Food & Family

A Celebration of Life

2012-01-30T13:39:00.001+02:00

There is a thread of continuity running through our lives, that all of the major events in our lives are celebrated at home – two of our children were born at home, we were married in my parents-in-law’s home, we had a naming ceremony at home for our children, and now the final ceremony of life, a funeral service, took place in our home this weekend, which feels like it has brought our celebrations of life full circle.

My mother in law died peacefully in her home last Wednesday morning. It was her time and we were all relieved for her to be free, however sad for ourselves for losing her. While we all knew that her ashes would come home to be planted under a tree on our farm, we weren’t quite sure about what sort of service we’d be able to hold for her. She was a Catholic, but at 89 hadn’t been to a church for many years. She would have wanted a ceremony presided over by a Catholic priest, but we wanted more than just the official form of a traditional service. The priest who visited in her last days was wonderful and warm and we were prepared for a formal ceremony in his church even though none of us had ever attended it. However he came to our rescue and himself suggested a ceremony at home for her as more meaningful and appropriate in the circumstances.

After that it all fell into place. He would officiate and select appropriate prayers and blessings, we would be able to put in all our own contributions, memories and the rest. Our house, spacious as it is with its ever-stretching main room and used to festivals and enfolding gatherings of people, was the perfect venue. We cleaned and de-cluttered as never before, somehow feeling that it needed to be cleaner for this than even for our festivals. Friday was spent baking rock buns, crunchies, banana bread, tea loaf and heart biscuits interspersed with more cleaning.

The service went beautifully on the day. There was a wonderful energy, more of celebration of her life than mourning her death. We had a table with pictures of her, candles, crystals and shells, her signature walking stick and so on. Somehow seats were found for everyone. And the service itself went from formal prayers to informal remembering of her and tributes to her. Everyone had so much to say, from moving eulogy to funny stories and informal remembrances, that the priest had to leave before we were all done, so he did his final blessing before taking his leave.

Our children then played a couple of recorder pieces they’d chosen, which bridged the gap and restored the contemplative mood, before we carried on with the memories, so that everyone who wanted to had a chance to say or sing their bit. Our wonderful farm employees, who have been with us for years, sang Amazing Grace in harmony for her.

All in all it felt right, in keeping with her spirit and her life to have held this celebration for her here in a familiar place. There was joy as well as sadness and an energy filled with spirit, created by all the people who loved her, coming together. The overall message was of love, even the priest's sermon was on love and he chose a few prayers centered around the message of love, excusing himself for having to leaf madly around his book between the wedding section and funeral section to find all the right readings!.

We’ll have another more informal memorial service later in the year to plant her ashes and a tree for her, so that family from farther afield who weren’t able to attend can also have their chance to be part of a ceremony for her.

Death and Life

2012-01-23T10:07:00.002+02:00

My mother-in-law on her 88th birthday two years ago

Death is just a part of the cycle of life. But it’s a part that we hide from, push away, avoid like an unfortunate, socially inept relative. In books the baddies die, but never the main characters, at least hardly ever. If they did there wouldn’t be a follow on, we wouldn’t buy the book in the first place. So it’s hard when death becomes part of everyday life for a while.

At the moment my mother-in-law is slowly dying. She’s 89, has been getting frailer for years, but we think this is the final stage. She’s at her home on our farm with a nurse and two of my sisters-in-law taking care of her. My husband and I take turns sitting with her when she’s calm, but can’t really help with the nursing. Our kids are just going on with their usual routine of school and play, even though there is an atmosphere of limbo and holding of breath in our lives.

We wish she could go quickly and have a release from the distress and discomfort that she’s experiencing, but dying happens in its own time; strength of spirit fights frailty of body and the letting go process is hard.

My kids asked questions about death when they were younger. They know our beliefs. But this is the first time it has been so close to them. When my father died it was a distant thing, cut and dried news from the other side of the world. They attended his memorial service but I flew over alone for the funeral. Now they are on the fringe of a gradual, drawn-out dying.

Co-incidentally the story book I’ve been reading to them over the last couple of months Roller Skates (Newbery Library, Puffin) is one of those old-fashioned children’s stories that isn’t afraid to confront death in one of the good characters. We reached one of the later chapters where a little 4 year old girl, befriended by the heroine loses a battle with pneumonia and the doctor she brings to her arrives too late to save her. I’d forgotten about this and it came right in the middle of this week of nursing their old grandmother. We started talking about the old days – this is set in New York in the late nineteenth century, before antibiotics and when poverty meant that young children often did die of diseases that can be cured easily today.

At one point Middle Daughter said she didn’t want to talk about death any more, so we stopped. It made me wonder if we should be talking to them more about what is happening around them, or let them insulate themselves with their regular lives and let it flow over their heads. It’s all part of life and growing up, so I don’t believe we should protect them too much by not telling them anything, but I don’t want to force them to confront more than they can deal with emotionally. I’m a great believer in answering questions when they come up, at whatever age and letting things unfold in their own time, so hopefully we’ll hit the right balance.

Anyway I’m glad it turned out that we were reading Roller Skates just at this time, and have lingered over it longer than usual what with the distraction of holiday time, and forgetting the book when we went away to the river for our holiday. It turned out to be entirely the right thing to be reading, giving enough room for discussion and putting feelings into words and images.

Looking at the reviews on Amazon, most of the adults had fond memories of it being read to them as children and re-read it regularly, while the kids who reviewed it universally found it boring. So definitely better to read aloud to your kids – mine all enjoyed it.

I don't know how many more days my mother-in-law has left but I hope she finds the right time and slips away peacefully. I hope my children learn and grow from the experience of death happening within the family, rather than removed and sanitized by distance. It is all part of life after all.

25th Jan Edited to add: Juju died peacefully in the night with three of her six children around her. She was compos mentis and full of humour to the end. Go well Juju on your next adventure, with all our love.

Summer Holiday Ingredients

2012-01-16T13:12:00.000+02:00

The essential ingredients of a summer holiday – water, water, water, sand, mud, water, sunshine, food ,family, friends and more water...

There’s something about being able to get up straight into a costume, paddle up the river in a canoe, drift back down with the tide and then swim in soft brown river water, all before breakfast, that makes you feel relaxed and healthy, living only for the day, letting the stresses of real life fade.

We had a lovely week away at the river swimming every day. Friends were staying just upriver from us for the first few days, so the kids were able to taste a new sense of independence – setting off together in the canoes to go and visit, unaccompanied by any adults.

