the leaves into a non-metallic bowl (for some reason this is important). I suspect that it had to do with aluminium and that stainless steel would probably be safe, but my gran was almost superstitious in her insistence that the bowl should not be metal. Mix them about so that the leaves are evenly dispersed among the cubes of meat.
In a saucepan, saute the chopped onion, garlic, turmeric and curry powder together, until the onion has softened.
Add the meat stock, sugar and lemon slices and bring to the boil.
Remove from the heat and add the vinegar.
Pour over the meat and stir well to ensure even distribution.
Cover and set aside overnight. If you want to play it safe, pop it in the fridge, but beef is pretty robust in my experience, and can handle room temperature overnight.
Skewer the meat, interspersed with slices of green pepper, onion and dried apricots.
Cook over a very hot (about as hot as for steak) open fire for about 10 minutes, turning and basting with the left over sauce.
Serve with all the usual barbecue/braai suspects.
If you like, you can squeeze lemon juice over them before eating, but I reckon that ruins them (any my granny wouldn't have approved!)

Note about those curry leaves
These aren't easy to come by, I know. So if you can't get your hands on them, use bay leaves. However, I have to tell you that my gran reckoned it was the curry leaves that were the secret ingredient that made the sosaties special.

Burger patties

2011-05-27T00:45:00.000-07:00

The photo shows the three men in my life at the fire. My younger son appears to be overcome by the smell of something or other, to the point that he is having a 'moment'.

Next week is national barbecue week in the UK. So I thought I'd help out with a recipe for home made burger patties. Much nicer than bought ones, and you know nothing nefarious has been added to bulk it out.

We love to have a barbecue (or braai, as it's called in South Africa), and let me tell you, he might be a Swede, but my husband spent enough years in South Africa to become a dab hand at it. Nobody is more skilled with the barbecue than that man. He even does our Christmas roast in the kettle barbecue!

Ingredients

500g minced beef
6 spring onions, shopped
Pinch salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
5ml dried thyme
5ml ground coriander seeds (not the leaves - that's a different taste altogether)
Pinch mustard seeds and/or a splash of chilli sauce such as Tobasco (optional)
1 egg, lightly beaten
Little oil and basting sauce of your choice

Method

Mix all the ingredients together, except the oil and basting sauce.
Divide into 6-8 equal sized balls and flatten into a patty shape.
Brush with oil and a little basting sauce.
Cook over hot coals, basting every now and again, for 5 minutes each side or until done through. You could fry them, of course, but that is rather unhealthy.
Assemble on a burger bun with whatever trimmings take your fancy.

Coffee and pecan biscuits

2011-05-26T00:49:00.000-07:00

American readers are probably expecting something very different because of the word 'biscuit', but your understanding of the word is somewhat different from ours. To you, this recipe is probably better described as 'cookies'.

Yet another recipe cut from the pages of some or other magazine. I certainly seem to have read more magazines in my younger days than I do now. Mind you, the big selling magazines around these days are all gossip-and-celebrity, and I have no great interest in that sphere.

Oven temperature
180C

Ingredients

Biscuits
220g flour
125g butter, cubed
60ml sugar
1 egg, lightly beaten
5ml vanilla extract

Pecan cream
60g butter
60ml icing sugar, sifted
80g pecan nuts, finely chopped (I used a food processor)
10ml milk

Coffee icing
375ml icing sugar, sifted
5ml butter at room temperature
15ml instant coffee powder
15ml boiling water
20ml milk

Method
Biscuits

Cut with a biscuit cutter

Sift flour into a mixing bowl and rub in butter until you have a mixture resembling fine breadcrumbs.
Add sugar, egg and vanilla extract and mix to form a soft dough.
Roll out on a lightly floured surface to about 5mm thickness. I do this directly on my counter tops. And if you don't have a rolling pin, use a clean wine bottle (you can even drink the wine first, if you like!).
Cut out rounds using a 60mm plain biscuit cutter. If you don't have one, use a clean napkin ring or something along those lines. I used the top end of my cookie gun. You should get about 26-30 biscuits. Make sure you have an even number.
Place on a lightly greased baking tray and bake for 10 minutes until light golden brown.
Cool on wire cooling racks while you get on with other things.

Pecan cream

Cream butter until light and fluffy.
Add icing sugar and beat well.
Add chopped pecan nuts and milk and mix well.
When the biscuits are cool (and not a moment before, or it won't work), spread this over half the biscuits and then pop another biscuit on top to make a sandwich. You can afford to be pretty lavish with this, there is a fair amount of it.
Refrigerate for 30 minutes while you get on with the coffee icing.

Coffee icing

Place icing sugar, butter and milk into the top of a double boiler over medium heat. Don't fret, I don't have one either, so I balance a smallish Pyrex dish on top of a saucepan. The handles of the Pyrex dish are wide enough so that it doesn't fall into the saucepan. There should be enough boiling water in the saucepan so that the bottom of the Pyrex dish is just in the water, but not so much that the water slops over the edge of the Pyrex into the icing sugar.
Dissolve the coffee in the 15ml of boiling water and add to the mixture.
Stir the mixture over simmering water until it is completely smooth.
Spread over the top of each biscuit. Once again, you can afford to be generous, here. This icing will set quite quickly, so I work directly out of the 'double boiler' as I ice the biscuits.
Decorate each one with half a pecan, or a glace cherry or whatever takes your fancy. This is of course an entirely optional step.

Yummilicious!

Cream cheese bubble bread

2011-05-25T06:31:00.000-07:00

Something quick and easy to have with a barbecue or cold meats and salads. You could also serve them with a cup of tea if you like, just treat them like scones. This is one of many recipes cut out of magazines countless years ago and stuck in my trusty, dilapidated recipe book... and then tweaked (of course).

Oven temperature
200C

Ingredients
275g plain flour
5ml sugar
5ml salt
15ml baking powder
Pinch cayenne pepper, paprika or mustard powder (optional)
125g cream cheese (you can use low fat cream cheese, if you like)
80g butter or marg
125ml milk

Method

Sift the dry ingredients together into a bowl.
Rub in the cheese and butter/marg with your fingers (yes, like Granny used to do!) until the mixture resembles coarse bread crumbs.
Stir in the milk and knead lightly.
Roll into balls and arrange in a greased, round baking tin, working from the outside in and leaving small gaps (about 1cm) between balls.
Bake for 20-25 minutes.

These don't keep for long, but I ate one this morning from a batch I made last night and it was fine. So you don't have to throw out any leftovers straightaway ;o)

Stuffed potato skins

2011-05-24T00:36:00.000-07:00

For a few years while I was in high school, my mother dated a real loser who caused such problems and divisions in our family that I was only too glad to see the back of him. At least I got to escape him during term time, because I was at boarding school. My poor sister lived at home and had to bear the brunt of him.

However, he had a few speciality dishes that were memorable, this being one of them. And it is a favourite of my own family, so I guess the loser wasn't a complete loss. ;o)

Oven temperature
220C and grill

Ingredients
Baking potatoes, one or two per person
250g pack of bacon
1 onion, diced
250ml sweetcorn
Butter
Milk
Hard cheese such as Cheddar, grated or thinly sliced
Paprika

Method

Cover with cheese and sprinkle with paprika

Stab the potatoes quite deeply once or twice with the point of a sharp knife and sling them in the oven for a good 40 minutes to an hour until they are baked, and the skins have become hard. Don't be tempted to nuke them. That doesn't harden up the skins, which is essential for this recipe.
While the potatoes are baking, grill the bacon until crispy. If you aren't able to grill one thing and bake another at the same time because of the way your kitchen is equipped, add the bacon to the next step instead.
Saute the onion and sweetcorn together until soft (if you need to, you can add the bacon in here).
Chop the cooked bacon up quite finely.
When the potatoes are done, cut them in half through the longest median and scoop out the flesh, taking care not to break the skin. Place the skins onto baking trays and set aside.
Place all the potato flesh into a large bowl and mash it well, adding a little butter and milk as necessary to get a smooth, soft consistency.
Add the bacon, corn and onions and mix well.
Spoon the mixture back into the potato skins. Remember that you have added a fair amount of volume, so you should wind up with a convex surface.
Cover the mixture with the cheese and sprinkle liberally with paprika.
Pop under the grill until the cheese bubbles.
Serve alone or with a salad. Oh, and do eat the crunchy skin - it's the best part!

You can of course leave out the bacon for a veggie option. You could also add other leftovers to the mix to use up your fridge fallout.

Themed children's parties: Chess

2011-05-23T08:17:00.000-07:00

The last birthday party my elder son had before we left South Africa had a chess theme. My kids' birthdays are just three weeks apart and, although we were living in temporary accommodation at the time, I decided to pull out all the stops and throw memorable parties for them. I worked harder than ever, which was saying something, and threw separate parties for them, which was a break from the norm of the previous four years.

My elder son went through a chess-mad period, becoming the first grade 1 child to make the school team in South Africa and then playing for the Kent county juniors when we moved to the UK. He also made it to the national finals of the British Land UK Chess Challenge two or three times.

I was unable to bake the cake myself, because the oven in the house was not just temporary but temperamental! Sadly, the lady from whom I ordered the cake botched the order and handed over two rather lopsided square sponges. But there was no time to make alternative arrangements, so I did the best I could with what I had.

I bought black and white balloons, and black and white paper napkins. I couldn't get black paper cups, so had to settle for just white ones. The kids all dressed in black and/or white. As usual, I covered the table in tin foil, but instead of laying the food directly onto that (see note below), I laid out alternating black and white napkins and then placed the food on that. Surprisingly enough, I was able to find loads of eats that were black and/or white or an approximation thereof.

The two things that took the greatest effort were the cake and the bowls.

Cake

I iced the cake in white, then measured the surface area very carefully. Using flat strips of liquorice, I created 32 black squares and turned that top into a standard chess board, on which I arranged the pieces in an opening gambit.

Bowls
This is when I proved how really sad I can be. If you look carefully at the pic at the top of this post, you can spot the bowls on the right.

I cut strips of black and white card and wove them into a check pattern. I then cut diagonally into the corners and folded up the sides and secured them to make squared, chequered bowls. It took me several hours to do them all.

Of course, then you have to get creative with the games, since a mini chess tournament isn't likely to go over too well. You can use regular games and give them a bit of a twist (so that all progress has to be made knight-wise or bishop-wise)... or even just a new name. Most of the time, the kids wind up playing whatever they want, anyway, and you're only too happy to put your feet up.

Note about the tin foil thing

You may have noticed a recurring theme in the pics of my kids' birthday parties. Long before I got married and had kids, I learned a trick from the woman who organised all the council functions where I worked. She covered the tables with tin foil and then placed the food directly on that. And this included dollops of houmous and blobs of cream cheese drizzled with sweet chilli sauce. It looked great and it saved on the requirement for bowls and plates (and the need to wash said bowls and plates thereafter). Then, at the end of the function, she would just roll up the tin foil with the leftovers inside and bin the whole kit and caboodle.

Fudge

2011-05-19T16:02:00.000-07:00

Just in time for the weekend, I thought I'd share a recipe for fudge. I have had many recipes for fudge over the years, but this one is my favourite. It comes from my sister in law. It is thoroughly decadent, but then you weren't expecting a health food recipe when once you'd seen the title, were you?

For years, I had absolutely no success with fudge or jam or any of those things that involve boiling sugar mixtures for ages on end. Then I bought myself a sugar thermometer and everything changed. I highly recommend them!

Ingredients
250g butter
250ml milk
25ml golden syrup (Americans can try golden syrup or corn syrup)
1kg sugar
397g tin condensed milk
10ml vanilla extract

Method

It's best to use a heavy-bottomed saucepan for this recipe. Melt the butter, then add the milk, syrup and sugar.
Bring to the boil over a medium heat, stirring frequently.
Boil for 15 minutes, still stirring frequently.
Add the condensed milk and bring back to the boil, stirring continuously.
Boil until soft ball stage is reached - roughly 115C. Ann reckons this takes 12 minutes. I find it takes much longer than that. Perhaps she uses a higher heat than I do.
Remove from the heat and add the vanilla. Beat well with an electric beater.
Pour out into a shallow dish or baking tray.
Leave to stand until cool. When the fudge has begun to set, but is still warm, score it deeply so that you can cut it into squares later without it breaking (if that matters).

