How to Make a Cheap Compost Heap

Every garden NEEDS a compost heap. We've know this for years and we've made feeble attempts at having one but it's never been in an effective or formal format. Recently though I've spent hours researching and planning what to do with our organic waste (not the veggie scraps as these go to the chickens and worm farm - more the chicken manure and straw from their enclosure) but every option turned out to be prohibitively expensive... We thought of using wooden poles to build 3 side by side bins (until I got the quote for the poles!) Everything I thought of was to build square structures. I picked up an old gardening magazine this week that had a picture of a wire heap with no instructions or even a caption (maybe it wasn't even a compost heap at all!!) which got me onto google to find the best dimensions, etc. Loooong story short: the dimensions aren't very important! Turns out I had about 6 meters of sturdy wire mesh from fencing off chickens (it's about 1.5m wide) which I cut in half to make two 3 meter loops. All the designs I saw suggested using wire to connect the ends. Not this time! I decided to use cable ties (every 4 or so gaps) which are much more girl-friendly than wire and cutters and twisting :) Feeling a bit like a genius at this point (for this I apologise but will continue to bask until I do the next very blonde thing that makes me feel dumb again!). The structure is light enough for me to move all by myself which is great when you don't have male muscles readily available!

To start the compost building process you need to layer composting material: a layer of sticks at the bottom (helps with aeration) and then layers of green and brown until it's full. Green includes coffee grounds, manure, grass clippings, green leaves whilst brown is straw, dry leaves, paper, saw dust, twigs.

The biggest plus on this design is the cost efficiency: absolutely no expensive materials were needed to build it. On the negative side unfortunately it's near impossible to turn this pile. The only way I can think of off the top of my head is to pull the wire off the heap when you need to turn it and then turn but digging it back into the structure in a new location... this might work if you've got a bit of space between your two heaps for this purpose.

Happy Gardening! :)

Is what we eat making us ill?

I am definitely not going to pretend I have the answer to this contentious topic but some feedback would be most welcome!

As you know, I have a rather loopy side that takes me in some out of the way directions... For the last couple of years I've been obsessing about growing stuff and farming in general. This has lead to much reading and research which has left me feeling insanely bleak about life in general. Now I'm not talking about getting all down on myself and going crazy or anything, it's just that I've realised just how much "extra" stuff goes into our mouths unknowingly every single day. Sugar has been the topic of a previous rant and just yesterday I heard a report on the news about how much salt we consume on a daily basis (it's over 9g!!!). These are things we can read on the label (if you ever bother which I highly recommend getting into the habit of doing - all the time - you'll be horrified!)

It's the other stuff I'm worried about: food labels tell us how many stablilisers, flavour enhancers, preservatives, etc. there are in any given item but what abou the fresh produce? Im talking about strawberries (that let's be honest, don't really even taste like strawberries), apples, lettuces... this is all produce that has been grown on commercial farms that use synthetic fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides, etc. none of which are on any label but that I'm 100% certain I wouldn't bring into my house if they weren't on my veggies in some residual form.

I've been horrified to read recently how pasture land is grown (I was all warm and fuzzy buying pastured meat until I realised it's just as crazy!). To egt maximum yields, GMO (admittedly not all  the time) seeds are planted and then sprayed... the beef or lamb or chicken we buy is then fed on this turbo charged grass/feedlot crop and we consume all the added 'stuff' in secondary form which is way concentrated... That's not even mentioning the antibiotics and additives in their feed.

I'm sure you can understand how I've managed to go a little mental and get down on myself...

How are you managing the 'extra stuff' in your shopping trolley? Has anyone got any thoughts on the topic?

Winter seems to be over let's braai!

I wish I could take credit for this one all by myself but I have to admit it wasn't a typical South African braai where the girls do (pretty much everything) kitchen duty and the men claim credit for making dinner because they got the meat off the fire just right... :-)

My involvement was extensive however - I chose the main ingredients and we assembled them together. I decided on lamb kebabs because I think they just work a million times better than beef. We didn't use a recipe with dried apricots but I absolutely had to add them!

