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!