If the fudge doesn't set, this is probably because you didn't bring it to a high enough temperature and you know what? You can either heat it up and use it as a sauce for ice-cream, or you can bung it back into the saucepan and bring it back up to the right temperature. I've done both in my time. The great thing about cooking for your family is that they are usually more than happy to devour your 'flops' without a murmur...as long as said flops are sweet treats, that is!

Cinnamon glazed butternut

2011-05-19T00:38:00.000-07:00

When I was a child, my Afrikaans granny had a tendency to cook with a lot of sugar. So did a lot of Afrikaans ladies of that vintage. It was just 'the way it's done'. And I'm not talking about cakes and sweets. I'm talking about vegetables. A spoon of sugar in the green peas. A teaspoon of sugar and a teaspoon of butter in each half of a gem squash (a tennis ball sized squash that looks like this) as it was placed on the plate. Sugar in this, sugar sprinkled over that. Astonishingly she and my grandfather both lived into their 80s.

I loved my Gran's cakes, but I was never a fan of her vegetables. I have never been much of a one for adding sugar to the deliciously natural sweetness of vegetables.

With one occasional exception.

Every now and again, when I am cooking a bobotie or a biryani, I make cinnamon glazed butternut to go with it. It is utterly, utterly sinful. But I am not advocating that this recipe should take the place of the way you normally cook your butternut.

Oh... and it works just as well with pumpkin. I just prefer the taste of butternut.

Ingredients
125ml cold water
500g butternut, peeled and cut into thick pieces
30ml butter
5ml ground cinnamon
10ml soft brown sugar

Method

Pour the water into a heavy-based saucepan first.
Spread the butternut over the base of the saucepan in no more than two layers.
Sprinkle the sugar and cinnamon evenly over the butternut.
Dot the butter on top.
Cover and cook over a low heat until the butternut is soft (about 20 minutes or so). Keep an eye on the water level. If the water all boils away, the butternut will burn.

Joan's overnight noodle salad

2011-05-18T00:25:00.000-07:00

This is the promised second overnight salad which so wonderfully frees up the host/ess to be host/ess at a barbecue, instead of winding up in the kitchen while everyone else socialises (I published the first one last week).

Once again, this generates vast quantities, so scale down as required.

Ingredients
1 whole packet of pasta, cooked (I used farfalle, as you can see)
1 tin peaches, drained and chopped
1 green bell pepper, chopped
1 onion, finely chopped (I used spring onions, because I had some leftover from the other overnight salad)
250ml tomato ketchup
200ml sugar
120ml vinegar
Few drops Tobasco sauce
20ml medium curry powder.

Method (such as it is)
Mix all the ingredients together, cover and leave to stand overnight.

You might be inclined to make this salad on the day, if you have the time, but it really does need that time for the flavours to develop. The first time I made this salad, I tasted it immediately after mixing it up and thought "Uh oh. I don't think I'm going to like that!" But the next day, it was much improved and really tasty.

Brisket with attitude

2011-05-17T00:45:00.000-07:00

As I took my last mouthful of delicious tender brisket on Saturday night, I looked across at my husband and said, "I forgot to take a photo!" My family has grown so used to having their food photographed before they get to eat it, that he knew exactly what I meant. But it was too late. Sorry about that.

This recipe is based on one I got from my local butcher years ago. He had these little recipe cards printed up and would hand them out to the customers when they purchased the relevant cut of meat. I must have bought a brisket from him, I guess.

Brisket is one of the cheaper cuts of beef. It is full of flavour, as so many of the cheaper cuts are. But it is also inclined to be tougher. So you should roast it at a lower temperature for longer to overcome that. Don't be tempted to aim for a roast that's still pink in the middle. Save that for the more expensive cuts.

Oven temperature
150C

Ingredients
2kg deboned, rolled brisket
10 peppercorns
6 cloves
2 bay leaves
4 kaffir lime leaves
2 carrots, peeled and chopped
60ml brown vinegar
25g butter
1 small onion, finely chopped
500ml boiling water
250ml chutney (Mrs Balls for preference, if you're able to get it)
125ml sweet chilli sauce

Method

Crush the herbs and spices together (I use a coffee grinder) and mix together with the chopped onion, carrots, vinegar, chutney and sweet chilli sauce.
Place the meat in a large bowl and spoon the sauce over. Make sure the meat is evenly covered with marinade.
Leave to marinate for eight hours or overnight, turning once halfway through the process.
Remove the meat from the marinade and drain (but keep the marinade!).
Melt the butter in a heavy frying pan and brown the joint on all sides. Transfer into a casserole dish.
Add the boiling water to the pan to loosen up the bits and bobs from the browning, then add that to the marinade and pour over the meat.
Cover with a lid or foil and pop into the oven for about 3 hours.
Remove from the marinade and blot off any excess fat. Set aside and keep warm.
Thicken the sauce with a little cornflour mixed with cold water and bring back up to the boil. You could use the frying pan for this again. Serve this in place of gravy.

Themed children's parties: racing cars

2011-05-16T00:49:00.000-07:00

The next in the series of themed children's party eats can be (just about) seen in the foreground of the picture above, on the right.

Ingredients
Finger biscuits
Icing sugar (about half a cup should do it)
Round sweets such as dolly mixtures, liquorice allsorts or lifesavers
Jelly babies

Method

Mix up the icing sugar with just enough water to make a paste.
The finger biscuits are the body of your racing cars. Using the icing sugar paste, stick a round sweet to the front and back of each side of the biscuit. Don't get clever and try to position the tyres (tires) so that the body is raised, okay? We're going for an idea, here. So keep the biscuit flat on the surface or you will discover that you know lots of very rude words.
Chop each jelly baby in half across its waist, or maybe a little higher. Eat the bottom halves. Stick the top halves onto the finger biscuits about halfway along, to be the driver.
Et voila! Racing car eats for your party.

Citrus fruit cake filling

2011-05-14T03:30:00.000-07:00

No photo today.

About a week ago, I baked a chocolate cake, and decided to try something a little different between the two layers. Since I love chocolate and orange together, I made this really simple orange filling using a recipe out of my trusty Cook and Enjoy it (Kook en Geniet). It's a bit like a curd (which I also adore), only it doesn't have eggs in it. I made a little too much, and had masses left over, which I have been eating on my toast every morning since then. Just yum!

It occurred to me that you could do exactly the same thing with lemons or limes, and I have every intention of trying it with lime very soon because, as you know if you're a regular reader, I'm deeply passionate about limes, and I'm thinking that a lime version of this filling between two layers, with coconut icing on top would be a highly respectable treatment for a sponge cake to get!

Ingredients
250ml sugar
2.5ml salt
60ml cornflour
250ml orange (or lemon or lime or a blend thereof) juice
Grated zest of one orange (or lemon or lime)
15ml lemon juice
45ml butter

Method

Place the salt, sugar and cornflour together in a saucepan and gradually stir in the orange juice.
Stir over a medium heat until the mixture becomes glossy and thick.
Remove from the heat and add the rest of the ingredients. Stir well.
Allow to cool completely before spreading on the cake or it will sink in to the sponge rather than forming a filling between your layers.

Hummingbird cake

2011-05-13T10:16:00.000-07:00

Note: No actual hummingbirds were harmed during the making of this cake.

Blogger's been down much of the day, so this recipe is a little late, but hopefully it will prove to have been worth the wait. The first time I tasted this cake was in a little independent coffee shop in Durbanville in the Western Cape. The owner of the coffee shop had a friend who made them for her. She refused to share the recipe with me, but told me that it was an Australian cake.

In the intervening years, I have tracked down many recipes for this cake, and they all seem to indicate that it originates in the southern United States of America. None of them explain how it came by the name, though. Perhaps someone can tell me the real story.

Enough of that, now. Let's get baking, shall we?

Oven temperature
180C

Ingredients
Cake:
750ml plain flour
500ml sugar
2.5ml salt
5ml baking powder
5ml ground cinnamon
3 eggs, beaten
175ml vegetable oil
2.5ml vanilla
225g tin of crushed pineapple in juice
250ml chopped pecans
3 medium sized bananas, mashed

Icing:
125g butter at room temperature
250g cream cheese
500g icing sugar
2.5ml vanilla extract
2.5ml lemon juice
'Some' chopped pecans

Method

Sift together the flour, salt, baking powder and cinnamon, then stir in the sugar.
Fold in the beaten eggs, oil, vanilla, pineapple (complete with juice), nuts and bananas.
Blend well (by hand, though - not in a blender!) and divide into three 20cm baking pans.
Bake for 25 minutes and then cool on racks before icing.

Now let's get weaving on that icing, shall we, because it's deeeelish!

Beat together the cheese and butter.
Gradually add the icing sugar a little at a time, mixing well with each addition.
Finally, add the lemon juice and vanilla and stir well.
Apply to all three cake layers. I suggest dividing it up evenly first.
Stack the layers and then garnish with a few pecans.

Be warned, this cake was so tall that it left icing on the top of my tallest cake tin! What a problem to have.

Tuna and asparagus bake

2011-05-11T02:05:00.000-07:00

A truly yummy combination of flavours that could use up some fridge fallout in the process. The original recipe is stuck in my do-it-yourself recipe book, having been cut out of some or other magazine at some or other point in my life.

Oven temperature
180C

Ingredients
750ml cooked rice (as in 750ml after cooking, not 750ml rice which is then cooked)
90ml butter
15ml lemon juice
15ml chopped parsley (I leave this out, because my husband loathes parsley)
410g tin of asparagus salad cuts
1 onion, finely chopped
2 courgettes/zucchini/baby marrow/whatever you call them, sliced (roughly 4mm slices)
Half a green bell pepper, seeded and chopped
25ml cornflour
60ml water
60ml sour cream
200g tin of tuna, drained and flaked
15ml fresh mint, chopped
250ml grated cheddar (or similar) cheese
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Method

Bake, uncovered for about 30mins

Combine the rice with 30ml of the butter, lemon juice and parsley in a large bowl, then spoon over the base of a large ovenproof dish. Press this rice base down to pack it tightly.
Drain the asparagus cuts, but keep about 125ml of the juice. Arrange the asparagus on top of the rice.
Heat the remaining butter in a saucepan over medium heat and saute the onions lightly.
Add the courgettes and green pepper. Stir fry for about a minute or until the veg begin to soften a bit.
Stir in the cornflour and cook for a further minute.
Stir in the reserved asparagus juice and water and keep stirring until a smooth consistency is achieved.
Remove from heat and add the sour cream, tuna, mint and seasoning.
Spoon this mixture over the asparagus and spread gently.
Sprinkle with cheese and bake uncovered for about 30 minutes.
If you like, you can top it with croutons after baking, but I have never found it necessary.

The rice forms a sort of 'crust'. I tend to mash the rice a bit to achieve a 'mealie rice'/grits texture.

A note about my comment about fridge fallout - you could add leftover vegetables to the tuna mixture, and I reckon peas and/or sweetcorn would be no bad idea!

Joan's overnight salad #1

2011-05-10T01:47:00.000-07:00

You know how you when you're hosting a barbecue/braai for hordes of people, and you wind up spending all the time in the kitchen because you can't make the salads in advance? Well, not any more! A few years ago, a friend of mine gave me two recipes for salads that actually need to be made the night before. I kid you not. How cool is that?

I will share the second one next week.

This recipe is for a vast quantity - scale down the ingredients as required.