This house was far enough upriver to have only a very gentle tidal flow, so it was safe enough for the kids to play about in the water for hours in their life jackets. The grass sloped into a sandy/muddy beach slightly sheltered by reeds. Much play with mud and messing about with boats can turn a teenager back into a child in moments.

Of course the horses came too and had a water jump built for them as part of a cross country course.

Only at the river do you set off for a sleepover by boat.

Heading off upriver to their friends' house, with the full moon peeking enviously over the cliffs.

And now it’s back to reality – school, 44C hot summer weather, my mother's visit ending as she heads to Australia to see her other two grandchildren, work to kickstart for the year... time to work on extending the positive, relaxed vibe of our river holiday to cover everyday life. Anyone know how that's done?!

The Colours of Christmas

2011-12-31T16:31:00.001+02:00

Christmas colours in sunshine country! You no longer have to stick to the traditional red and green of mid-winter Christmases, but a new scheme of bright yellow, orange and red comes together all on its own. Sunflowers picked from the veggie garden, nasturtiums likewise, our everyday bright and cheerful plates seamlessly blending in.

Christmas Day was hot and sultry, so cold turkey, bacon wrapped sausages, gammon and salads were the order of the day. Followed by summer pudding, ice cream and a little tiny Christmas pudding just for tradition.

We still managed to be completely stuffed afterwards with barely any room for our traditional stripey jellies!

Now all the leftovers are finished, so I'm cooking a second gammon to eat cold for New Year's Day lunch - just to keep those Christmas flavours flowing.
And tonight we're celebrating with fillet on the braai. What about you?
Happy New Year everyone!

Christmas Preparations

2011-12-21T17:57:00.000+02:00

I haven’t been feeling very Christmassey so far. The press of work to be completed before Christmas, the usual self-employed person’s dread of the financial dead season casting a shadow over the delights of Christmas shopping, have rather left me lacking in the Christmas spirit.

But now our tree is is up – a beautiful one that my sister-in-law has had her eye on all year for it’s beautiful rounded and bushy shape. We cut it on Sunday, with a cluster of cousins visiting from the US to join in the fun.

It just fits into the house, talking up almost half the width of our sitting room, smelling of pine and twinkling with lights, two sets at least, the third one gave up after one day and we haven’t managed to find the guilty bulb!

Youngest helping bake the Christmas cakes

I’ve just made the marzipan for the Christmas cakes (baked a couple of weeks ago) – seemingly vast quantities of almonds, sugar and eggs, that underline how much of a festive celebratory excess Christmas cake really is.

I always use Delia’s recipe and just leave out the almond essence, adding extra lemon juice instead, and it makes a lovely mild marzipan, that all but the most ardent marzipan haters (my husband for one!) like.

Talking of marzipan I rather love the old English word for it – marchpane. It reminds me of a favourite children’s book by Alison Uttley, A Traveller in Time, where a little girl slips back to the 16th century in the time of Mary Queen of Scots. In between plots to rescue the sad queen from captivity, she fashions an elaborate model of the family farmhouse out of marchpane, an image that has stayed with me to this day. I could never work out how she made such intricate models and detailing from marzipan, which in my experience crumbles to pieces so easily... she must have had a different recipe!

Middle Daughter with papier mache goo hands

Middle Daughter has completed and wrapped an impressive stack of home-made presents, including papier mache masterpieces, our son has made his cards and has decided to make origami figures as presents this year, Youngest has written a story as one of her presents, that she was laboriously typing out on the computer, painful letter by painful letter. I stepped in and typed it for her, to her dictation, and just need to work out how to get it printed off to form a real book!

I on the other hand have purchased a total of two presents and am relying on last minute inspiration and the fact that the large family will anyway swamp our children with presents, so the tree will look suitably abundant on Christmas Eve!

How are your Christmas preparations going?

Kitchens of My Childhood

2011-11-24T09:42:00.001+02:00

Corey at Tongue in Cheek wrote about her Mum’s kitchen, still the same kitchen of her childhood, full of baking and constant comings and goings of family. She sent me back to recollecting the kitchens of my childhood.

The front of the school where I grew up - not me in the picture!

I say kitchens, because there were two. The small galley kitchen in our flat and the big bustling school kitchen below. I grew up in a school, a small, English boys’ boarding school. The buildings were an old manor house in warm honey stone built for the local squire and his family in the late Victorian era. Spacious and roomy but not too imposing. Our flat was the upper floor in the servants’ wing forming an L to the main house. Our kitchen was small, the end of the wing partitioned off, high counters put in by the first headmaster and his wife, who were both tall, big windows just a bit too high, but light and airy looking over the stable yard.

There wasn’t much counter space for spreading out on, but my mother had a trolley that we used as an extra surface when baking biscuits or cakes and it is there that I remember waiting to scrape out the cake mixture, hovering, one foot in the green carpeted corridor, as she scraped as much into the cake tin as she could, us willing her to stop before it was all gone. It was there I learned to make drop scones, proudly serving up a plateful to a party of visitors one tea-time (was it the school governors?).

Every corner was used, cunning turntables on the corner shelf just inside the sliding door held all the little pots of baking powder and such like, another turntable on the wide window ledge held jams and honeys, bottles of orange squash and Ribena lined the counter, cereal boxes lived high on top of the wall cupboard, with the sliding glass door that one of us broke trying to climb and reach something. Tupperware lived in the cupboard underneath the trolley that needed just the right pressure to open. A blue padded top stool with a retractable step sat next to the trolley to reach the high shelves over the cooker. The four of us could just fit in to do the washing up if we stepped around each other carefully.

The big school kitchen immediately below my bedroom was another domain. Three big Agas in an imposing row kept it warm year round. A huge table stood in the middle, big built-in wooden dressers on two sides. In the days before stainless steel regulations took over, it was little changed from the old manor house kitchen, with painted wood cupboards and linoleum floor. In term time it was a hive of activity presided over by the cook and housekeeper.

I would sidle in with a bowl on a mission from my mother to fetch flour, dried fruit or eggs from the store room. A big old fashioned scales with weights sat on the dresser. Three big metal dustbins held the flour (self-raising and plain) and the sugar. A metal dipper sat on top of each, to scoop out from the white powdery mountain inside, and I’d carefully weigh out however much I needed, adjusting the metal weights in pounds and ounces, for whatever recipe my mother or I was baking up in the flat, before scuttling back upstairs to our little kitchen.