Lamb Kebabs:

500g lamb steak cubes / cubed lamb
8 dried apricots dumped into a bowl of boiling water to rehydrate
1 onion, blanched and cut into chunks
1 red pepper, cut into chunks
My man isn't up for sharing his marinade recipe but I've done these kebabs with a ready made marinade from Woolworths and it's tasted fantastic!


Chicken Kebabs: This is a Jamie Oliver inspired recipe

500g chicken breast fillets
5-6 courgettes, sliced thinly lengthways and blanched to soften slightly
2tsp crushed garlic
1tsp chopped fresh chili
bunch of coriander
small bunch of mint leaves
1 lemon, zested and juiced
Olive oil
Salt and pepper

Cut the chicken into cubes and put into a large bowl. Blitz all the ingredients except chicken (duh!) and courgettes in a food processor but leaving the mixture chunky. Pour over the chicken and mix around to make sure it gets coated. Lace the chicken onto skewers with the courgettes zig zagging through.

Pour the marinade over the kebabs and set aside until you're ready to cook them.

Sunday Caesar Salad

After our great Sunday morning mountain bike ride I was ravenous... My awesome man whipped up this delicious Caesar Salad for us for lunch :) How lucky am I?! The only variation from the norm was the addition of avo which we needed to clear out of the fridge.

Full Flavour Food

It will suffice to say that we eat out excessively... Not in the amount at each meal mind you, it's more the realization at the end of a week that we've eaten every evening meal and half our morning and lunchtime meals out for the last week-and-a-half that make me stop and wonder if we're still sane. I have to admit I was absolutely blown away by our final meal out for the week (and the next few weeks I hope!). I've got the mother-in-law staying with us from Joburg so we've been heading to a few places that are a little more out of the way than our once-a-week pizza and pasta spot (which is sooooo yummy and feels a lot like an extension of our home). 

Fillet on mash with mushroom sauce

Lazy Sunday lunch took us to the South Hill Wine Estate in the Elgin/Grabouw Valley. We are madly in love with the area and will hopefully some day call it home. It's not further to travel from Cape Town than the

Paarl/Stellenbosch/Franschoek Valley Winelands area which made it a perfect choice to share the splendor of the Cape with a local tourist! 

Chef Gordon Manual owns and runs the restaurant and his food is amazing! The menu is limited and there's a set price for either two or three courses. I chose the beef fillet whilst my man and his mom had salmon - both we equally impressive!

Salmon on Risotto

On the up side, I have got some brag pics from our first braai of the season (the braai's at my folk's house don't count as the fireplace is able to be used year round...) which I've been pathetic at downloading onto my MacBook Air (thank you baby!). 

We made the most deliciously exotic kebabs - lamb with warm spices, onion and dried apricots and chicken with courgets, chili in a lemon marinade... definitely worth the effort!

Sugar Sugar

I like sugar. A lot. I didn't realise how much it didn't like me though! You see, I (like much of the world) added a spoon of sugar to my tea and coffee without really thinking. I work from home most days and my mom and I probably have a minimum of 6 cups of tea or coffee a day... add a spoon of sugar to each cup and we're talking quite a lot of sugar every day - without thinking and without feeling like I was overloading in any way. After all, it's just one spoon of sugar in my tea, right?

A couple of months ago I stopped putting sugar in my hot drinks. I didn't really think about it and it turns out that I actually prefer the taste sans the sweet stuff! It wasn't for any specific reason - thank goodness it wasn't because I had early symptoms of diabetes, it was merely a flippant decision on the spot. 