Ingredients
2 iceberg (or similar sized) lettuces, shredded
6 or so celery stalks, diced or sliced
Small bunch spring onions, finely sliced
Small packet frozen peas
Jar tangy mayonnaise
Garlic salt to taste
Parmesan cheese (some), grated
250g packet bacon rashers, fried or grilled
4 eggs, hard boiled and grated
Block of Cheddar (or similar) cheese, grated

Method (such as it is)
(edited) Layer all the ingredients together in the order in which they are listed, preferably in glass bowls to get the effect of the layers, cover and store overnight.

You may notice that my picture above shows the ingredients all mixed together. That was because I wrote down the recipe incorrectly in the first place. Having now seen the recipe posted here, Joan has advised me that the layering prevents the lettuce from going soggy. So that's what I've been doing wrong!

I have a third recipe for a salad that needs to be made in advance, but that one calls for an ingredient not readily available in the UK (and I'm not sure about the US), so I need to think carefully about whether there is any point in sharing it. Perhaps you can let me know: how easily could you get your hands on peach flavoured jelly (jello) powder? The block type is no use.

Themed children's parties: pig faces

2011-05-09T03:05:00.000-07:00

That wasn't brilliant timing, was it? I promised you a Monday series for children's parties right before two sequential bank holiday Mondays. Doh! Well, I'm back on track, now.

Today's eats are useful for nursery rhyme parties ("This little piggy..."), fairy tale parties (Three Little Pigs), farmyard themed parties, Peppa Pig parties, and (of course) parties with no theme at all. You can see the pigs on the right had side of the picture above. Once again scanned from an old photo, so not the greatest quality, I grant you. Fret not, I will share with you how to make each of the things in that photo... except the crisps.

Ingredients:
Flat round biscuits (Marie biscuits or thin rich tea biscuits)
Pink marshmallows (next week, I'll show you what to do with the white ones)
Pink icing (frosting) already made up
Red food colouring and an cotton bud (Q tip) to apply it... clean, of course!
Small round sweets like Smarties, Jelly Tots or some such.

Method:

Spread each biscuit with pink icing.
Chop the marshmallows in half (horizontally, as in, to make a shorter cylinder) and press one half into the icing in the centre of the biscuit. This is your piggy's nose. I used scissors for this.
Using the cotton bud and the red food dye, make two red dots on the top of the marshmallow for nostrils.
Press two little sweeties into the icing above the nose for eyes. Remember that a pig's eyes are quite low and wide set. If you place them high and close together, you will get a more bear-like face.
Slice a marshmallow into roughly 4mm circles. Cut each circle in half. These are your ears. Press them into the icing near the top of the head (they should stick out over the edge) to make ears, and short of squeeze them into a longer, narrower shape (pig's don't have round ears).
And that's it. Honest. You don't need to bother with a mouth.

Chicken biryani

2011-05-06T07:41:00.000-07:00

This recipe is fairly time consuming, but the results are oh-so-worth it! I am utterly in love with chicken biryani, so much so that it is a challenge for me to choose something else from the menu when we visit an Indian restaurant.

I should point out that this recipe is almost certianly not authentically Indian, since it is based on one drawn from a book of Cape Malay recipes. South Africa has an enormous 'Indian' population. These are people descended from the Indians brought out to work on the sugar cane farms in what was then known as Natal. In the apartheid era, 'Indian' was one of the four racial classifications and the term is still in use today. Most South African Indians remain in the KwaZulu-Natal area, as a result of which, Durban (the city in which I was born) is often referred to as the 'capital of India'.

The Cape Malays (as the phrase suggests) are largely concentrated in the Western Cape, which is where I spent twelve years of my life, and where both my children were born.

However, there are commonalities in their cuisine, and some fusion has been inevitable...especially in my kitchen, with my exposure to both! Purists will argue one way or the other, of course, but I'm not enough of a connoisseur to get embroiled in that wrangling. I enjoy recipes from both cultures, and I hope that you will enjoy this one. It is one I make fairly often for guests.

So here goes...

Oven temperature
Low (for reheating)

Ingredients
1kg chicken portions
2 onions, diced
A little oil
500ml lentils
500ml uncooked rice (I use Basmati, because my husband is addicted to the stuff!)
10ml butter
2 cinnamon quills/sticks/whatever you like to call them
4 cardamom pods, split open
3 red or green chillies chopped (increase or decrease this number to taste, but biryani is generally not very hot)
4 hard boiled eggs
10ml ground cumin
2.5ml turmeric (if you're feeling flush, you can use some saffron strands instead) plus another 7.5ml
250ml pouring yoghurt
10ml red masala powder
15ml peri-peri oil
1 clove garlic, crushed
5ml finely chopped fresh ginger (or you can use the 'very lazy' bottled kind, but avoid the powdered ground ginger)
5ml ground cinnamon
10ml salt

Method

Combine the following ingredients and marinade the chicken for two hours: yoghurt, red masala, 7.5ml turmeric, peri peri oil, garlic, ginger, ground cinnamon and salt.
Set the lentils to cook in boiling water until more or less soft. While they're doing that, you can get on with the next steps. When they are cooked, drain and set aside.
Boil the rice in boiling water as well, until done, drain and set aside. To be honest, I cook the rice and lentils together, because it frees up one hotplate and means one less saucepan to wash!
Heat a little oil and saute the onion and chilli. Set aside.
Over a medium heat, melt the butter in a large, heavy-bottomed saucepan and add the cinnamon quills and cardamom.
Brown the chicken in this saucepan, taking care not to burn the yoghurt. If necessary, add a (tiny) bit of water, so that the chicken doesn't stick.
When the chicken is brown, add about half a cup of water and 2.5ml of turmeric (or saffron) and cook, uncovered until done through and soft. Remove from heat.
In a large bowl, mix the rice, lentils (if they aren't already mixed, that is!), onion-and-chillies and chicken.
Transfer half the mixture into a serving bowl, and sprinkle with half the cumin and spread half the egg slices over it.
Add the other half and sprinkle with the rest of the cumin. If you have rose water to hand, you might like to sprinkle some of that over, too (yum!). Spread the rest of the egg slices over the top. Cover and place in the oven to heat through.
Serve with vegetable curry (for an Indian slant) or Cape Malay style vegetables (recipes for which will be added to this blog at some stage, but can be downloaded from all manner of sites in the interim).

Fruit crumble with an oh-so-tasty difference

2011-05-05T00:45:00.000-07:00

Fruit crumbles are popular, easy dessert options, and you can use just about any fruit: fresh, canned or frozen that you have to hand. But I recently learned a wonderful trick with crumble that I would like to share with you. This recipe is once again based on one drawn from my new favourite 200 veggie feasts. The 'trick' can be applied to pretty much any crumble recipe, but I'll give it a context, shall I?

Oven temperature

180C

Ingredients

500g plums, halved and stoned
1 large pear, peeled, cored and thinly sliced
100g caster sugar
125g plain flour
50g butter, diced
125g marzipan, coarsely grated (this is the secret ingredient, ladies and gentlemen)

Method

Arrange the fruit in a pie dish and sprinkle with half the sugar.
With your fingertips, rub the rest of the sugar, flour and butter together, until you get a consistency like breadcrumbs (you can also use a food processor for this).
Gently stir in the marzipan.
Spoon this mixture over the fruit.
Bake for 35-40 minutes until golden brown. If it starts to brown too quickly, cover it with foil for a while. Otherwise you'll end up with burnt crumble over still-raw fruit.
Serve hot with cream, custard or ice cream.

Vetkoek

2011-05-04T07:01:00.000-07:00

This is a South African traditional dish that has its roots deep in the country's Dutch heritage. I suspect that it owes much to Dutch oliebolle. It has, however, gained a wider market than just those of Dutch descent in the country (if it were at all possible to draw a ring around that subset these days!). My husband has fond memories of bunking out of his high school hostel to buy what is called a curry bunny, a vetkoek, filled with curried mince.

I use a breadmaker to make these, but you can use pretty much any bread recipe and pick it up at the point where we shape it into balls.

Balls that will fit in your hand

Ingredients

500ml bread flour
7.5ml fast acting dried yeast
5ml salt
2.5ml sugar
250ml lukewarm water
Oil for deep frying

Method

Pour the water into the breadmaker pan.
Add the dry ingredients, yeast last of all.
Set your breadmaker to the 'dough' setting and start.
With wet hands, shape the dough into balls that fit easily into the palm of your hand.
Heat the oil in a saucepan - you don't need more than about an inch deep or so, the dough will float on top of the oil anyway. Don't use a high heat, or the vetkoek won't cook through.
Pack the dough balls fairly closely together in the oil. Fry them for about 5 minutes until they're golden brown (roughly doughnut coloured).
Flip them over and cook on the other side.
Take them out of the oil and place them on a cooling rack with paper towel underneath.
They're best eaten while still fairly hot. They're delicious with cheese and apricot jam (yes, together - be adventurous!) or with curried mince.
Roughly doughnut coloured

Peanutbutter biscuits (cookies)

2011-05-03T00:49:00.000-07:00

The very first thing I ever baked at home by myself, was peanut butter biscuits. My Gran gave me the recipe and was on hand to give advice, but the work was all my very own, and I nearly burst with pride when my Gran served the biscuits to the family at tea time.

So I speak from personal experience when I say that this is a recipe a child could follow.

Oven temperature
160C

Ingredients
175g butter, at room temperature
175ml crunchy peanut butter
125ml white sugar
125ml brown sugar
1 egg
500ml plain flour
2.5ml baking powder

Flatten with a fork dipped in sugar

Method
Cream the sugar and butter together until light.
Beat in the peanut butter.
Beat in the egg.
Sift in the dry ingredients and mix well.
Shape the dough into walnut sized balls and arrange on a baking tray about 5cm apart.
Press down with a fork dipped in sugar.
Bake for 10-12 minutes until light brown (all ovens vary, so you may have to bake yours a little longer, but remember that biscuits don't crisp up in the oven - that happens afterwards during cooling).
Cool completely on wire racks. Store in airtight containers.
This recipe should yield about 50-ish biscuits.

Beetroot risotto with cream cheese and pine nuts

2011-04-29T09:08:00.000-07:00

Today, I'd like to share with you a delicious, delumptious, recent discovery. A couple of weeks ago, I came across a little paperback book going for half price in my local supermarket. It's a Hamlyn book by Louise Pickford, called 200 veggie feasts. I was attracted to it because our current straitened circumstances mean that we have to cut back on meat, which tends to be rather costly. Let me tell you, I could happily work my way through the entire book! We have already sampled several of them, and today's recipe is based on one such. It is one of the tastiest meals I've had in a long time.

Ingredients
1200ml stock (I made this up using my old standby Vecon)
4 cooked beetroot, peeled and diced
60ml cooking oil (okay, the book calls for extra virgin olive oil, but in the light of yesterday's post...)
1 red onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed
10ml fresh thyme (or 5ml dried)
300g arborio/risotto/paella rice (you could try ordinary rice, if you like)
125ml red wine
150g cream cheese (the original recipe calls for either mascarpone or soft goat's cheese, but cream cheese works a treat!)
Small bag pine nuts (you could substitute pecans if you prefer - just chop them)
Salt and black pepper to taste

Method

Bring the stock to a gentle simmer in a saucepan
Heat the oil in a separate saucepan and stirfry the onion, garlic and thyme over a low heat, until the onion is softened and translucent. Add salt and pepper to taste (I added a twist or six of black pepper, but no salt).
Add the rice to the onion mixture and stir until every grain is coated and shiny looking.

Until the liquid is absorbed

Stir in the wine and bring to the boil. Keep stirring until the wine is absorbed.
Stir in the beetroot.
Add the stock, a little at a time, stirring after each addition.
Cook over a medium heat until the liquid is absorbed. You will need to keep stirring, or it will stick. This should take about 20 minutes. Ideally, the rice should be slightly al dente.
Remove from the heat and stir in the cheese. Cover and leave to stand for a couple of minutes.

Sprinkle each portion with pine nuts as you serve (don't forget this bit, it makes such a difference!)