The dried fruit required more exciting fetching. The first drawer in the dresser held a heavy bunch of housekeeper’s keys. Above the drawer hung a clipboard with the school menus for the week pencilled in. I would check it out regularly, my heart quailing if it showed fish for lunch on Friday, or relieved if a favourite pudding was planned. All the larders were kept locked, but I had the entree and could help myself to the keys and go and fetch whatever was needed.

The dim housekeeper’s larder held shelves stacked with dry goods and tins, and smelled of spice and raisins, in my memory at least. Whatever I was fetching I would be tempted to open the dry fruit cupboard and lift the lid of the tin containing mixed dried fruit (the cake mix with candied peel) and grab an illicit handful... There were three other interlinking larders with wire mesh screened windows and stone slab counters, dating back from the days before refrigeration and between them all the food for the school was stored. Apart from that there was the potato shed in the back yard, dark and slightly damp where the potatoes were stored in a heap still covered with earth. Milk was delivered daily, as the fridge for the whole school in those days was only the size of an average large family fridge today.

In term time I slipped in and out of that kitchen shyly and surreptitiously, politely greeting and then escaping back up to the quiet upstairs, occasionally lingering if it looked like there might be enticing tastes offered. But in the Christmas holidays the school kitchen became ours. My aunt’s family, and great uncle and great aunt, joined us and we would cook meals for the extended family downstairs, expanding into the school as if it were once again a family home and manor house. Then we would stand around the big table, my aunt, mother cousin and I, icing the Christmas cake, mixing up brandy butter with frequent tastes, peeling potatoes, preparing big meals.

The tall cupboard that contained food colouring and baking supplies was at our disposal for making peppermint creams with all the fancy cookie cutters. The Agas always kept the kitchen warm and toasty, unlike the chilly winter corridors of the school in holiday time, with central heating turned right down. By now I knew that the wooden sloping lidded box on the window salt contained salt not sugar – my toddler brother and I had discovered that, tricked by laughing kitchen staff, who were then less than thrilled when we spat our mouthfuls out over the clean kitchen sink!

We’d use the rattling metal school trolleys to wheel the food up the stone flagged passageway to the smaller dining room, or to take tea things, always a proper afternoon tea with bread and butter, cake and biscuits, through to the wood panelled main hall which we transformed into a sitting room, grouping all the sofas and chairs around the huge fireplace, the school Christmas tree adapted for our own use.

After Christmas with the new school term, we shrank back into our little upstairs kitchen again.

Those tastes of a big warm kitchen with a central table stayed with me. My dream kitchen was formed by the descriptions in Rosemunde Pilcher novels of a kitchen stretching the width of a London basement, welcoming friends and family to sit around and chat, sofa at one end, room to stretch out and bask in the warmth of baking and cooking. And that is what I now have here.

A kitchen that stretches into sitting room, a big table where everyone can sit around, scents of baking bread and biscuits. And I almost never cook fish on Fridays!

What do you remember about your childhood kitchen?

Cooking Without Gas

2011-11-04T16:25:00.000+02:00

Running on empty
Photo credit © Ichtor | Dreamstime.com

One of South Africa’s best kept secrets right now, isn’t a beautiful game reserve or a beach-side boutique hotel... it’s the fact that we’ve run out of gas. Bottled LPG gas for cooking that is. About 1200 restaurants have closed and yet no-one in the general public knows about it. We only found out because we ran out of gas the other day and our usually supplier has none. Nor do any of the other suppliers in our area. We tracked down some in a town 120km away on Wednesday, baulked at driving the distance and then today when we were desperate enough to drive that far, found that they had run out too.

Everyone I mention the shortage to is surprised and disbelieving. Large gas bottles can last a family for months and so for many people this isn’t an issue. Only for improvident souls like ourselves, who find that our spare bottle was never re-filled and now that’s it. Until the gas manufacturers get their act together. Apparently several of the nation’s plants closed for servicing at the same time, or something like that. Well orchestrated to make us appreciate them more perhaps! Or maybe so that we don't complain about a price hike when they finally do have supplies again... so cynical!

So now after years of treating our microwave with utmost suspicion I am forced to consider it as a means of providing nutrition for my family. I secretly suspect it of stripping all nutrients from any given food-stuff (surely irradiating food is a bad thing?!!), turning wholesome ingredients into junk food and probably turning me into an alien at the same time.

Luckily our oven is electric, so it’s just the hob that I am without. So now I am Googling stuff that most students could probably tell me. How to cook rice in the microwave.... I tried it last night and to my amazement it worked perfectly! The amount needed for our family takes longer in the microwave than on the stove, but as a means of survival until the gas returns, it is a success. Next up is tomato sauce for pizzas, which shouldn’t be too tricky. Pasta is another matter when you’re cooking for five... so any ideas of meals that can be cooked without using the hob at all would be much appreciated.

And if you haven't yet voted in the Food category of the SA Blog Awards, please do click on the button below and help Food and Family on its way! The promise of tea, scones and strawberry jam still stands!

Strawberry Jam Season - And The Recipe

2011-11-01T09:06:00.000+02:00

Strawberries have been an intrinsic part of my October and November life since before my blog began. Some years we’ve grown enough to sell, jam and feast on, others only enough to gather surreptitiously and tell no-one else about, lest we be short of a few jars of jam before the next season rolls in. Two years running we had a strange bug that bothered our strawberries (we grow organically so no sprays) and I spent ages sorting and chopping out the bug bits, jamming the remainder.

Strawberry jam is one of my home-made Christmas gifts to friends. I beg jars from all and sundry, spend evenings washing, drying and chopping the gorgeous ripe fruit.

I pick twice a week and yet never get beyond popping that perfect sweetly ripe berry into my mouth instead of into the basket.

At least one morning a week a huge pot of ruby jewel-like syrup bubbles on the stove, filling the house with a warm rich jammy aroma. Often it bubbles right over, leaving a sticky mess to clear up later.

And then there is the satisfaction of a neat row of filled jars, sealed and cooling on the counter.

And yet never yet have I posted my recipe for strawberry jam. Not because it’s a big secret. It’s very simple with no tricks of the trade other than good strawberries to start with. So I’m sharing it now, just in case you are also lucky enough to have excess strawberries on your hands.

Recipe for Strawberry Jam
1 kg strawberries
750g white sugar
2-4 tablespoons fresh lemon juice, or more
(you can easily double the quantities if you have a big enough pan and plenty of fruit)

Wash and dry the strawberries. They must be dry before you start or the water will dilute the natural pectin and it will take forever to set. I usually put a clean dishcloth on a tray and lay them out in one layer after washing with another over the top until most of the dampness has been absorbed.