The hard decision was to cut out super carbohydrate loaded drinks... I used to have a Grapetizer with meals out (we eat out a few times a week) until my dear man pointed out that there are enough carbs in 330ml to cover an entire meal's needs! Oh, dear... I will admit I miss Grapetizer terribly but given the facts, how could I possibly continue to drink them? This posed the problem of what can I have with a meal out? It will suffice to say that I have made friends with Rock Shandy's and sparkling water with lemon does the trick most of the time... I'm not a total kill-joy though. If I really feel like a sugary drink I'll have one but it's actually become easy to make the healthy choice :-)

The unintended consequences of cutting out sugar have been my waistline and energy levels... My friends know that I'm super sporty and I've never struggled with my weight in any way - I'm genetically predisposed to be skinny (this shouldn't be confused with healthy though!) but since skipping out on sugar I have noticed a MAJOR difference in my body shape: I have toned abs (without any extra training) and the cellulite I saw creeping into my bum has vanished (yes, it was there and it stressed me otu terribly but I'd made peace with it's existence) and all that for sacrificing a spoon of sugar in my tea and coffee! Best part was that i didn't even do it for that reason. Energy-wise I feel great: no mid afternoon slump and my mood is way more stable and I feel happier and less stressed. Again, this wasn't my reason for sutting out sugar - but it sure is a major benefit!

There are a few areas I feel I'm still sugar overloading: ready made foods, cakes and my weakness for sweets. In the beginning temptation isle (the queue area at Woolies) was pretty much impossible - all those yummy fruit gums and chocolates and nougat and jelly beans and yumminess... I was worse than a toddler (mainly because there was no mommy to say no and I was armed with my credit card!) and would start nibbling while I waited for my turn to pay. I'm pleased to say that the tempation is now limited to Lindt chocolates (chilli, pinch of sea salt and 60% dark) which I feel much better about adding to my basket because they get shared after dinner as a treat (I wouldn't dare to open one in the queue and thankfully I haven't felt the need!)

I managed to cut out the extra (high GI) carbs, so can you!

I know it's still winter, but.............................

Cape Town had a cold front last week (I know you're thinking "it's winter, of course you had a cold front" but we've had the mildest winter I can remember and most of it hasn't felt like winter at all...) which promted mom to light the coal stove in the kitchen. This is such a treat and all of our cooking and baking happens as it would have a hundred years ago with temperatures at the mercy of whoever takes responsibility for stoking the fire.


The house is divinely warm and we all spend most of our time crammed around the kitchen table. I still have to venture outside to feed the chickens and on one such morning the gardening bug bit. Hard. I dug the seed box out of the garage and finally put to use some of the toilet roll inners that I'd forced the family to collect for me for months! I only planted a small seed tray but it's got some basics that I can't wait to get into the veggie boxes once the threat of cold fronts has passed... the tray has pride of place next to the stove but gets moved around the kitchen during the day so as to catch as much sunlight through the skylight as possible.

Authentic Farm Experience

I'm not normally one for promoting stuff through my writing but it may just happen this time :) This is mainly because I had such a great experience that I felt I just had to share it!

Prompted by uploading photos from my camera (I have this nasty habit of forgetting to upload them as I have 6 massive memory card's which I swap in event by event...) I was reminded of an absolutely fabulous day we spent on a very special farm. Aunty Karen (coming from an Afrikaans family this just happens...) and Oom Michael have been family friends for many years - they used to live in Cape Town before they moved to Lelieblom Farm in Darling. Karen has an amazing sense of style and has translated this into a farm restaurant. We spent Father's day being spoilt rotten with the yummiest of plaas kos (potato and bacon soup with homemade bread for starters, roast goat meat with sweet potatoes, pumpkin fritters and veggies for mains and an amazing chocolate mousse and coffee for desert). The menu is decided based on what's fresh on the farm (yes, the meat is from Michael's goat herd) and in the village.

Lunch was a lazy affair - don't for a moment think you'll stop by for a quick meal! In the country there is no such thing... After lunch Michael decided to test my horse riding skills (he says I'm OK for a city girl!) and we were shown around the extensive property before being plied with yet another cup of coffee... The potbelly pigs get the lunch leftovers at the gate which was fun to watch and chickens free-range through the garden (they've been banned from the dining room!) The restaurant is open on a booking only system and Karen and her daughter Nicolette buy and cook accordingly. They're open every Sunday and are more than happy to open during the week for functions - the farm would make for an amazing small, exclusive wedding venue. All in all a fantastic day and a truly authentic farm experience. 