On food snobbery

2011-04-28T00:24:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to carve out a moment to address this subject before resuming normal service. You will (hopefully) have noticed that I major on everyday ingredients on this blog. It is not my goal to have you swing by the deli, or some specialist shop to buy a bag of something, which you will use once and then never touch again.

That's one thing. But let me get something else perfectly clear, here. I'm no paragon, okay? I don't produce magnificent dishes from scratch, using only fresh ingredients every day of every week. Obviously I recognise that it is better to do so, and I do try to go that route as much as possible. But, at any given moment, you will find in my fridge jars of 'very lazy' minced ginger, chilli and lemon grass. There may also be a jar of tom yum paste, and Thai red/green/yellow curry paste. All ready-mixed. I have on stand-by in my cupboard a few vacuum packed 'cook in' sauces of the sort where you just add the meat.

...and I am not above slinging a frozen pizza in the oven on one of those days when there simply isn't time to do anything else, but everybody's gotta eat. Fortunately, those days are fairly rare at the moment, but I have done two stints of studying, and the acknowledgements page of my Masters' dissertation includes these words "to our two sons, Björn and Torvald who have patiently eaten far too many ready meals..."

I am not a professional chef, nor am I a nutritionist. While I try to provide a largely healthy diet for my family, I am not a health nut... and I have sons, for goodness' sake. Teenage sons!

I am just like you: I have a life. I have a job to do, hobbies to pursue, kids to raise and ferry from one activity to another, a spouse with whom I would like to spend time, a dog to walk, chores to complete and errands to run. I know that 'real' people can't spend all day preparing a meal. I also know that, on the occasions when I do take all day preparing a meal, it is eaten just as quickly as if I had nuked it in the microwave (oh yes, I have a microwave... and I use it). And the things that I throw together at the last minute are often enjoyed more than those long-winded things, anyway.

So yes, I may have shared a recipe that will enable you to knit your own granola, but there will be no elitism here. In this space (and in the conversations that appear on Facebook), there will be no food snobbery. I seek only to share with you the recipes that I use in the hope that you will find them helpful, interesting and - above all - tasty.

Köttbullar med gräddsås (Swedish meatballs and...erm... 'gravy')

2011-04-27T02:35:00.000-07:00

Being married to a Swede, it was inevitable that I should have to learn to make these early on. Of course, when we moved to the UK and had access to Ikea, we were able to buy frozen meatballs by the bag. Home made ones are still better, though! When I make them, I make a double batch and freeze half for later use.

They can be fried (my mother-in-law fries hers... in lashings of butter, of course), but I find that takes forever when you are cooking large enough quantities for three viking appetites, so I do mine in the oven. Sacrilege!

Oh, and remember what I said about the traditional Swedish diet not being healthy? You have been warned.

First let's get those meatballs going, then we'll make a start on the sauce (which, by the way, translates as 'cream sauce').

Meatballs
Oven temperature
200C

Ingredients
500g minced beef
500g minced pork
1 egg
200-300ml cream-and-water mixture (or the slightly healthier option of just using milk, as I do)
1 small onion, finely chopped
100ml breadcrumbs (or rusk flour if it's available in your area)
2 cold, boiled potatoes
Butter, margarine or oil for frying/baking (we'll come to that in a bit)
Salt and white pepper to taste
5ml ground allspice (this, dear friends, is the critical ingredient that gives the meatballs their 'Swedish' taste)

Method

I roll them in flour as I go

Traditionally, you're supposed to saute the onion in butter until golden, but a healthier option is to sweat them in the microwave (place in glass bowl, cover with pierced clingfilm and nuke 'em for about a minute or so). You decide.
Peel and mash the potato.
Moisten the bread crumbs (or rusk flour) with a little water.
Mix the meats, egg, breadcrumbs, potato, flour and seasonings.
Add a little of the cream-and-water/milk at a time, until you get a manageable consistency. You might not have to add all of it, but don't despair, you can use what's left for the gräddsås.
Shape it into balls with wet hands (so that the mixture doesn't stick too much). You're looking for something about the size of a golf/squash/table tennis ball.
Place on a lightly floured chopping board. I tend to roll each ball in flour as I go. I use a small tupperware container for the purpose.

I top each one with a tiny knob of butter

Traditionally, you are now supposed to fry them slowly in butter (yes, butter, I kid you not!). But I tend to place them in a baking tray. I spray the tray first with Fry Light, but you could grease it, or cover the bottom with a thin layer of oil. Then, if I'm feeling decadent, I top each one each with a tiny knob of butter. I bake them in the oven for about 20 or so minutes, turning every now and then, to ensure even(ish) cooking. Because you have used pork, it is vital that the meatballs are cooked right through.

While those are in the oven, let's get cracking on the sauce, shall we?

Gräddsås
Ingredients
100ml cream or milk (or half of each)
200ml beef stock
15ml cornflour
Salt and white pepper to taste

Method

You're supposed to include the scrapings from the frying pan, but since we don't have any, we will make do without. If, however, you've decided to go the traditional route, make up the sauce in the frying pan, starting by swirling the (boiling) beef stock in the pan to loosen up all those little loose bits that remain in the pan.
Bring the beef stock to the boil in a small saucepan.
Add a little water to the cornflour and mix into a smooth paste. Add this to the stock and stir until thickened.
Remove from the heat and add the cream.
Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Serve with boiled baby potatoes and lingonsylt (if you can get it). If you can't get your hands on lingonsylt, cranberry sauce makes a fair substitute.

Michèle's chocolate loaf

2011-04-26T00:41:00.000-07:00

I'm afraid there's no picture for today's recipe, for the simple reason that I haven't made one myself on this occasion. You see, many of my Facebook friends shared pictures of their melted Easter eggs over the weekend, so I thought I'd share an idea of what you might do with those. I only got one small Easter egg this year, and it didn't melt. And, after all my complaints about my burgeoning butt, I was not about to dash out and buy tons more chocolate in order to produce this recipe, so you're going to have to take my word for it and use your imagination.

You can substitute the chocolate specifications below with whatever melted Easter eggs you have.

It takes quite a while to make, with all the chilling of each stage, but it's not labour intensive... and you can get on with other things while the chilling is going on.

If you have sharp eyes and a good memory, you might have figured out that this recipe came from the same friend who gave me the granola recipe I shared some time back.

Ingredients
175g plain chocolate
100g butter
225ml condensed milk
175g shortbread biscuits, crushed
175g white chocolate
50g glace cherries, quartered
50g raisins (or candied peel)

Method

Line a 450g loaf tin with cling film, pushing it well into the corners.
Melt half the plain chocolate and a quarter of the butter in a double boiler (or in a jug in the microwave - use about 50-80% power), and add about a quarter of the condensed milk. Mix well.
Pour half of this into the tin and top with half the biscuits.
Pour the rest of the melted chocolate over.
Chill for 45-60 minutes until firmish.
Melt half the white chocolate with a quarter of the butter. Add a quarter of the condensed milk and half the fruit. Mix well.
Pour into the tin on top of the previous layer.
Chill again as before. Repeat this process for another two layers.
Chill overnight.
Turn out, peel off the cling film and slice.

Cake pops

2011-04-25T01:20:00.000-07:00

Cake has a central role in most birthday parties - but many a parent has realised that while the little darlings love to look at the cake, they seldom actually eat it! What does go down well, though, is portion-sized treats. Cup cakes have filled this spot for some time, but now there's a new kid on the block: the Cake Pop. From a planning point of view they are great because they can be made ahead and chilled or frozen without fear of them drying out. They work just as well as a dessert (these in the photo were make for an Easter Sunday lunch), or an addition to afternoon tea.

Have fun!

Ingredients:

A cake (I used sponge cakes – chocolate for some and lemon for the rest)

Butter icing

Melted chocolate (I used coating chocolate)

Styrofoam and lolly sticks

Instructions:

This can be as simple or complicated as you like. Buy a pre-made cake, or make up your own cake, either way, no-one will know the difference.

Crumble the baked cake and add to a bowl of pre-made butter icing. Mix until it’s the consistancy of cookie-dough. Put the mixture into the fridge for 15 minutes to harden slightly.

Scoop up tablespoons of the dough and make ping-pong sized balls. Place the balls on a baking sheet and put into the freezer for 30 minutes (or longer) to harden.

Melt the chocolate while the balls are hardening.

Push a lolly-stick into each ball. Put a little melted chocolate on each stick - it will help anchor it in the ball.

Dip the ball into the melted chocolate.

Allow the excess chocolate to drip off, and cover with sprinkles or other treats before the chocolate gets hard.

Push each lolly stick into a covered piece of styrofoam while the chocolate is drying. If you do not have something to push the stick into, you can put the ball down onto a plate like a toffee apple.

These portion-size treats can be easily themed for a party. White coating chocolate can be coloured to create psycadelic pops.

All the cake-decorating techniques can be applied to make faces, figures and fun. You can also put the individual pop into a see-through bag as a take-home treat. If there are any left-overs, they can be frozen.

Pickled fish

2011-04-21T03:08:00.000-07:00

In the UK, it is common to eat salmon on Good Friday. In many South African communities, particularly on the Cape Flats, where there is a strong Cape Malay influence, it is more common to eat pickled fish.

These days I can buy almost everything that formed a part of my shopping list in South Africa at at least one of my local supermarkets, but pickled fish is an exception (there is one other, and perhaps I will find and share a recipe at some point).

I was bemoaning this fact to a fellow ex-pat a couple of years back, and she happily shared her recipe with me, advising me to get myself a copy of the Cape Malay cookbook. To my embarrassment, I realised that not only did I have this cookbook, I used it fairly often. It had just never occurred to me to make my own pickled fish... or even to look for a recipe! I used to buy canned pickled fish in South Africa. It was one of those things you don't think of making (like baked beans and tuna).

So, if you'd like to try a slightly different fish tomorrow, how about this? It's almost certainly going to be cheaper than salmon!

I'm sharing the recipe today, because it needs 24 hours marinading time.

Ingredients

1kg (ish) of firm fleshed white fish
2 pinches salt
10ml red masala (or medium curry powder if you can't get masala)
175ml sunflower oil
1 cardamom pod, split open
375ml malt (brown) vinegar
10ml turmeric (borrie)
5ml chilli powder
15ml sugar
2 onions, thinly sliced
250ml water
2 bay leaves
2 curry leaves (if you can't get these, add more bay leaves)
4 allspice
1 whole clove

Method

Blot the fish with paper towel and then sprinkle with one pinch of salt and about half of the masala. Leave to stand for a couple of minutes.
Heat oil and cardamom pod in a frying pan and shallow fry fish until light brown.
Remove fish from pan and spread in a large, shallow dish (not aluminium). Set aside for now.
In a saucepan, place vinegar, turmeric, sugar, second pinch of salt, the rest of the masala, chilli powder, onion rings and water. Bring to the boil and simmer for a couple of minutes.
Add the bay leaves, curry leaves, allspice and clove and remove from the heat.
Allow to cool slightly, then pour over the fish, covering the fish completely.
Cover and set aside for 24 hours for the flavours to develop.
Serve with buttered bread and a green salad.

Ann's apple (or other tart fruit) crumble

2011-04-20T01:25:00.000-07:00

This recipe came from my sister in law. She regularly whips up this dessert if she has fruit to hand. Because she carries the recipe in her head, it's one she can make on family holidays in remote locations.

In 2001, when there was a gathering of the clans on the small Swedish island where my mother-in-law grew up, our summer cottages boasted the bare minimum of culinary equipment, but Ann was able to produce delicious fruit crumbles without turning a hair.

Mine never turn out quite as well as hers, but they're still delicious.

I'll give you the apple recipe first, and then explain what to do if you're using other fruits. The recipe is a little vague - recipes from good cooks often are (they know what they need to do, so it doesn't occur to the that you don't) - but that leaves you room to experiment!