Chop the berries, in half or quarters depending on the size.

When you have 1 kg of chopped berries, put them into a large stainless steel (or enamel) pan and pour over the sugar. Give the pan a shake to let the sugar get cosy with the berries. Leave the pan in a cool place, covered, overnight.

(The soaking in sugar overnight helps the soft fruit retain its shape in the finished jam instead of dissolving to a mush as it cooks)

Next morning the berries will have given out a beautiful red syrup, floating with sugar icebergs, and are ready to cook.

Bring the jam gently to simmering point over a low heat. Stir several times to make sure the sugar isn’t stuck on the bottom. Only when all the sugar has dissolved, raise the heat. Add the lemon juice (for its pectin – the amount to use depends on the fruit – use too little and it won’t set - the riper the berries the more lemon juice you need ).

Bring the jam to a brisk bubble. Watch it like a hawk – at this point it loves to bubble right up and over the edge of the pot, to flood the stove top with sticky red syrup. This is why you need a really big pan. Ideally the berries and sugar should come no more than half the way up the sides of the pan before you start cooking.

Let it cook for 20-30 minutes, then test it for set. Mine tends to be fairly runny, as that is how we like it. It keeps the fresh berry flavour better.

Pour the hot jam into sterilized jars and seal immediately.

Our season started late this year and so the strawberries are only now getting into top gear. I’ve only just made my second batch of jam, but the way they are fruiting this week I’m cautiously optimistic that I’ll have enough for gifts, enough to see us through the year and even some over to sell at the market.

Now if it will stop raining I’ll just go and pick that last row which is groaning with ripe berries.

Oh and the youngberries have loads of flowers right now, so in a few weeks we’ll be picking them too. 2011 is a good year for berries!

Other recipes to do with strawberries: strawberry cake... or strawberry tarts

I've bravely entered the SA Blog Awards this year, so please vote for me - all you have to do is click on the Vote button in the sidebar on the right - then confirm your vote on the e-mail they send you. Only one vote per category per person - so I'm hoping the promise of strawberry jam will sway you! Tea and scones at my house anyone?!

Leftover Spaghetti Omelette

2011-10-31T11:54:00.001+02:00

Leftovers are always a gift to busy mothers... one less meal to think up, just a matter of cooking up some rice and heating through the leftovers. When it comes to leftover spaghetti there’s an even better bonus – spaghetti omelette, or rather frittata, as it is the Italian rather than French version of eggs in a pan. Two out of three kids love it and my husband cooks extra pasta on purpose on his cooking night, just so I will make this the next day.

In Rome I used to love the frittata rolls served in the local Trastevere bar. Thick wodges of omelette filled with all sorts of tasty vegetables and sandwiched in a crusty roll: cheap, filling and satisfying to a student with fledgling gourmet inclinations. I don’t remember if they ever had spaghetti in, but I must have come across the combination somewhere in Italy that year, and have fond memories of it.

We usually have our spaghetti either aglio, olio, peperoncino (just garlic and oil with a little chilli) or with a tomato and bacon sauce. The leftovers of both work well brilliantly in a frittata. A handful of breadcrumbs, a sprinkling of parmesan, a scattering of chopped parsley, is all you need to add.

Here’s the recipe – quantities are vague and can be infinitely adapted, added to and generally changed!

Spaghetti Omelette/Frittata Recipe

Leftover spaghetti, sauced – about one generous serving
6 medium eggs
½ cup fine breadcrumbs
2 tablespoons grated parmesan
2 teaspoons chopped parsley
Salt and pepper

Warm the leftover spaghetti through.
Beat the eggs together in a good sized bowl. Stir in the parmesan and breadcrumbs, and season with salt and pepper.
Sprinkle the parsley onto the spaghetti and stir the whole lot into the egg mix.

Heat a deepish heavy based frying pan (I use my Le Creuset 7”/18cm omelette pan), with a tiny amount of butter, over a medium low heat. Tip in the mixture. Cook slowly over a low heat, until it is set about 2/3 of the way through. The proper way to do this is to loosen the bottom, put a plate over the pan and turn it, returning the omelette to the pan to finish cooking... but I chicken out and cook the top under the grill for the last five minutes or so until just set.

Serve with salad and bread, or even eat cold in a sandwich.

I made this yesterday and the kids and their friends demolished almost all of it. I had to save the last piece in the photo for my husband or there’d have been trouble in camp!

Berry Muffins Too Early On A Weekend Morning

2011-10-29T11:48:00.002+02:00

It’s early for a weekend morning. Consciousness dawns and with it a reminder that I need to bake muffins for my husband to take in to his photography workshop.

Semi-awake, it’s out to the mulberry tree, early sunshine flirting with clouds to see who will be the dominant partner today.

The tree is usually dripping with ripe berries, but it was well raided yesterday and I have to look carefully under leaves and in between branches to fill my cup.

Sift together dry ingredients.

Mix together wet ones.

Fill the trays with muffin papers, because berries stick like crazy to unlined tins.

And by the time the rest of the family is ready for breakfast, after watching the first half of Victor/Victoria, the tune of Jazz Hot is humming through my mind and I feel like a supermum, golden muffins in serried rows waiting to salute the breakfasters. I didn’t tell them I made them for the workshop... not especially for them!

Here's the berry muffin recipe.

Or if you're feeling in a virtuous muffin mood, how about yoghurt and oat muffins
or branflake muffins?

Have a happy weekend!

Spring Festival in Pictures

2011-10-08T14:16:00.000+02:00

Two weeks have flown past since our spring festival, blurring memories so quickly, but the photos live to tell the tale. The spring theme is water and flowers - a bowl of water filled with flowers is the centrepiece of our circle.

Two friends were charged with decorating the circle, given a selection of jam jars, a pair of secateurs and free reign over the garden and wild flowers.

Little posies surrounded the circle, interspersed with brown paper candle bags to glow as darkness fell.

Other friends got creative with flower crowns, paper flowers, real flowers, raffia and anything else that imagination provided.

Mine was all lavender, perilously strung together in a raffia plait.

Another stalwart design friend, resisted out the onslaughts of miggies and pollen to create a fantastic archway to lead us into the sandpit.

And the kids provided the water feature, working hard on a castle that incorporated the hosepipe into its design.

Then at last, as the sun dipped below the horizon, we were finally ready to follow the river of light into the circle, taking a basket of fresh flowers and jugs of water to pour into the water bowl on the way.

