Buttermilk Rusk Recipe

Visits to my hairdresser are always social affairs and more like going for coffee with the girls than the tedious few hours it used to be in an impersonal salon...

I digress. Nicky needed ideas for her son's South African Food day at school (he's a gorgeous grade one). We settled on rusks which means a blog post is necessary! I haven't been avoiding blogging, I've just been very busy living (met a new man, introduced him to salad, planted out a few hundred seedlings, trained for an adventure race, cooked many meals, put all my 'extra' stuff into storage, tidied up my house, ran a few hundred km, cycled a few hundred more, etc.)

We always have rusks in the house (it's one of Ouma's responsibilities to keep her busy - which has become my responsibility as she's not able to do it alone anymore). We have a few recipes we follow but the most popular (all over SA - the little sister travels and 'pays' for her accommodation at friends in boxes of rusks) by far is a recipe I got from a friend's housekeeper about 15 years ago.


Stina's Rusks

1kg Self raising flour
4 cups NuttyWheat flour (whole wheat)
2 cups sugar
10ml Cream of Tartar
10ml Bicarbonate of Soda
2ml Salt
500g butter or margarine
250ml boiling water
500ml Buttermilk

Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celcius. Grease a large, square baking tin.

Mix dry ingredients in a big mixing bowl.

Melt butter in another big bowl. Mix in the buttermilk, rinse the buttermilk carton out with the boiling water and add this water to the mix. Mix wet ingredients into the dry ingredients until thoroughly blended. Put the mixture into your baking tin and bake for 1 hour.

Remove from the tin and once cool enough to handle cut into fingers and arrange on the wire shelves from your oven - the more gaps there are between the rusks the faster they dry. Reduce the oven temperature to 70-100 degrees and return the rusks until they are dry throughout. 

Store in an airtight container once cool.

Variations can include adding pretty much any seeds, raisins, dried fruit, etc.

Dunk in tea or coffee :)

Catering for a crowd

Spaghetti Bolognaise:
When catering for a crowd and having no idea what time the troops will arrive (teens and race teams seem to be unpredictable like that) it helps to have a meal that isn't fiddly and can stand on the stove until needed. I'm terrible at following recipes when it comes to these things but I'll share how this one looked (it was polished off in one sitting so I think they approved :) )



4 onions, finely chopped
4 cloves of garlic, crushed / chopped
1.5kg Lean beef mince
1kg tomatoes (I had a massive jar of canned tomatoes from the garden but any canned tomatoes will do)
3 pots of tomato paste (this isn't a science!)
1kg carrots, grated
5ml each Thyme, Rosemary, parsley, basil, origanum (I used some of these fresh from the garden - increasing quantity for fresh herbs accordingly...)
10ml sugar
Salt and Pepper to taste
15ml Worcester Sauce
20ml olive oil

Heat oil in a BIG pot and gently fry onions and garlic. Once softened add mince and stir until browned through. Add all the other ingredients - turn down to low once heated through and simmer for 30-45 minutes. Adjust seasoning and serve over spaghetti - the kids love grated cheddar on top but I prefer some parmegano or pecorino for a bit more adult flavour.

I cooked up a kilo of spaghetti for this quantity - I did it in one go but should really have divided it in two batches even though I have pots that are big enough...

This fed 10 adults and 2 sixteen year olds with one single solitary portion making its' way into a tupperware for my lunch today (I had to hide it or I probably would have had to think of another lunch to make...!)

Spring has Sprung!

I've been a bit quiet when it comes to posting but that's just because I've been so busy cooking, entertaining and finally, GARDENING!!!

I scored a major luck while running through my neighborhood on Monday evening - a building site was chucking out a few hundred plastic plant pots and big seedling trays. I went back to fetch them and it looks like I'm sorted for seed planting for the foreseeable future!!

The garden is starting to take shape: the veggie boxes have been moved to where the trampoline used to be (we've kind of outgrown it in the family...!) and the troughs have been cleaned out ready for strawberry seedlings when they finally become available again. 

I may have cheated a little and bought a few seedlings the other day (they were just sooooo tempting when I went through the nursery I couldn't help myself...)

Comfrey - it's coming up all over the place. I'd previously planted it as green manure
which the chickens got hold of and I thought it was gone so emptied the soil out of the
boxes where it was growing... Needless to say, wherever the soil ended up I've got baby comfrey plants jumping up
and now I'm JUMPING for JOY!

Mint - ready for Summer Mojitos!

Mint and pots of peas

Potato Plants in tyres

New growth on the Rose Bushes

Rosemary ready for Lamb Roasts

How awesome are these seedling trays?! 

Seeds planted and labelled - I can't wait to see the little green faces!

Tomato Seedling - unplanted! They came up where last year's ones were growing!

Cheat seedlings from the nursery :)
Tomato plants in the back box, new Lemon Tree in the pot
and a raspberry plant to grow up the wall.

Simple Lemon Cordial Labels

I decided my Lemon Cordial needed pretty labels (ok ok, I just wasn't tired and felt like doing something creative) I'm super happy with how these turned out especially since I haven't hauled out the craft supplies in longer than I can remember... It was as easy as printing labels in a cool font onto brown cardboard and then tearing them to size. Punched a hole in the top right corner and threaded a bit of raffia through to attach to the bottles. Viola! 

When life Sends you Lemons...

Easy peasy recipe today although it's so easy I'm not sure it counts as a recipe!

I found these gorgeous Grolsch Beer bottles on their way to a bin in a house that doesn't recycle (I know, right?!?!?) and rescued them... It's taken a couple of weeks but i've managed to make something that's perfect for them - Lemon Cordial. The recipes I have say it will keep for a year but with the sixteen year old in my house I'll be lucky if it lasts until next month!

Basically dissolve sugar in freshly squeezed lemon juice (at a ratio of about 1-1.2kg sugar per litre of juice) by warming it gently until the sugar is disolved. I haven't done much experimentation here but the research i did suggested that the mixture shouldn't reach the boil. In reality the sugar disolved by the time the juice was body temperature - which is when I stopped heating it and bottled in sterile bottles. You can water bath preserve if you're pedantic but I really don't think this is necessary. Having left the cordial for a couple of hours I've decided that next time I am going to strain it before bottling - this version has separated with quite a lot of scummy lemon cells on top... Yes, I can be a silly, annoying perfectionist some days!

The sixteen-year-old did a taste test (tot of syrup and fill the glass with cold water) and gave it a massive thumbs up (in teenager that's a grunt and gulp and then pouring another for those of you who haven't got a teenager in your life...)

What to do with Onion Marmalade

I managed to recover from the recipe test session sufficiently to actually have an appetite. What a great feeling!

The 16 year old was nagging for a snack so I thought I'd test out some marmalade on him... I put some cheese and onion on rice cakes. I got a grunt and "it's good" which in the world of the teenager is quite the positive reaction!

Saturday night was burger night (again!) and we all had cheese and onion toppings (or bottoms depending on who was assembling!)

Sumptuous Simple Supper

Living in SA I've been lucky enough to eat crayfish off the braai pretty much each season... I've never tried cooking them any other way but gave it a bash when a friend asked for help in the kitchen department (he'd bought tails for an occasion and wanted to learn how to cook them before trying a big batch)

We served them with seafood mayo from woolies, homemade lemon butter and some coriander pesto.

The reality is all you need to do is pop them in a pot of boiling water for a couple of minutes. I can honestly say it was the yummiest fast meal I've had in a very long time!