Oven temperature
180C

Ingredients
1 apple per person and one for the dish, peeled, cored, and thinly sliced
Water or fruit juice - there's no quantity given, but all will become clear
A little cornflour (probably about 10ml or so, more if you're making a large quantity)
Sugar to taste
Spice of choice - in the UK, you'd probably think cinnamon, but in Sweden, they'd be more likely to reach for cardamom. I recommend the latter! It is deee-licious. If you're not accustomed to working with cardamom, in this instance you will need to open the pods and crush or grind the black seeds.
50g sugar
50g flour
100g butter/marg (by now, you know I only use butter), slightly softened but not melted

Method

Layer the apple slices in your dish. Sprinkle sugar and spice over each layer. The dish should be about 3/4 full of fruit.
Mix the cornflour with a little liquid and pour over the fruit. Add more liquid until the liquid level is about a third of the way up the fruit.
Now mix together the sugar, flour and butter to form a dryish dough. You can double the quantities of these ingredients if you're catering for a larger group.
Using the largest side of your grater, 'grate' the dough to form worm shapes and spread these over the top of the fruit. If the dough is too soft, pop it in the fridge for a while.
Bake until the fruit is soft (test with a sharp knife - always test in the middle, because this will take the longest to cook) and the crumble is golden and crisp.
Serve with cream, ice cream or custard (or, if your family is anything like mine: all three!)

If you're using pears, the recipe is exactly the same. If you're using berries, you'll need less liquid and a heavier hand with the sugar.

Fish cakes

2011-04-19T02:31:00.000-07:00

I hope you don't mind: you're going to get fish recipes twice this week. Ironic, considering my early disclaimer regarding a lack of fish in my repertoire. I guess I need to re-evaluate that perception of myself. It appears to be past its sell-by date.

When I was a child, my Mom used occasionally used to buy frozen fish fingers, which I loved (and still enjoy - no food snobbery, here!) and frozen fish cakes, which I loathed. They left me with such a negative impression of fish cakes, that I was well into adulthood with a family of my own before I even thought of trying to make them.

This is a great way to use up leftover fish and potatoes. I made these ones using the leftovers from the stuffed hake recipe I shared a while back, having monstrously over-catered on that occasion - forgetting that there would be just two of us at dinner.

Ingredients

200-400g cooked fish - you can use white fish, salmon, haddock, mackerel... you name it! You could even use shellfish, but you'd need to mince it.
1 large cooked potato
10ml chopped dill (I have explained about my Swedish husband and their addiction to this herb - feel free to use one you prefer, like chives or parsley)
2 eggs
10ml grated lemon zest
60ml flour
Fresh breadcrumbs
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Method

Mash the potato well.
Mash the fish and stir it to the potato.
Stir in the flour.
Beat one of the eggs and mix that in.
Add the zest, herbs, salt and pepper, and mix everything together well. If the mixture is too runny, add another mashed potato.
Lightly beat the other egg and place it into a flattish bowl.
Shape the fish mixture into balls with your hands. Flatten each ball into a patty shape and then dip in the egg, turning the fish cake over to coat each side. It's probably best to use and egg lifter/fish slice (whatever you call it in your neck of the woods) for this task.
Dip in the breadcrumbs, and turn, coating both sides.
Shallow fry in oil/Fry Light over a medium-high heat until browned on both sides.
Serve with salad.

Themed children's parties: clowns

2011-04-18T05:30:00.000-07:00

For the second in my series of themed children's parties, I thought I'd look at clowns, simply because that was the theme of my elder son's second birthday party. Poor lamb, his baby brother was three weeks old when he turned two. I was determined that he would have a party in which he could be the centre of attention, and just about did myself in making all manner of clown eats while keeping on top of my normal tasks, and looking after a newborn infant. As you can see, I decided to have only 8 children at the party, so that it would be manageable.

To emphasise the theme, I bought paper plates with clown faces on them. I also made a clown cake, and a few other clown-type eats. I didn't hire an actual clown, because we were way too broke for that, but you could go that route... unless your child is scared of them (and many children are). You might also like to get the kids to dress up as clowns, and decorate the venue like a big top. You can expand the theme to the limits of your budget and/or imagination, whichever runs out first.

First, the cake:

First, the cake...

Please excuse the quality of the picture. It's a scan of what wasn't a great photo in the first place. As you can perhaps see, you will need:

Two round cakes of similar size (you could buy these - I'm not a purist!).
Several different coloured batches of butter or fondant icing. I used butter icing simply because I could make it easily - these days you can buy ready-made fondant icing in just about every colour of the rainbow.
A bag of liquorice allsorts or similar.
A large bow or something you can use to make one. As you can see, I used wrapping paper, which I folded concertina style, and then secured in the centre with some tape.
A silver board. As you can see, I used a tray covered in tin foil.

Method

Cut one cake in half.
The round cake will serve as the face, and one of the halves as the body. Position the face roughly in the centre of the silver board, and place the 'body' next to that, so that the two curved edges are touching.
Out of the remaining half cake, cut a triangular shape for the hat, and several semicircles to serve as curls.
Position the hat at a jaunty angle, and place the curls around the remaining edges of the head.
Cover with coloured icing as appropriate for each section.
Decorate with sweeties to create a face and other details.
Place the bow at the point where the head and body meet. You could secure it with a twisty tie.

Clown faces (1)
For the first clown face, you will need:

Round biscuits (cookies), something very flat and plain (arrow root biscuits, Marie biscuits, rich tea biscuits... something along those lines.
Coloured butter icing (you can use leftovers from the cake)
Sweeties such as mini liquorice allsorts, dolly mixtures, Smarties or Jelly Tots

Method

Cover one side of each biscuit with icing.
Press sweeties into the icing to make a clown face.

Clown faces (2)
For the second clown face, you will need:

Round biscuits (as before)
Ice cream cones (cornets) - the wafer kind, for preference
Coloured butter icing (as before)
Sweeties as before
Marshmallows (optional)

Method

Cover one side of each biscuit with icing sugar as before.
Press a cone - flat side down - into the icing on each biscuit. If you like, you could pop a marshmallow (or other sweetie) under each cone.
Using icing sugar to secure them, press sweeties into the round part of each cone to make a clown face.
Once again, using icing sugar to secure them, use sweeties to decorate the triangular part of each cone to look like the clown's hat.

Granny Norton's savoury scones

2011-04-15T03:48:00.000-07:00

You're very fortunate, you know? Two of my Gran's recipes in the space of one week!

I had to chortle as I started on this recipe. I have copied it into my book exactly as it was in my Gran's own book. It's just a list of ingredients, a temperature and a time. The sign of a confident cook - she knew what she had to do with the ingredients and how to get the mixture oven ready. She didn't need to write that part down. Fortunately, I saw her make these enough times that I can remember how she did it, and fill in the blanks.

Oven temperature
My Gran had 500F, which is 260C! My oven doesn't even go that high, so I had to settle for 220C. I suggest you do the same - ovens are more efficiently sealed these days.

Ingredients
200g plain flour (my Gran had 150g, but the consistency wasn't right for me, so I added a bit)
250ml grated mature cheddar, pressed down well to get a properly full cup
15ml baking powder
2.5ml cayenne pepper or mustard powder
10ml fresh, chopped chives
2 rashers crispy bacon, very finely chopped (this is optional - if you're leaving the bacon out, you might like to add a pinch of salt, though)
80ml each water, milk and vegetable oil
1 egg (my Gran lists this as optional - I always include it)

Method

Place on a cooling rack..

Sift the flour, baking powder, cayenne pepper/mustard (and salt, if you're using it) together.
Add the cheese, chopped chives, chopped bacon and roughly stir together.
In a separate bowl, mix the egg together and the three liquids (water, oil and milk).
Gradually mix the liquid into the dry ingredients. It will come up much less dry than a normal scone dough (if you're used to making scones, you'll see what I mean, if not, don't worry about it), but it should be stiff enough for you to be able to...
Splotch spoonfuls of the mixture onto a greased baking tray (the splotches should hold their shape and not run into each other - if the mixture is too runny, add a little more flour).
Bake for 7-10 minutes.
Place on a cooling rack (out of the reach of the dog and any passing teenagers/spouses!)
Serve, buttered, with a cup of tea.

Pyttipanna

2011-04-14T02:33:00.000-07:00

Pyttipanna translates roughly as 'little bits in the pan'. This dish is the Swedish (and Norwegian) equivalent of hash or bubble and squeak in that it's a way to use up leftovers. But, like both those comparitive examples, it has become such a favourite that it is of often made up from scratch with purpose-bought ingredients.

One thing I have come to realise about traditional Swedish cuisine (and I hope I'm not going to offend anyone here) is that it's not terribly healthy. There's a huge emphasis on animal protein and potatoes, an awful lot of frying in butter, and not a lot of green stuff to be had. It is not unusual to be served a mountain of prawns or langoustines and nothing else at all. Not that I'm complaining, mind - Rökeriet on Sydkoster that does the most delicious smoked prawns I have ever eaten, and I have very fond memories of late summer evenings spent there with various cousins and so forth. But it is small wonder that heart disease is so prevalent, and on the increase, in Sweden.

So I'm not going to suggest that you adopt a steady diet of pyttipanna, but every now and again, it's great comfort food, and it's a lot healthier if you make it yourself than if you buy the ready frozen kind brimming with salt and additives. I am going to suggest that you buck the trend and add a few green things to yours, which is as my husband remembers it from childhood, but not what you would find in the frozen kind or what you would be served in a cafe.

Ingredients
1 potato per person, cut into cubes of about 1cm
1 or more (to taste) onions, chopped
Bits and bobs of meat:
- A couple of rashers of bacon, chopped
- Ground beef
- Chicken, cubed
- Whatever other leftover meat you have to hand, cubed
Bits and bobs of leftover vegetables, chopped
Eggs - one per person (optional)

Method

The potatoes and onions need a head start

All the ingredients (except the eggs) are fried up in a pan. I use a little oil or Fry Light. If the meat is already cooked, you will need to cook the potatoes and onions first, and the potatoes will take by far the longest. If the meat is raw, you will still need to give the potatoes a bit of a head start, and then add everything else. Keep stirring and turning the food for even cooking.

Traditionally, you should also fry up an egg for each person, and place that on top of the pyttipanna as you serve it.

Whatever you do, don't tell the Swedes I said so, but pyttipanna tastes fabulous with a dash of Worcestershire sauce!

Granny Norton's ice cream

2011-04-13T02:40:00.000-07:00

My Granny Norton was a wonderful woman who deserved more in life than she got. I loved her so much that school holidays spent with my grandparents were a highlight of my childhood, in spite of the fact that my grandfather was a tyrant and a bully.

Lunch was the main meal of the day and always included dessert. My gran and I used to play a little game during the main course. I would ask her what was for dessert and she would give one of two answers: 'wait and see' or 'hope it's set'. With all the wit at the disposal of a small child, I made acronyms out of those two phrases and began to ask her, "Is it 'was' or 'his' for dessert today, Gran?" to which she would respond with a fond look and a "ho ho ho" that I can't even begin to describe here, but that meant "grown-ups don't really find that funny, but I know you would like me to, and I don't want to hurt your feelings".

My Gran's desserts weren't very adventurous, it has to be said. I have since come to realise that this might have had something to do with my grandfather's rather conservative preferences. Sometimes the dessert was just a can of peaches with evaporated milk (still a favourite with my own family). Sometimes it was a tub of shop-bought ice cream served with a jar of ginger-in-syrup (I still remember those Chinese-style jars).

But sometimes, oh glorious sometimes, it was home made ice cream.

My gran used to make it using a metal ice tray (do you remember those?) with the divider bit removed. If that aluminium tray appeared at dessert time, I was transported with delight. It didn't happen often because it was quite expensive to make in large quantities, and it was very rich, which my grandfather would complain about. I could never understand why we were expected to declare everything delicious and marvelous and wonderful, while he was allowed to find fault... but I am not going to let my grandfather ruin this post as he did so many of my childhood meals, so let's move swiftly on, shall we? This is how you make Granny Norton's ice cream...