Quiche Recipe with Fresh Peas

2011-09-30T13:22:00.001+02:00

Our veggie garden is in prolific spring mode – for a few weeks we have fresh peas in gluttonous abundance, it’s all or nothing, famine or feast; when it comes to petits pois, there is no such thing as moderation. Now the broad beans are all demanding to be picked too, the strawberries are revving up and picking becomes a regular duty rather than an occasional pleasure. ...

But this wonderful excess of fresh stuff, frees you up to experiment with new recipes. Usually peas are just a side dish in our house, quickly boiled with a few leaves of mint, to go alongside a roast chicken. Making quiches for our spring festival I decided it was time for the peas to star in their own show. I rifled through my Marcella Hazan recipe book (The Classic Italian Cook Book (The Art of Italian Cooking and the Italian Art of Eating)) for an Italian take on peas and found just what I was looking for – a recipe for peas cooked in olive oil with a little garlic and prosciutto. I tweaked a little adding onion for more bulk and sweetness, leaving out the ham, (though it would be a good addition to my final recipe – I just didn’t have any and was wanting it to be vegetarian) and adding a sprinkling of fresh chopped mint for spring life and zest.

The result was just what I was after – sweet, tender and meltingly spring flavoured. As Marcella Hazan says, you want just the sweet, tender peas, so leave out any that have gone too far and got that slightly bitter starchiness.

When I was podding peas with the girls, I was appointed official tester and had to taste one pea from every pod that was doubtfully fat and overstretched. I now can tell almost just by looking at the pod whether they are still sweet or gone to starch – a useful skill if I ever need a job in a pea sorting factory! The quiche can be made with frozen peas too, just cook them for less time and don’t add any water as they cook.

Pea Quiche recipe
Ingredients
1 medium onion
1 clove garlic
3 tablespoons olive oil
300g fresh peas, shelled weight
2 tablespoons chopped parsley
Salt and pepper
A sprig of mint
250ml / 1 cup cream
3 eggs
Shortcrust pastry to line a 23cm round dish or tin

Chop the onion and garlic finely. Cook them in the oil over a medium heat until they are soft and translucent, but not coloured.
Add the peas and the chopped parsley and stir to coat with oil. Season with salt and pepper. Add 2 tablespoons water, cover the pot and cook over a medium heat until the peas are tender. This can be anything from 5-15 minutes depending on the peas. If you use frozen peas, leave out the water and cook for about 5 minutes. Leave to cool a little while you prepare the pastry.
Line the dish with pastry. Blind bake for ten minutes at 190C.
While it is baking, beat the cream and eggs together and season with salt and pepper.
Tip the pea filling into the pastry case, sprinkling with torn mint leaves then pour the egg and cream mix over the top.
Bake at 190C for 40-45 minutes until set and golden.
The quiche went beautifully with a simple salad of tomatoes and steamed broad beans dressed with olive oil and a squeeze of lemon.

Ostrich Fillet and Butternut Kebabs - Braai the Beloved Country

2011-09-25T21:17:00.004+02:00

When it comes to braai recipes, our family tends to go for the same old favourites again and again. Spicy chicken wings, marinated lamb chops, chicken in foil, chicken kebabs, boerewors and more boerewors and, for special occasions, a whole fillet of beef in sea salt and black pepper.

But I reckoned that Cooksisters Braai the Beloved Country event called for something new, something to get my foodie creative juices flowing again in honour of Braai Day.

A friend suggested this ostrich steak and butternut combination and I gratefully grabbed the idea. My enthusiasm lasted all the way to the supermarket, where the price of a tiny packet of ostrich fillet horrified my frugal self. Prodigal self however won out and, with no better inspiration coming to mind, I splashed out – these were going to be jewels of foodie braaidom.

The ostrich fillet is currently marinating in a simple bath of olive oil (extra virgin of course), rosemary, balsamic vinegar (so passé it’s almost retro, I know!), sea salt and black pepper.

I’m about to blanch the butternut, so that it cooks quickly enough to go with the meat and maybe some mushrooms can have their own little marinade too and join the party.

I’ve thought about lowering the tone by producing some braaied cheese sandwiches as a starter, but abandoned the idea after further thought. Otherwise all we need is a few herby potatoes, a salad, or maybe some freshly picked minted peas, if I can brave the miggies (midges of the fearsome variety, which are the bane of fine spring weather) to pick them in the veggie garden.

The breeze eventually chased away the miggies and the garden yielded loads of fresh peas

I’ll finish off the post once we've had our braai – I’m getting ahead of myself here writing up recipe before sampling it, but the deadline is looming and I’m squeaking in a the last minute as usual.....

After the braai

Ostrich fillet has us all convinced – it’s expensive but worth it for a special treat. Tender and full of flavour the cubes of meat were indeed foodie perfection!

The butternut worked fine – it turned out perfectly cooked after its pre-cooking phase, but it lacked that caramelised sweetness that makes baked butternut such a delight. Perhaps if I’d cut thinner slices, with thin ends to catch and caramelise on the fire it would have had more character.

Next time I might try soaked dried apricots to add a fruity note. The mushrooms were good though and not a scrap was left, even the picky eater devouring the meat and having seconds, though it was the adults that finished up everyone's veggies!

But all in all a worthy recipe to celebrate braai day, even if a little too fancy and minimalist to be a true South African braai! But then we had all been feasting at our spring festival yesterday, so minimalist kebabs of healthy lean meat was exactly what was required!

Recipe for ostrich fillet and butternut kebabs
Ingredients
Ostrich fillet
balsamic vinegar
olive oil
sprigs fresh rosemary
salt and pepper
--
butternut squash
melted butter
cinnamon
salt and pepper
--
button mushrooms
fresh orange juice
olive oil
lemon thyme sprigs

I haven’t put any quantities in – it all depends how much meat you have and how many you are feeding. My small packet of fillet made 8 kebabs with four cubes of meat on each and fed the five of us just enough for a family supper.

Cut the ostrich fillet into cubes.
Mix together a few tablespoons of olive oil with a splash of balsamic vinegar, a few sprigs of rosemary and a seasoning of salt and pepper. Marinate the ostrich fillet cubes in the mixture for a few hours or better overnight.
Peel the butternut and cut into cubes or chunks – mine were about 1.5 cm or so. Blanch them in boiling water for two minutes – they should still be firm but have slightly more give to them. Dunk them in cold water, drain and leave to dry off.
Marinate the mushrooms in a little freshly squeezed orange juice mixed with some olive oil and some lemon thyme springs and season with salt and pepper.
When nearly ready to cook, toss the butternut cubes in some melted butter sprinkled with cinnamon and salt and pepper.
Thread all the ingredients onto skewers and hand over to the braaimaster, who will deftly cook them over a good even heat turning every few minutes, until the meat is perfectly cooked, about 10-15 minutes depending on the heat.