Check out Lelieblom Farm here or call Karen on 082 573 7736

Lamb Shanks (I say no more!)

So this blog post has been inspired by a best friend who asked for the recipe (a long time ago already but reminded me this morning), a man who devours my cooking and a trip to Namibia where no meal is complete without meat or fish…

I spent the morning wandering through Swakopmund, rustling through antique stores and drinking German coffee. Bought some presents for the family – all handmade knickknacks with no African inspiration. I’ve had enough carved soapstone animals and bowls to last a lifetime already! Instead I got my host a print on canvas – it’s set on a rough material background and I fell in love with the texture and subject immediately. Mom got a hand embroidered pashmina that was made by some local empowerment project – it’s grey with colourful flowers mad of neat daisy chain stitches. The rest of the family got pewter bookmarks made by the same project – very simple but cute.

It’s my last night in Namibia – I’ve been here a week and since I’m on holiday I’ve had all the time in the world to make all the yummy food I haven’t got time to make at home with my crazy training schedule and work… The guys have been spoilt with roast chicken, lamb and butternut bredie, chicken kebabs with all the trimmings on the braai, pasta, salads, roasted veggies, seared tuna steaks (the hungry man saw to these!), rusks, fudge, apple pie, pears poached in red wine syrup to mention just a few! Tonight, however, I thought I’d go all out: Lamb Shanks in red wine and honey served on crushed potato with veggies on the side (I’ve been spoiling them rotten but every meal has included a green and orange veggie – much to their disgust! Apparently veggies are for moms or girls… I love veg so maybe they’re right!) I’ve got pears left over from the last batch I did so I’ll poach some more of those in red wine but add a spicy twist with cloves tonight I think. I normally serve these with Bulgarian yogurt but tonight I feel like ice cream so that’s what it’ll be.

Lamb Shanks:

In Cape Town this is a real luxury as it’s so expensive to make which is partly why I left it to the last night’s treat dinner. I was pleasantly surprised however when I got to the till at the butchery that lamb in Namibia is just over half the price as it is in SA – big smiles all round! This is a rough guideline as you can’t really mess up this dish. It wants to be yummy all on it’s own!

1                      Lamb Shank per person

750ml             Red wine - I’m using about a bottle full (there are two open bottles left over from the weekend and these minus the glass I’ll drink while I’m cooking equal about a bottle!). You basically want to almost cover the shanks.

75ml                Honey

                        Rosemary (fresh if you have access to it – it just tastes that much better!)

                        Mixed dried herbs

                        Salt and Pepper to season

Heat a little olive oil in a saucepan and brown the lamb on all sides. This locks in flavour and also develops a fuller flavour somehow… Season the lamb with salt and pepper at this point as you transfer it to an appropriately sized casserole dish. Add the red wine, honey and herbs to the casserole before covering securely and putting into the oven at 160^oC for an hour and a bit (this is a guideline – the more lamb you have touching the longer it will need to cook for. Should you need to cook it faster you can consider using a separate casserole for each shank – this sounds crazy but I’ve seen it done in those foil baking containers and it worked a dream). Once you’re satisfied that the lamb is cooked through, remove from the oven and allow to rest for at least 15 minutes before serving. If your gravy needs thickening, remove the shanks to a dish and add a little maizena to water before adding to your gravy. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly to avoid lumps.

Serve with potatoes – mashed, crushed, baked, it doesn’t really matter – and a green veg. I also put mint sauce or jelly on the side as no lamb is complete without it in my books.

A word of warning though: Lamb Shanks are highly addictive… family and friends have been known to be rather a pain after I’ve made shanks for them – they beg for me to make them again and again! They are, however, a really good wow-factor meal if you’re looking to impress… Enjoy!