Ingredients
410g tin evaporated milk
397g tin condensed milk
250ml water (or, if you want to be really decadent, cream - I use cream!)
5ml vanilla essence and/or flavouring of your choice (I used rose water this time... just yum!)

Method

Refrigerate the evaporated milk overnight or place in the deep freeze for two hours. I don't know why, but this really does make a difference to the texture of the finished ice cream.
Beat all the ingredients together.
Freeze until crystals begin to form.
Remove from freezer and beat well.
Freeze again until firm. This will give you roughly a litre of ice cream.

The result is (as you can imagine) very sweet and very rich, so a small serving goes a long way.

Oh, and it melts quite quickly, so don't leave it hanging around.

Poached haddock

2011-04-12T02:36:00.000-07:00

Even as a small child in the (almost) fish-free zone that was our home, I somehow managed to come into contact with smoked haddock... and it was love at first bite.

This is my preferred way of preparing it, and it so easy as to be laughable. So it's an excellent option if you are a little less-than-confident with fish.

Ingredients
1 smoked haddock fillet per person (they're available in dyed and undyed these days, but they taste the same)
Milk
Cornflour
Butter

Method

Place the fillets skin side down in a large frying pan.
Cover with milk or a half-and-half mixture of milk and water.
Bring the milk to boil over a medium heat and then simmer until you can easily flake the fish with a fork.
Meanwhile, use the conflour, butter and additional milk to make a white sauce. This is a must - this fish cries out for white sauce.

This is not a fish to serve with chips (fries). It works better with mashed potato or boiled baby potatoes and vegetables/salad. You can add the milk from the pan to the white sauce if you like, but I tend not to.

That's it. Honest. Couldn't be easier.

Themed children's parties: Teddy bear cake

2011-04-11T02:59:00.000-07:00

Over the next few Mondays, I thought I might look at ideas for children's parties. When my children were little, I used to go to great lengths for their birthday parties. Since their birthdays are only 22 days apart, for several years they had a combined party.

And there was always a theme.

Some of the themes over the years were: teddy bears, pirates, nursery rhymes, Kideo (a South African children's TV programme), all the children of the world, faces, chess and sports.

The trick with a themed party is to make sure that the cake fits in with the theme, that suitable decorations are easy to come by, and that you can get eats that work with the theme, too. If you can get the kids to dress up, so much the better, but remember that this might impact on their ability to play boisterous games. I had one kid pitch up at a party dressed as a T-rex. He looked great, but he could barely move. When it came to time for the games, we had to find him something else to wear.

Because I'm sad like that, I used to make sure that the plates/bowls each child got also fitted with the theme. A tip, here: write each child's name on their plate and cup in big letters - use lower case if they're very little kids - so that they can keep track of where they left their plate and there won't be tears and tantrums over the alleged theft of food.

I thought I'd start the series with a teddy bear cake. Simply because that was the first theme I ever used. My elder son's name is Björn (which, incidentally, rhymes more with turn that it does with torn). This is a fairly popular name in Sweden, and it means 'bear'. Not in some abstract way, but literally. A small B björn is a bear, and an isbjörn (ice-bear) is a polar bear. So, for his first birthday, while we didn't have a party, I made him a teddy bear cake. That's him you see in the photo above, getting very excited about the "Tetty pear."

You could use this cake for a teddy bears' picnic party. Alternatively, if you're having a hee-uge party, you could make three different sized bear cakes to represent the three bears for a fairy tales party.

You will need:
2 round cakes, one slightly larger than the other (recipe below) for the body and head
6 cupcakes for the ears, 'hands' and feet - you can either bake or buy these
Butter icing (recipe below)
A large silver board/tray to place the cake on - a tray, covered in tin foil works just fine
Liquorice all-sorts or similar to make the face

If you're baking the cupcakes yourself, increase the cake recipe by half to allow enough mixture. They won't need to bake as long as they bigger cakes, so keep an eye on them!

Oven temperature
180C

Ingredients
Cake
225g butter, softened
225g caster sugar
4 eggs
225g plain flour
10ml baking powder
5ml vanilla extract

Icing
375g butter, softened
750g icing sugar
Little milk for mixing
Few drops of colouring

Method

Cream the butter and sugar together until thick, light and creamy.
Add eggs one at a time, beating after each addition.
Sift the flour and baking powder into the mixture and fold in with the vanilla extract.
Spoon into two greased baking tins: a one-litre and a 1.5 litre sized tin.
Bake for 20-25 minutes until a skewer comes out clean.
Turn out onto a cooling rack and leave to cool completely.
Cream the butter for the icing well.
Sift the icing sugar and add it gradually, beating well after each addition.
Add just a little milkk to give it a smooth consistency.
Stir in enough colouring to get an even tint in the colour of your choice.
Set aside until needed.
Position the cakes on the board/tray. You may like to trim the edge of each cake where they touch for a snug fit.
Position the cupcakes as appropriate for the ears, hands and feet. You may need to trim edges in order for them to sit snugly.
Spread an even coating of icing over the whole cake. If you want to achieve a furry effect, dip a paintbrush in water and make long downward strokes in the icing.
Use sweets to form facial features (and toe and finger pads, if you like).
Cover the join between head and body with a bow.

Jenni's chicken

2011-04-08T05:45:00.000-07:00

This recipe came from my friend in Cape Town, shortly after John and I were married, and has become a fairly regular feature in our household, especially when there's promotion on packs of drumsticks!

Oven temperature
180C

Ingredients
1kg (roughly) chicken portions
250ml mild mayonnaise (such as Kraft)

250ml chutney (Mrs Ball's for preference, but any chutney will do, as long as it isn't too sweet - perhaps you could even try lemon atjar, now that you have the recipe, although I've never tried it with that)

30ml (or so) brown onion soup powder (if you live in a part of the world that doesn't have this on offer, just finely chop a bit of onion, or use dried onion flakes)

Method

If you want to shallow fry the chicken portions first to seal them first, you go right ahead. I don't bother.
Place the chicken portions in a single layer in a casserole dish.
Mix the chutney and mayonnaise and spread over the chicken.
Sprinkle the onion soup powder (or whatever) over the top of that.
Cover with tin foil and bake for about half an hour.

Make sure the chicken is cooked through

Uncover, turn the portions and bake for another half an hour, uncovered.
Make sure the chicken is cooked through before you serve it, you don't want to give you family/guests salmonella.
Serve with rice and vegetables. Spoon some of the sauce over the chicken and the rice for extra yumminess.

Note:
When I am making this dish (and several others), I add a teaspoon of cumin seeds to the rice when I start cooking it. I love the interesting dimension it adds.

Bunch o' grapes starter

2011-04-07T02:56:00.000-07:00

I don't know if you know this, but fruit and cheese are a match made in heaven. This is a lovely, fresh starter of a sensible size so as not to spoil your appetite. It's also ideally suited to the warmer weather we're currently enjoying in the UK.

It involves no cooking whatsoever, so you have the whole stove free for the main course. What's not to like?

Ingredients
1 fresh, ripe-but-firm-ish pear for every two people (you can used canned pears if you prefer)
Cream cheese (the lighter versions work just as well)
Seedless grapes (red or white)

Method

Fat side up

Peel and core the pears and cut them in half lengthwise.
Place each pear half on a plate, flat side down.
Holding the pear in place with a fork, spread it fairly thickly with cream cheese.
Slice the grapes lengthwise, and press them into the cheese, until the whole pear is covered.
When you serve this starter, Turn the plate so that the pear is fat side up, to give the appearance of a bunch of grapes. To increase the impression, stick a grape stem into the top end of each pear. If you have access to a vine leaf or two to place on each plate, so much the better.

Note:

Pears are absolutely perfect with blue veined cheeses such as Stilton or Roquefort. You may like to mash up a bit of this into the cream cheese to sharpen up the taste of the starter a bit. Just take care not to overdo it or the grapes won't stick.

Stuffed hake (or other white fish)

2011-04-06T05:22:00.000-07:00

This recipe appears, unacknowledged, in my own handwriting in my recipe book. I do remember how I came by it, though.

I was accompanying some or other boyfriend (which puts the occasion at least 25 years ago!) on a visit to his extended family, and, on offer was the largest whole fish I had ever seen. Fresh caught that day by the host, apparently. For a reluctant fish eater, this was not a welcome sight! I took a portion, because that's the polite thing to do, but it was with no great eagerness, I can assure you. I was so surprised at how palatable the dish was, that I asked the hostess for the recipe. I didn't record her name with the recipe because I couldn't remember what it was. If I had, I would probably have spent hours wondering who the heck Pamela Watson (or whatever) was!

In South Africa, hake is quite easy to come by. Less so in the UK. On this occasion, I was able to find some, but I will never tell how much I paid for it! Suffice to say that it came from Waitrose ('nuff said). Instead, you can use pretty much any firm-fleshed white fish that comes in a large enough version to meet the requirements of the recipe. I'm sure cod would work, but I have a bit of a thing about eating endangered species and, as far as I know, cod still appears on WWF's list.

Oven temperature
180C

Ingredients
1kg hake or equivalent, either as a single fillet or as two 500g fillets, skin on
25ml onion, finely chopped
7 rashers of bacon, 5 whole and 2 finely chopped
60g butter
10ml fresh parsely, chopped
350ml fresh breadcrumbs
2ml dried mixed herbs
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
2 tomatoes, sliced
150ml white wine

Method

If using a single fillet, cut it in two equal halves. Lay one, skin side down in a greased baking dish.
Saute the onion and chopped bacon in 30g of the butter.
Add the sauteed mixture to the breadcrumbs, parsley, mixed herbs and seasoning.
Spoon this mixture over the fillet in the baking dish.
Carefully place the other fillet, skin side up, on top of the mixture.
Arrange the tomato slices on top and then cover with the 5 whole rashers of bacon.
Dot with the remaining 30g of butter and pour the wine over (carefully, so as not to dislodge the butter).

Ready for the wine, and then the oven

Bake for about 45 minutes, basting regularly.
Serve with new potatoes and vegetables or a salad.

Lemon atjar

2011-04-05T02:30:00.000-07:00

Karyn tasted this delicious chutney at my house some years before they left for England and has asked me to share the recipe. It is delicious with chicken, pork and fish but our family is known to eat it with just about anything - sometimes on a piece of toast.

It is very important to use the right kind of lemons as those thick skinned knobbly ones have a lot of pith and you will land up with something so bitter it is inedible. Smooth skinned lemons or limes do best.

I also prefer using saltanas as against raisins to avoid them looking like squashed flies.

16 - 18 medium sized lemons
500g onions sliced
quarter cup salt
1 litre white vinegar
800g sugar
250ml honey
250g raisins or sultanas
50ml mustard seeds
4 pieces fresh ginger
5ml red pepper
4 bayleaves
fresh mint

I tried leaving the prices on the ingredients which might be quite fun to compare but I'm not sure if they are readable in the photo.

Wash, dry and slice the lemons in thin slices removing as many pips as you can. Layer with onion slices in a stainless steel or plastic basin (not aliminium) sprinkling each layer with salt. I prefer to use that salt that comes in a grinder as against ordinary table salt. Leave to stand for 2 to 3 hours and then rinse and drain.
Then simply just throw all the other ingredients except the mint leaves into a large pot and bring to the boil. Add the lemons and oinions and leave to simmer until the lemons are soft - about half an hour. Pour the hot chutney into sterilized jars and press a mint leaf into each one. Seal while hot. It's best to fill the jars to overflowing so that when you put the lid on you force out any airbubbles. The best and easiest way to sterilize jars is just to wash them in the dishwasher. Alternatively fill them with water and boil them up in the microwave.

This quantity makes about 6 medium jars.