Enjoy the braai, savour the sunshine, the smokey aromas, the gathering around the fire all together, the start of a long summer season of good food cooked over a wood fire.

And check out Cooksister over the next couple of days for the round-up of all the entries into this annual braai blog event - there should be a rich source of braai recipes to last you the rest of the summer!

And here it is the round-up for Braai the Beloved Country 2011. Check it out for some great looking and tasty braai recipes!

Beach and Pony Show -The Girls' Perfect Weekend

2011-09-19T10:39:00.001+02:00

They say fresh air is good for a cold, and if so this weekend was perfectly suited – no sitting around on the sofa snuffling into a mound of tissues, if was off to the beach first thing to take part in International Coastal Clean up day. We joined up with friends and went in their combi, the girls in a line on the back bench, happy to be going anywhere with their best friends. The day was gorgeous – light breeze, sunshine, blue sky with picture perfect wisps of cloud.

After lots of milling around and doling out of snacks sponsored by PicknPay, we were issued with bags and set up off the beach. We were on a beach that is part of Blaauwberg Conservation Area, a long, sandy beach that stretches all the way from Big Bay to Melkbosstrand, views back to Table Mountain all the way.

It looked fairly clean as we started out, strewn with shells and kelp, but it was amazing how much rubbish was collected. Plastic bottles, bags, food containers, lots of little sweet wrappers, and sugar packets, all sorts of detritus, including bigger things like brushes and plastic crates. The kids hunted for the more satisfying finds like bottles, while I wandered behind them, scanning for the tiny bits of decayed plastic that are just as bad for the environment, as fish can end up eating them and they get into the food chain. Even after everyone else had gone through there was still stuff to find.

At the end we had to go through the bags, filling in a data sheet of what we’d picked up. The weirdest things – a bra and two cotton reels; most numerous – plastic bottles. Between everybody – about 150 or so volunteers, a lot of them kids, we had amassed a huge heap of bags in just 1 1/2 hours.

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Yesterday it was up early again and out to the fun pony show at the riding stables. Youngest had entered the Jumpkhana event and both of the girls the team games. These involved relay style races doing everything from balancing a tennis ball on a bat, riding with a sword to pick up a stirrup from a barrel, riding backwards with four marshmallows in their mouths and so on - much hilarity, much swapping of horses, much running and leading and helping of the younger ones by the older girls.

Rain threatened but held off till later except for a light drizzle now and then. Middle Daughter was on the winning team and so at last received the coveted red rosette that she has been wanting for ages.

Then it was back home to collapse in a heap on the sofa at last and see whether the fresh air had helped that cold!

As for our son – he had a busy time with Dad at home, watching several matches of the World Cup and making sure ‘we’ won, then creating spaceships out of toilet roll inners for a school Entrepreneur project... he has to try and sell them to the primary school kids. I’m slightly dubious about the profit margin on these, considering the amount of super glue and paint used in the construction...! Most of the other kids are including sweets in the package of what they are making, so he is going to have a baking day and make crunchies, muffins and cookies (from the girls' market stall heart biscuit recipe) to try and attract sales.

And now it's Monday.. time to take a deep breath, get back to work and gear up for next weekend's Spring Festival, which coincides with National Braai Day... and I still plan on putting together a braai recipe post for Cooksister's Braai the Beloved Country blog event before then... so much to do!

The Cat That Loves To Shower

2011-09-07T20:36:00.000+02:00

As soon as I switch the sprinkler on in my herb garden this evening a little black shadow comes scurrying. Horry runs into the gentle mist of water, positions herself to her liking in the stream of droplets and starts to wash attentively.

She spends about ten minutes thoroughly licking her fur from every angle and seems to actively enjoy getting soaked to the skin.

Horry, or rather Horror, as she usually gets called, is old now, fifteen, one of our original two cats that preceded the children in our family. Cats of character. She has outlived the vet's predictions by more than three years, although she walks and runs with a swashbuckling wobble.

Here's the cat 'Horror's story Part 1 and Part 2.

So there!

Heart Biscuits

2011-09-05T17:04:00.003+02:00

Middle Daughter's first attempt at icing writing

There’s something about heart shapes that automatically warm the... um... well... heart! Not that I’m a soppy romantic or anything but they just have a special energy that appeals to everyone, kids or adults. Maybe there are some stony-hearted sceptics who can’t stand them, but I’ve yet to meet anyone who wasn’t a sucker for a heart biscuit. Especially when they taste good, as well as looking delectably pretty.

Ever since my Middle Daughter was given these heart shaped cookie cutters as an inspired Christmas present, she has been making this recipe – for birthdays, for gifts and for selling at our monthly local market. The great thing is that the basic cookie dough tastes great, so the biscuits don’t need to be smothered in icing, just a few strategic drizzles or dots and some fancy sprinkles and they are already tasty works of art.

She has varied the shapes over the last few markets. The gingerbread man shapes went down a storm at our last market, yesterday. There were boys in trousers and girls in glitter bikinis. Other times we have had hearts with writing on.

The girls at their market stall in June

Anyway here is the recipe, which originally came from Nigella Lawson’s Feast: Food to Celebrate Life, a book well worth investing in.

Heart Biscuits Recipe
Ingredients
90g / 3oz soft butter
100g / 3 1/2 oz caster sugar
1 large egg
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
200g / 7oz plain flour
½ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 180C / 350F
Cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the egg and vanilla. Sift together the dry ingredients. Fold them into the butter mixture gradually until you have a soft dough that holds together well. If it still feels too sticky to roll, you can add a little more flour, but don’t overdo it or it will make the biscuits too dry. If you have time, rest the dough in the fridge for an hour covered in clingfilm. Otherwise get straight on to rolling out the dough.
On a floured surface, roll the dough out to about 1/2 cm / 1/4 inch thickness. Use whatever shaped cookie cutters you like to cut out shapes.

Put bigger ones together on one greased baking tray and smaller shapes on another. That way when the smaller ones are cooked first, you can whip them out and let the bigger shapes have another couple of minutes. Allow 8-12 minutes. They are cooked when the edges are golden and middles are still quite pale. Remove onto a wire rack to cool, then decorate any which way you like!