Perfect Fudge

So after many tests, I found the perfect fudge recipe. There are others with much simpler ingredient lists and instructions but the extra time and effort are well worth the effort here! I gave the simpler recipes a fair shot (tried them each twice) but the results were at best very average. Nigella Lawson’s recipe from “How to be a domestic goddess” didn’t work at all… Very simple recipe with very disappointing results. Here’s one that worked perfectly again and again:

900g Sugar

300ml Milk

30ml Golden syrup

100g Margarine

397g can Condensed Milk

5ml Vanilla Essence

1. Dissolve the sugar in the milk over low heat (the best results I got were from a batch where I put the milk and sugar in a pot over low heat and went to shower whilst it melted. It took about 20min for the sugar to fully dissolve. This is a little excessive but as I said, this happened to be the very best batch of very many batches!
2. Add syrup and margarine. Bring to the boil and boil for 2-3 minutes.
3. Add the condensed milk and bring to the boil again. I found that if I stopped stirring for too long the bottom got brown really fast. This fortunately stirred back into the mixture ok but is obviously something to watch! Boil until soft-ball stage which is 118^oC on the sugar thermometer.
4. Remove from heat and stir in the vanilla essence (I never ever stick to the recipe amount when it comes to vanilla – the vanilla essence we get at pick ‘n pay isn’t very good I’m afraid so I add more)
5. Beat this mixture until it begins to set. Pour into a greased baking tin. If you beat it for too long you have trouble getting it from the pot into the tin… try to move the fudge from the pot to the tin as fast as possible and don’t fiddle with it once it’s in the tin – it makes it look yucky and messy!
6. Cut the fudge before it sets too hard. Store in an airtight container – it will last as long as the boys in the house can’t find it!

Tannie Esme's chocolate cake recipe

I was first introduced to this delicious cake recipe as a kid, a friend's mom used to make it when we played tennis tournaments... Mom, being mom, made sure we got the recipe and it couldn't be simpler! The best part? it can be frozen and defrosted and iced whenever you're ready! Needless to say this little feature comes in very handy when you have to provide snacks for tennis league every second Saturday...

Esme's Chocolate Cake

750ml Cake Flour

80ml Cocoa

20ml Baking Powder

5ml Bicarb

500ml sugar

pinch of salt

500ml boiling water (I let it cool slightly)

250ml oil (measure this first then the hot water takes the oil out of my measuring cup...)

50ml white vinegar (I have substituted this with whatever vinegar is available many times and haven't been disappointed with the results!)

Mix dry ingredients with a whisk (this is a little trick I learned - it does pretty much the same thing as sifting the dry ingredients as it gets air into the mixture). Add wet ingredients. Mix well.

Pour into a tray pan (I use a glass Pyrex baking dish 15x30cm or so and then serve the cake in the pan)

Bake for 25-30min at 180*C

Ice once cool.

This is a very basic chocolate cake. I jazz it up a little with a really good icing... Any icing will work but this is really special and so easy to make (the ingredients are the silly part)

Dark Chocolate Icing

75g Butter

30ml Cocoa Powder

45ml Buttermilk

5ml Vanilla essence

200g (375ml) icing sugar

Melt the butter and stir in sifted cocoa powder (make sure it's not lumpy!). Stir in buttermilk and vanilla. Sift in icing sugar and mix well. Pour over a partially cooled cake. Allow to set before cutting.

Best Berry Jam

I have been lucky enough to grow up in a home with an amazing kitchen and a mom who isn't all that keen on using it... This lead to making my own birthday cakes from age 12 (I didn't fancy the one I got for my 11th birthday) and generally being free to make a mess and experiment. I have made many batches of jam under Ouma's watchful eye - she still makes marmalade and rusks whenever we're running low!

Over December I visited a berry farm in Swellendam (gorgeous place!) and bought a bunch of frozen berries... I didn't even think of making jam until I got back to Cape Town a week later - usually frozen berries get eaten in minutes but somehow these ones managed to escape!