Banoffee pie

2011-04-04T04:01:00.000-07:00

The name 'banoffee' might be unfamiliar to you. It was certainly unfamiliar to me when I arrived in the UK. I thought I was in for something exotic the first time I heard of it, and then I realised that I was well acquainted with it, only under a different name. In fact, 'banoffee pie' is a silly name on two counts:

First of all, it isn't a pie at all, but a tart.
Secondly, banoffee is a contraction of 'banana and toffee', but there is no toffee involved. What there is, is caramel.

So, in fact, you may know this dish (as I did most of my life) as caramel and banana tart, which is a closer description of what you're getting.

Be all that as it may, this is how to make it.

Crust
You have a choice, here.

You could make the crust out of crushed biscuit (cookie) crumbs and butter as in the fruit tart recipe, or...
You could blind-bake a quick shortcrust case as I described in the milk tart recipe.

I usually go with the latter, and omit the sugar, because the filling for this tart is sooooo sweet, it needs a bit of balancing out (or a foil, as it's also known).

Filling ingredients
1 large (or 2 small) banana
1 tin condensed milk (or you could just buy a tin of caramel)
30ml or so of lemon juice
Whipped cream to decorate (optional)

Filling method

If you're using condensed milk, place the tin (unopened) in a saucepan and cover with boiling water. Boil for 2 hours, topping up the water level every now and again as required. I tend to lay the can down on its side, so that it can roll around a bit with the movement of the bubbles. If you prefer to stand the can upright, turn it over about half way through the boiling process.
Set aside and leave to cool. If you try to open the tin while it's still hot, the caramel will squirt out all over the place (this is pure physics relating to temperature and pressure, but we won't go there, now)
Slice your banana quite thinly and toss well in lemon juice. This prevents the banana from going brown, so if you don't care about that, you can leave this step out.

Arrange the banana slices all over the (cool) crust.
Open the tin of caramel, and empty it out into the bowl with the lemon juice. Mix the two together. This will just take the edge off the sweetness, and ensures you don't waste the lemon juice after treating the banana. However, if you have an unlimited capacity for sweetness, you can leave the juice out. I would still give the caramel a stir, though, to make sure you have a smooth, spreadable consistency.
Spoon the caramel over the banana slices and spread evenly.

Just a tip: if you're using a baked crust, don't take the tart out of the baking dish until you have filled it. This will support the crust while you're spreading the caramel and prevent it from breaking. If you're using a biscuit crust, you will be serving the tart in the dish anyway, so this tip doesn't apply.

Serve with coffee or as a dessert.

Swedish beetroot salad

2011-04-01T02:22:00.000-07:00

I adore beetroot (beets, to you American types), and I owe it to my husband that I eat them at all. I went through much of my life declaring that I didn't eat beetroot, until one day he said "I'm surprised that you don't at least eat pickled beetroot, since you love every other kind of pickle so much." He had witnessed me work my way through an entire bottle of gherkins on more than one occasion. I tasted a jar of beetroot salad and utterly reversed my stance on the vegetable.

Our younger son was completely addicted to pickled beetroot (or 'dootloot', as he called them) as a baby, and would wolf them down like there was no tomorrow. This resulted in large pink stains on the towelling nappies (diapers) that I insisted on using (being too green to go the disposable nappy route). Too much information? Sorry. Some people have no class!

It would be logical to assume that I learnt how to make this salad from my (Swedish) mother in law, but I have a vague feeling that this was not the case. In fact, I think I remember encountering it at the Swedish stall of a world food fair thing.

Be that as it may, this is how you make it. As usual, I leave it to you to tweak the balance of the ingredients to your taste.

1 boiled beetroot per person, cubed - you can use pickled ones if you like, but I prefer them plain for this salad
Hard cheese, cubed - sharp Cheddar or feta will do
A little onion or chives (about a teaspoonful per person), finely chopped
Gherkins, chopped
Mayonnaise - I prefer the milder/non-tangy kind like Hellmans/Kraft

Mix together and serve, topped with a mashed hard-boiled egg.

As an alternative, you can use equal quantities of potato and beetroot. This is especially good if you are using pickled beetroot.

Oh... and dill is a Swedish staple, so, if you fancy adding a bit of that, it will never go amiss.

Mpekweni salad

2011-03-31T06:05:00.000-07:00

This salad doesn't really have a name, but the recipe was given to me many years ago (c. 1986) by the chef at Mpekweni holiday resort. My boyfriend and I used to travel there every weekend to sing in the restaurant, and we got to know the staff very well.

This is another recipe that involves a raw egg, but you can substitute that very easily with a salad dressing of your own choice. My favourite salad dressing is just equal parts balsamic vinegar and olive oil, anyway. I have used that for this salad, too, and it works.

As with most salad recipes, the quantities in each case are 'some'. Just go with your instincts and then tweak it to your preference.

Ingredients
Hard cheese, cubed - Cheddar and/or feta work well
Salami - cubed
Bamboo shoots
Onion finely sliced
Avocado

Dressing:
Equal quantities of olive oil and lemon juice
Small sprig of fresh Rosemary, finely chopped
Dash of Worcestershire sauce
1 egg
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

There isn't really a 'method' here. Just bung all the salad ingredients in a bowl and toss them slightly to distribute them. Then beat the dressing ingredients and pour them over the whole thing.

Et voila!

Butterscotch mousse

2011-03-30T04:01:00.000-07:00

I got this recipe from my sister-in-law and have made it many, many times. What I really enjoy about it is that it isn't completely sweet. There's that ever-so-slight burnt sugar taste to it, that takes the edge off the sweetness. Truly yummilicious!

Now that the weather is warming up, it's a great choice for dessert. Be aware that it does involve raw egg white, so, if you have a problem with that, you have two choices: you can either give the recipe a miss altogether, or you can leave out the egg whites, which will result in a heavier mixture more like an 'instant pudding' than a mousse.

Just in case you don't do so as a matter of course, I suggest preparing all the ingredients before you start and have them readily to hand, because there is a point at which you need to work quite quickly, and to still have to measure out ingredients at that stage will slow you down.

Ingredients
600ml milk
40g cornflour
175g demerara sugar
50g butter
5ml vanilla
2 egg whites

Method

Blend a little milk with the cornflour in a saucepan to make a smooth paste. The saucepan should be large enough to hold all the contents eventually.
Add the rest of the milk and stir over a gentle heat until it thickens. Keep stirring until it comes to the boil, signified by large, glooping bubbles rising up. What you have now is more or less a white sauce. Set it aside, but not too far away.
In another saucepan, completely melt the sugar over a medium heat.
Now you need to work quite quickly. Stir in the butter until it has completely melted.
Still working quickly (before the sugar mixture sets into toffee), stir the sugar/butter mixture into the white sauce. If the sugar toffee-fies itself before you've added all of it to the white sauce, you could gently heat it again, to re-liquify it and then stir it in. Don't worry too much if there are small lumps of toffee in the mixture at this point, we're about to deal with that.
Strain the mixture to get rid of lumps and clumps and to result in a completely smooth texture.
Stir in the vanilla and set aside while you attend to the egg whites.
Whisk the egg whites until stiff (you should be able to turn the bowl upside down with no movement from the egg).
Fold into the sauce. If you're not familiar with 'folding', here is a YouTube video clip (not mine - I have a totally different accent!) that explains it. The point is not to deflate the egg whites after you've just gone to all that trouble to introduce enough tiny air bubbles to result in the 'stiff peak' consistency.

Pour into a large serving dish, or (for a more elegant alternative) into individual glass bowls/wine glasses and chill for several hours.
Decorate with whipped cream and chocolate shavings.

Curried pork in peach juice

2011-03-29T04:25:00.000-07:00

I love combining meat and fruit. It must be the Afrikaans side of my heritage! In fact, my favourite pizza topping - which is not unusual in South Africa, but causes many rolled eyes in the UK - is bacon and banana. I'm not sure why it causes such a reaction in a culture which happily eats pork with apple, and turkey with cranberry... and doesn't turn a hair at ham-and-pineapple, but there you are.

There are very few things one can't get in UK supermarkets, but one thing I sorely miss is the wide range of pure fruit juices freely available in South Africa. Unfortunately, this recipe (as you will have noticed from the title) calls for peach juice. None of my local supermarkets stock peach juice. I could take a trip through to the specialist South African/Zimbabwean goods shop about 40 minutes away, but that isn't always convenient... or economical. So I adapted. I will list the ingredients as they should be for those of you with access to pure fruit juices, but I will also indicate what adaptations I have made in their absence.

Sadly, I did not record where I found this recipe when I copied it into my book.

Ingredients

1.5 kg pork, diced
15ml cooking oil
2 onions, chopped
15ml chopped root ginger
15ml lemon juice (as you can imagine, if you're a regular reader, I use lime)
2 cloves garlic, crushed
5ml salt
10ml turmeric
2ml ground cinnamon
5ml curry powder of your choice
250ml peach juice (I used a can of peaches-in-juice)
5ml mustard powder (I use black mustard seeds)

Method

Heat oil over a medium-high heat in a suitably sized saucepan (i.e. big enough to contain all the ingredients in due course - I use a pressure cooker).
Saute curry powder, cinnamon, ginger, turmeric for a couple of minutes.
Add pork, onion and garlic and saute until the meat is browned on all sides.
Add lemon juice, salt and mustard, reduce heat to medium and stir for a few minutes.
Warm the peach juice (or peaches) slightly and add to the meat mixture.
Stir well through, cover and simmer on low for 2-2.5 hours (or, if you're using a pressure cooker, cook at pressure for 20 minutes).
Serve with rice and vegetables.

Crunchies

2011-03-28T03:42:00.000-07:00

A while back, I shared a friend's recipe for flapjacks, in which I explained the whole tangle around the word 'flapjack' for a South African expat living in the UK. I promised to share a recipe for the closest South African equivalent to English flapjacks, namely crunchies. Et voila!

This recipe does not come from my own collection. It comes from SJA de Villiers's 'Cook and Enjoy it' (Kook en Geniet) which is one of the most frequently used recipe books in my collection.. I made a batch on Saturday to take to church yesterday to use in the 'Connect room' where my husband and I greet visitors and newcomers. Just as well, because the room was packed to the gunwales yesterday! I came away with two crunchies left in the tin, which my son was happy to demolish when he got off work.

Oven temperature

180C

Ingredients

750ml dessicated coconut
250ml cake flour
1000ml oats
375ml sugar
Pinch salt
5ml ground cinnamon (I have a friend who also adds the same amount of ginger - I don't)
250ml butter (which is about 250g - I hate it when butter amounts are given in ml!)
45ml golden syrup
10ml bicarbonate of soda
60ml milk

Method

Dissolve the bicarb in the milk and set aside for now.
In a large bowl, combine all the dry ingredients.
Melt the butter and syrup together and add to the dry ingredients. Mix through well. Oh, just use your hands!
Add the dissolved bicarb/milk mixture and mix that through well, too. This is important, or someone will get a mouthful of bicarb at one point, and nobody wants that, trust me!
Press into a baking sheet to make a layer about 1cm thick. If necessary, split the mixture into two batches.
Bake for 15 to 20 minutes.
Allow to cool slightly, cut into squares and place on a cooling rack. You'll probably need an egg lifter/fish slice (or whatever it's called in your neck of the woods) to do this, because they may still be quite crumbly.
Allow to cool completely before storing them in an air tight container, or they will cease to deserve their name... not that they taste any less delicious when they're soft, it has to be said!

You should end up with about 72 crunchies.

Edna's savoury tart

2011-03-25T03:44:00.000-07:00

This is another recipe from the redoubtable Edna Allchin, who provided the Turkish delight recipe I shared a while back. I had completely forgotten about this tart, until it was brought to my attention by a mutual friend via Facebook after I posted said Turkish delight recipe.

What is great about this recipe is that it's a perfect way to use up leftovers (aka fridge fallout). You know: a couple of baby potatoes, two broccoli florets... that kind of stuff. It's a case of 'what do we have in the fridge/pantry?' Because of that, this recipe doesn't follow my usual layout.