Biscuits made for her grandmother's 88th birthday gift

More hearts in our life.. our Valentine's Day tradition has always been a simple one - instead of cards or flowers or gifts my husband and I have always just drawn little red hearts in pen on the back of each other's hand. The girls nowadays want their own hearts too, so it's a family thing... our 13 year old son however is happy not to be included these days!

Youngest on Valentine's Day 2010 heading off to school with her heart on her hand

And just because I’m not at all soppy I’ve just started collecting heart shaped gifts and products from around the internet into our new Red Velvet Heart blog. I especially love the hand blown glass heart and there’s a gorgeous wooden one from Etsy that I will be adding soon. Anyone else out there a closet heart romantic?

Cooksister’s Braai the Beloved Country event

2011-08-31T09:20:00.001+02:00

I’m mulling ideas for a post to enter into Cooksister’s Braai the Beloved Country event. It’s held to celebrate National Braai Day on 24th September and your entry can be anything braai – meat, fish, veggies, potjie, and so on. The only rule is that it must be cooked over an open fire... otherwise it’s not a braai, is it!

It’s all too easy to fall into the same old favourites with our family braais. Everyone loves lamb chops, spicy chicken wings, boerewors, so it’s a challenge to think up something new that will compete for the family affections, but I’m pondering, despite the rain outside that doesn’t really inspire me to shift my cooking activities outdoors.There's the stick bread that we made a little while back but I was thinking of something slightly more fragrant, meaty and sizzling....

Meantime I’m still hoping to win a whole lamb from the National Braai Day giveaway on Facebook – I quite fancy the idea of cooking a whole leg of lamb in a potjie and having an endless supply of chops stashed away in the freezer for summer braais.

If you are in the mood for braaiing check out the rules on Cooksister and post by 23rd September to be included in the roundup. Mmm the smell of woodsmoke and gently sizzling meat - enticing!

Dawdling Through The Daisies

2011-08-26T20:18:00.001+02:00

The white daisies are in full fling now, the longest season I can remember them having all to themselves, before the pink and yellow daisies muscle in to join the dance and the pure white is dowsed with colour. There is something about the carpet of white that lifts the spirit, far more than the patchwork quilt of later spring, pretty though that is. White is said to be the favourite colour of unicorns and white daisies in particular, so there must be at least one or two prancing through our meadow, don’t you think?!

Our border collie watching to see if it's a walk or a photo dawdle

Yesterday was too beautiful to spend entirely at the computer, so come and join me on a wander through the daisies... while they’re still blooming so beautifully.

A flame of orange - the pincushion protea is a beacon among the snowfield of daisies

More white on the apricot tree

The white bench camouflaged - can you see it?

Wandering back up the slope to the house where work and laundry beckons... or maybe you'd like to come in for tea?

Spring Flowers and Sunshine

2011-08-17T12:35:00.003+02:00

The weather in a South African spring is just as erratic and variable as an English one. The biggest difference being that the erratic equation includes a whole lot more sunny days in between the rain storms. August here is the equivalent of February in the northern hemisphere and we've been sitting out on the stoep in the sunshine with our cups of tea, warming our bones from the chill of the house inside... then it's impossible to resist a wander among the daisies before returning to the computer to freeze the toes again.

The spring flowers are going ballistic, knowing that they have to fit in their flowering season while they still can, before the rainstorms tail away and they face another summer of dry, dry heat.

So to cheer us all up (and who doesn’t need cheering up right now?!), here are some of the brave flowers currently celebrating spring on our farm. With a huge storm forecast for the weekend they are busy partying while the sun still shines.

For more spring flower pictures here are some flower rhapsodies and posts from previous years.
Colours of Spring
Spring blooms
Daisy Chains
Spring Flowers Road Trip
Spring Decorating

Winter Braais – Stick bread

2011-08-11T10:55:00.003+02:00

Winter weather is no reason not to braai in South Africa. In fact, still, cold winter nights, when you huddle round the fire toasting hands and faces while your back freezes, are often better for braaing than summer evenings, which are rarely still and often have a roaring south-easter blowing. In summer the braai-master is often abandoned to the heat of the fire, sweating and toiling against the rising wind, ash blowing everywhere, while everyone else disappears into the shady house on the pretext of making salads.. .OK that’s an exaggeration, but the lure of a fire in winter really does make it more companionable, drawing everyone outside to warm themselves as the sun dips below the horizon and the darkness falls.

Stick bread is the perfect way to keep kids and adults occupied while the rest of the food cooks. I’d never made it until we went to a friend’s house recently. She had made a batch of bread dough in advance. All the kids had spent the afternoon finding and refining sticks of the right diameter, so as we adults arrived we were sent in search of our own sticks too. They had to be smooth and about the diameter of a cooked piece of boerewors (our coriander spiced South African sausage). The idea is that the dough is wrapped around the stick, cooked by rotating it slowly over the hot coals and then is pulled off the stick to leave a hole just big enough to slide in a piece of boeri. Simple but brilliant!

Also great fun for kids and adults alike.

Here are step by step instructions in case you’d like to have a go next time you braai.

1. Make a batch of a plain white bread dough.
2. Find a smooth stick for each person eating at the braai. Make sure it is clean with no splinters! The diameter isn’t too critical but it should be about as wide as a cooked sausage if you will be eating it hot dog style.
3. Once the dough has risen and been knocked down you can start, as soon as you have the go ahead from the braaimaster... make sure he has been warned that you will need extra coals for your bread baking, so that it doesn’t interfere with the far more important task of cooking the meat! It actually works best if you have two fires, one for the meat and one for the bread, so they can both be cooked at the same time without too much crowding.
4. Now the fun bit - break off a piece of dough and roll it into a long sausage shape. Wind it around the stick, coiling from the top down with no gaps. Firm it up and press it all together.
5. Go to the hot coals and hold the dough over the fire slowly rotating the stick. It helps if there is an edge to rest it on. The dough will gradually puff up and then turn the golden brown of the perfectly cooked loaf. Remember to keep turning the stick so that it cooks evenly on all sides.
6. Once it is cooked, slide the bread off the stick carefully – steam will pour out from inside and it will be HOT!
7. Put in any sauces, mustards and chutneys then slide in a piece of boeri cut to the right length and enjoy!

One of these is enough for anyone, as the bread can be a bit indigestible for anyone without a cast-iron stomach, but it is delicious with the smoke flavour of the braai and the crunchy crust, and there is something about everyone standing around the fire cooking their own bread that is the essence of the South African braai – togetherness!