I didn't have a recipe but stuck to the basics. Here goes:
 
Mixed Berry Jam Recipe

500g blueberries

500g raspberries

1kg youngberries

6 granny smith apples, grated

15ml lemon juice

2kg sugar

The method is quite simple. Place all the ingredients in a very large heavy bottomed pot over low heat. At the same time, place a saucer in the freezer for testing the jam to see if it's done. Once the sugar is dissolved in the berry juice, bring the mixture to a rolling boil. Stir constantly - the jam will bubble up to about double the original volume and could boil over if you're not careful. Once the colour of the jam has changed and it's looking like runny jam (15-20min) test a little on your chilled saucer - I made notes on testing jam with my strawberry jam recipe.

Bottle in sterilized, hot jars. I close the jars whilst still hot to ensure that they seal properly and have stored jam for over a year without a hitch (mostly, however, the jam only lasts a few weeks before it is devoured by friends and my hungry family)

Simple Knitting Project

Ever since I can remember (and my mom can rememebr, in fact!), my Ouma has been busy with either a knitting or crochet project (or ten!)... Since she lives with us and is quite an influence in all of our lives, a little bit of her rubs off every once in a while! I have shared a few projects which she's had something to do with and this one was no excpetion. Wonderful as she is, my dear Ouma feels it necessary to forcefully offer advice when it comes to my handiwork... Nothing major this time around and I managed to gently get her to understand that I needed my own personal twist on this one!  

My inspiration came from a trip to the yarn shop to buy supplies for Ouma to make blankets - she makes about 40 knee rugs for retirement homes every year which means a few trips to various wool shops! :-)

I think it turned out quite gorgeous!

I found the most divine cotton knitting yarn and couldn't resist buying enough for a few projects! My motivation for making a baby jersey is nothing exciting I'm afraid... It's just that making a jersey for a big person takes so darn long and I'm prone to making mistakes along the way - I figured a baby was less likely to notice the errors than an adult would and they certainly wouldn't be in a position to put my jersey in the back of a cupboard to be forgotten! I searched online for a pattern I liked and this was the second one I tackled... The first one is about 50% complete but I decided I didn't really like the shape of the jersey so I started on option 2. I will finish the other one now that this one is done and post pictures shortly! This jersey is called the "bellflower baby hoodie" and is available free on Lion Yarn's website which you need to sign up to gain access. I didn't use Lion yarn but the cotton is double knitting. I used size 3.5 needles for the ribbing and size 4mm for the rest.    

How cute is this hood?! I'm in love!

The buttons came from billabong pants and shorts I've bought through the years - I thought they added a little character!

With most of the family home from the annual river holiday the kitchen and garden have gotten busy and some interesting and yummy meals have been prepared...

First and foremost though I feel I should brag a little about the food whilst on holiday... :-) We spit Roast a lamb every new years (well every one for the last 18 years or so!) dad once again did it to perfection! It's quite a process, you see... The coal maker gets taken out and dusted off by the boys (it's a 44 gallon drum that da put a door in the bottom and a grate inside to allow the coals to fall though and transferred to the spit pit with a spade - he's very clever...) next the lamb is tied to a frame (which dearest daddy made too!) and placed 1m above the coals. The cooking process starts early in the afternoon so we're talking SLOOOOOOW roasted lamb here. Dad and uncle Brian are in charge of the carving when the lamb's ready. Whilst it's cooking we make a variety of yummy salads and pot bread in the fire... desert is mom's christmas cake with custard (for those who have a separate pudding stomach - I'm not blessed with one of these!)

The next day is a generally lazy affair... There's an anything that floats race down river at mid day but we didn't compete this year. Instead, we started making dinner! There was plenty of left over lamb (part of the plan) which mom and Susan skillfully and thriftily removed from the bone. The outdoor kitchen turned into a whirlwind of activity and all the veggies in the fridge were sliced and diced for a giant stir fry... It's a tradition in our house but very different every year! We ate lamb stir fry for the next two days and no one got tired of it!!