In the picture above is one I made recently using a few leftover peas, a lonely baby marrow (aka zucchini/courgette) and the remains of a tub of sun dried tomatoes (because even I, tomato-loather that I am, will eat sun dried tomatoes). I completely forgot about the tin of asparagus tips I had bought especially for the purpose, but that's okay, too, because tinned stuff keeps, and I can use them next time.

Oven temperature

180C

Ingredients and method

Pretty much any (savoury) leftovers: chicken, asparagus (drained), cooked/canned fish, cold meat, bacon, sweetcorn, leftover veg... you name it. If anything is still raw (as was the case with my baby marrow), you will need to cook it first. I sliced and sauteed the baby marrow. Yum.
1 onion, chopped and sauteed
250ml grated cheese (preferably mature cheddar)
Pinch paprika or cayenne pepper

Spread these on the bottom of a tart/pie dish. Then mix the following ingredients together. If you have a Tupperware quick shake or equivalent, this is the perfect moment to press it into vigorous service. Otherwise a beater, whisk or even a fork will be fine.

2 eggs
50ml flour
5ml mustard powder (I'm not a fan, so I use mustard seeds instead)
Pinch salt
250ml milk
30ml oil

Pour the mixture over the top of whatever you have placed into the pie dish. Bake for about 30-40 minutes until the egg has set, and serve hot or cold with salad and/or baked potato.

Carrot and sesame salad

2011-03-24T03:27:00.000-07:00

Since we find ourselves newly (and officially, at least) in spring time, I thought I'd share a salad recipe. There will be more to come. It's a really easy one, but it does call for some ingredients that are not quite as common as those that usually feature here. Hopefully you'll forgive me just this once... besides, they're not completely weird.

This is another of the recipes I found the time I bought too many carrots. I can't remember the source.

Ingredients

4 large carrots
45ml rice vinegar (if you don't usually have a use for rice vinegar, white wine vinegar is almost as good)
30ml corn oil (if you don't have any, use olive oil or any vegetable oil)
5ml sesame oil (I'm afraid I can't suggest a more common substitute for this, and it really makes a difference to the taste of the salad. Fortunately, you can get fairly small bottles, and it works very well for salad dressings and Chinese food)
5ml toasted sesame seeds (once again, this is must have)
15ml (or so) moist raisins

Method

Clean/peel and grate the carrots coarsely and set aside until needed.
Mix together the vinegar and the oils and mix through the carrots.
Add the sesame seeds and raisins and toss the salad until you have a roughly even distribution.

Chocolate marshmallow tart

2011-03-23T03:24:00.000-07:00

I think I made this recipe up when I was in my teens and bored during one school holiday, but I can't be sure. All I know is that I have known how to make it since I was in high school. I made a lot of things during my high school years, and my mother often came home to a kitchen that looked something like a bombsite. Just sa well that I was at boarding school and that this activity was restricted to school holidays!

Ingredients

1 packet biscuits for the crust

60g butter

1 bag marshmallows

1 200g slab of chocolate (I usually use milk chocolate, but on this occasion, I used 100g milk chocolate and 100g peppermint Aero)

5ml vanilla extract

Whipped cream

Method

Crush the biscuits, melt the butter and mix together.
Press into a pie dish and refrigerate until required.
Gently melt the chocolate and marshmallows together over a low heat, stirring all the while. If it starts to catch, add a little milk.
Remove from the heat and add essence.
Pour into crust and refrigerate until set.
Decorate with whipped cream and chocolate shavings.

Note:
Experiment with the chocolate - try orange-flavoured chocolate, for example, or plain (dark) chocolate.

Carrot and lime soup

2011-03-22T02:58:00.000-07:00

There's something I should confess to right here and now: I am a lime addict. I absolutely adore the taste of limes and am inclined to use them instead of lemons in pretty much any recipe. So, when I stumbled across this recipe, it was a have-to-have.

The recipe itself is one of those 'unknown origin' types, which I found somewhere when looking for ideas to use up a large quantity of carrots after I accidentally bought carrots twice in two days (as you do).

The taste of this soup is a little unusual. I would describe it as hot-and-sour, and I would advise against serving it to owners of conservative palates.

Ingredients

1 large onion, chopped
Little olive oil for frying
500g carrots, peeled and sliced
2 cloves garlic, crushed
75g uncooked brown rice
1 or 2 red chillies (to taste), seeded and chopped
1 litre vegetable or chicken stock
Juice of 1 lime
A little sugar and salt (if necessary, and to taste) - I use about 10ml sugar and no salt
Natural yoghurt for serving

Zhoozh it in the blender

Method

Heat a little olive oil in a large pan and gently fry the onions.
Add the garlic and carrots, stir, cover and cook for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally to prevent sticking.
Stir in the raw rice, chillies and stock and simmer until the carrots are tender and the rice is soft.
Add the lime juice. Taste and adjust with sugar and/or salt if necessary.
Blend and serve with a swirl of natural yoghurt and crusty bread.

Shena's 'lekker' steak

2011-03-18T00:00:00.000-07:00

'Lekker' is an Afrikaans word that has found its way into general South African parlance. Roughly translated, it means 'nice', although that does it no justice whatsoever. It isn't always used in relation to food, either, you can wish someone a lekker weekend, or a lekker birthday. Someone can equally have a lekker figure.

Needless to say, we are not talking about the posher echelons of society, here, who may also use the term, but only semi-ironically, the way a Sloan ranger may casually throw in an 'innit?'

At one stage, my uncle was very active in the Round Table. This was at a time when wives were called 'table legs' (and the wives of Rotarians were called Rotary-annes). My aunt often used to have to cater on a fairly large scale, and this dish was a favourite.

She passed the recipe on to our family, and it quickly became my favourite, too. We had a tradition in our house that, on your birthday, you either got taken out for dinner, or the other family members would cook your favourite meal. For many years, on my birthday, we had lekker steak with baby potatoes, butternut and cauliflower. It still rates fairly high on my list of favourite dishes!

Oven temperature

Grill (for method 1)

Ingredients

1kg rump steak
60ml vinegar
60ml chutney
60ml tomato sauce
30ml soy sauce
30ml Worcestershire sauce
10ml flour
10ml mustard (I replace this with black mustard seeds)
1 clove garlic, crushed
salt and pepper to taste (I don't use any salt, but a couple of grinds of black pepper never go amiss)

Method

Marinate for 3-4 hours

Method 1 - preparing on a fairly small scale (up to 10 people, say)

Cut the steak into individual portions.
Mix together all other ingredients in a fairly large container, and marinate the steak (covered) for 3-4 hours.
Remove from marinade and grill (or fry, if you must) until done to preference.
Place marinade in a saucepan and heat, stirring all the while, until it thickens into a sauce to use as gravy.

Method 2 - preparing on a large scale (in which case, you will have increased your quantities proportionately)

Cut the steak into individual portions.
Mix together all the other ingredients in a very large, oven proof container and marinate the steak (covered) overnight.
If you can be bothered, sear each portion of steak on each side in a frying pan over a high heat, before returning it to the oven proof container, but this is not entirely necessary.
Bake, covered, at 200C for about half an hour (or as long as needed to acquire your preferred level of 'done-ness').
Uncover and return to oven for a further 10 minutes.

Serve with potatoes prepared to your preference (wedges work really well!) and veg or salad.

Michèle's 'knit your own' granola

2011-03-17T01:45:00.000-07:00

A few days ago, I shared a recipe for lentil 'bolognaise' in which I mentioned a friend who had supplied me with many recipes. This is one of hers.

You might be thinking, why the heck would I go the trouble of making my own breakfast cereal when I can nip down to Morrison's/Pick n Pay/Walmart and buy a box for tuppence ha'penny? That is a very good question! However, have you ever looked at the ingredients in a box of commercially produced breakfast cereal? If you want to start your day with something that's going to see you through for a while, and if you want your kids to be able to make it through to lunch without flagging, something more than a sugar hit is needed.

When our kids were little, we only allowed them to eat cereals that were sugar coated (or contained chocolate bits or whatever) on the weekends, so these became generically known as 'Saturday cereal'. During the week, they had to eat something with a bit more staying power. Michèle's recipe was pretty good for that.

And yummy. Let's not forget yummy.

Oven temperature

150C

Ingredients

1kg oats (this time around, I used jumbo oats because I happened to have some left over from the flapjacks, but you can use porridge oats, too)
120g wholewheat flour
100g dessicated coconut (unsweetened)
250ml sunflower oil
175ml honey (on this occasion, I happened to have spare maple syrup in the house and I used that. Michèle sometimes used to use golden syrup if she was out of honey, but I thought that spoiled the taste completely)
30ml vanilla extract

Method

Toast in the oven

Heat the oil, honey and vanilla, stirring to blend. Do not overheat, or try to bring to the boil.
Mix the dry ingredients together in a (very) large bowl.
Add the liquid and mix well, getting an even distribution of the liquid through the whole batch.
Using a wide flat container such as the oven roasting tray, heat for 30 minutes. Every now and again, take the granola out of the oven and stir it a bit, or the bottom may singe. You will probably have to do this in two or three batches.
Eat with fruit, yoghurt and or milk. My son's girlfriend recently travelled to Hawaii on a school trip and shared a photo of a delicious-looking breakfast of half a papaya (pawpaw) with the pips scooped out and the hollow filled with vanilla yoghurt and granola.

Photo courtesy of Emily Fedorowycz

Joan's fruit tart

2011-03-16T04:25:00.000-07:00

I got this recipe from the Town Clerk's secretary, Joan Botha, back when I used to work for a small town council. She used to do all the catering for the mayoral events herself, which was pretty darned amazing!

Joan called this 'gooseberry tart', but I need to explain briefly: in South Africa, the term 'gooseberry' is applied to physalis or Cape gooseberries. The fruit known as gooseberry in the UK is simply not available there (and - for my money - it's no loss either!). I have to say, this tart tastes best when Cape gooseberries are used. However, if you live outside of South Africa, and not within easy reach of a speciality shop that stocks canned South African goods, all is not lost. You can use pretty much any canned fruit. This time around, I used canned pears and opted for ginger biscuits for the crust, because ginger and pears go very well together. I have also made this recipe using pineapple, Cape gooseberries, fruit cocktail, peaches and pears. Joan also used to use strawberries and youngberries. I plan to try it with litchis (aka lychees) and mango.

Ingredients

1 pkt biscuits suitable for using for the crust (Hobnobs, digestives, Tennis biscuits, Nice biscuits, ginger nuts...)
125g butter
1 pkt jelly (jell-o to you Americans) in a suitable colour and flavour to work with your chosen fruit. Sadly, in the UK, jelly is only available in a limited range of flavours, but you should still be able to make it work.
1 can fruit in juice or light syrup
250ml evaporated milk (Joan used condensed milk, which you could try, but it comes up very sweet)
250ml boiling water

Method

Crush the biscuits well (see note below), melt the butter and mix together.
Press into a large tart dish (or two small ones) and refrigerate until needed.
Drain the liquid off the fruit into a small saucepan and bring to the boil. I have no idea why this is the case, but if you skip this step, the tart filling will curdle. It will still taste fine, but it will look urky.
Dissolve the jelly in the boiling water, and then add the juice from the fruit.
Allow to cool for a while and then add the fruit and evaporated/condensed milk. Stir well.
Pour gently into the crust and refrigerate until set.
Top with whipped cream (optional - I tend not to bother).

Note:
Crushing biscuits can be a frustrating and messy process - especially if you're using something brittle like ginger nuts, so here are a few methods you could try:

Empty the biscuits into a thick plastic bag, let the air out, and seal it well, then roll a rolling pin backwards and forwards over the bag. You should probably cover the surface of your kitchen counter with a sheet of paper first, in case sharp edges of the biscuits do go through the bag, or the seal pops as the air moves about.
Empty the biscuits into a deepish, rectangular, flat-bottomed container (such as a lunch box) and use an empty glass bottle as a pestle - make sure the bottle has a flat bottom, or it will take for-flipping-ever!