Foodie Girl's Night-in

It's been ages since the girls have gotten together without the lads - it's funny how we go through stages! Needless to say we drank far too much (really good, I mean amazing) wine and I did a little experimental recipe which was divine (if I may say so myself!)

For starters I made a very simple salad - it's actually my absolute favorite recipe at the moment...
- Cos lettuce
- Iceberg lettuce
- Toasted pine nuts
- Parmegano Shavings
- Greek Dressing
I make up individual bowls for each person (I way prefer this presentation to a bowl on the table) - mixing the leaves and dressing then sprinkling pine nuts and then finally parmegano shavings - VOILA! you have a wow salad in minutes!

Mains:

I have to admit I went big here (blush!) Homemade pasta and a fresh Coriander, basil and chili pesto. The pasta is something I've developed a bit of a reputation for - fresh pasta is just so good it makes me wish I was Italian! I've shared the recipe previously here. I underestimated just how much the airconditioner dried out the air and by the time I tried to put the sheets through the cutter they were far to dry and sort of started to crumble - not quite the angel's hair I'd planned :( I improvised a little and cut the sheets with a knife and it turned into a bit of tagliateli

Coriander, Basil and Chili Pesto
- big bag of fresh coriander from woolies
- 30g basil leaves
- pine nuts
- Chili to taste (I used one)
- Olive oil

Blitz the ingredients in a food processor until smooth. Add olive oil a bit at a time to get the right consistency. The key with any pesto is to allow it to stand for an hour or two to develop flavour before  using it.

We've just bought an espresso machine (the kind that actually requires you to read the whole manual!) so for desert we had cappuccino's, dark chocolate and maybe a very special bottle of Rupert and Rothschild red vino :)

 

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!