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!