It may still feel like winter but National Braai Day is coming up, (24th September) which heralds the start of the spring braaing season, so it’s nearly time to start thinking of marinades for steaks and sosaties. Check out Cooksister’s post on Braai the Beloved Country last year, which is a definitive blog post on the braai and has a great round-up of recipes. And the official National Braai Day site has loads of good braai tips and is giving away one free lamb every day until the 24th September to anyone in South Africa – you just have to comment on their National Braai Day Facebook posts to get in the draw.

Winter and Tree Planting

2011-08-04T08:41:00.001+02:00

The white daisies are really starting to bloom on the farm now, heralding the end of winter and early days of spring. Washing is blowing breezily on the line and the ducks have split up into twos and threes, with bouts of fearsome squawkings accompanying their clumsy attempts to pro-create. The two pet rabbits are showing desperate signs of the nesting instinct. Their pen is set against the side of the house on a brick floor. Thwarted in their attempts to burrow down they have turned their attention to the walls. We live in a straw-bale house, thickly plastered with a natural clay plaster. A determined bunny can scrape away at it, and bingo, the other day it hit the jackpot, making it through the plaster to discover a whole wall full of edible space to burrow into. By the time I noticed him, Toffee had excavated a deep hole into the wall, there was straw scattered everywhere, which he would stop now and then to nibble, and he was only inches from popping his head out into the kitchen on the other side! We need to fortify the enclosure so that our house won’t be eaten up by voracious pets!

It seems like winter is over before it began, even though we did have some chilly weather back in June when we were busy complaining about frozen toes. But July was dry, dry, dry, with only one downpour and now we’re into August and the tree planting season is nearly over. Because we really meant to plant some trees this winter. It’s not that we’re short on trees, having planted a couple of thousand since we’ve been here (including the border windbreak trees), but we try to keep planting indigenous trees both for beauty and to improve the environment. There are so many more birds here now that the trees are growing.

The other reason that we need to plant trees before the end of winter is to replace our girls’ birthday trees. Each child has a tree that was planted especially for them. Our son’s was planted on his first birthday and was the first tree we planted on our side of the farm, before we even moved out here for good and built our house. It is a bottlebrush with red dangling flowers that look like bottlebrushes, not indigenous, but not invasive either and very pretty. When Youngest was born we planted a peach tree behind out house and at the same time planted a Pompom tree for Middle Daughter, aged two by then, who was born in England and hadn’t yet had a tree planted for her.

Easter 2007 - hunting for eggs in our son's bottlebrush tree

On Easter Day the bunny would always hide at least one egg by their trees and sometimes birthday treasure hunts would find goodies dangling from them. But we chose the location badly for the girls’ trees. For some reason, that particular side of the house doesn’t seem to do well, presumably to do with availability of water underground. Last year Middle Daughter’s tree, which had flowered for a few years but hardly grown, finally gave up the ghost. Youngest’s peach tree had fruited one year but then had died back and re-shooted a couple of times, so it was moved into the orchard, where hopefully it will have a chance to grow properly. There was much consternation about where the Easter bunny would leave eggs in future, so this year we planned to plant them each a new tree somewhere near the house .And we haven’t ... yet... and there is only a little while left before it will be too hot and dry again to give a tree a good start in life. So we need to get moving and go and choose some new indigenous trees at our local nursery.

One year my sister-in-law got all enthusiastic and bought a number of large trees to plant, aiming for quick results and instant height. It worked well around her house, but we are just a little bit higher up the property with much deeper sand and ours struggled to adapt and have hardly gown at all. It seems that bigger trees need just as much, if not more, loving care as small trees do when they are newly planted and if they don’t get it are less resilient, having so much more leaf and branch to maintain. So we’ll be going for smaller trees even though the selection of large indigenous trees at TreeTrade is very tempting. I can just picture us in our very own instant forest clearing....!

So now we have to decide what trees to get: another pompom tree, (dais cotinfolia) very pretty, or something tougher like the Wild Plum, (harpephyllum caffrum) which is green and hardy but not much in the way of flowers? Much as I love our South African indigenous trees, it is at times like this that I feel nostalgic for the English oaks and beeches, majestic trees that you could plant for a child and have grow into mature trees that would last longer than their lifetime. Damper areas of South Africa with natural indigenous forest, like Knysna, can give you that satisfaction, but here in the sandy Swartland, where fynbos is king, the few indigenous trees tend to be small and multi-stemmed, and the trees that do well are alien invaders, such as pines, blue-gum and port jackson, we are rather going against the natural order of things... still we'll try!

If any of you have got a favourite indigenous tree that would do well in sandy soil, do let me know. Have you planted trees for your kids, or for yourself, for that matter?

A Winter Sunday In South Africa

2011-07-24T21:12:00.002+02:00

This is something I never expected to see in South Africa - a local hunt in full regalia - 'pink' coats and all. The baying of the hounds, the toot of the horn, as they set off in full pursuit of the scent... (no, not a fox, not even a wild dog, jackal or mountain lion, but a bundle of rags, freshly drenched in something revolting that I didn't enquire too closely into, that is dragged after the lead riders, who lay a trail for the hounds to follow)... was something out of a classic English country scene of fifty years ago, something I never once saw in thirty-five years of living in England and had to come all the way here to witness!

We took our girls and their friends, who are all pony crazy, to watch the hunt arrive at the mid-morning halt. We've been here 9 years without realising that we had a local hunt, only just down the road, hounds and all. The girls all fell in love with this Appaloosa. Then we went our separate ways: the Appaloosa cantering decorously off with the hunt and the girls leaping into their friends' car, abandoning me to return home to the boys alone.

So I took my camera outside to drink in the details of the day. The crazily warm and dry July we've had this year, has convinced all the trees and flowers that spring has sprung. My mulberry tree is bursting forth into leaf, pouring its energy into berry-making, heedless of the fact that we are only a month past the winter solstice.

The almond tree too is celebrating spring. it usually is the first to unfurl blossom, but I'm sure it's a good two weeks early this year. White daisies that usually show their faces in the first week in August have been partying in the grass already. We've even had to water this last week, it's been so dry. Unheard of in the middle of a Cape winter. Praying for rain soon...

The wind is blowing fiercely from the south-east, bringing a chill despite the blue skies, and baking is the only answer, warming the house and stocking up with essential goodies.

Rusks being the ultimate in South African essentials to keep on hand. Essential to dunk in tea or coffee, or to stow in a bag for mornings spent hunt-watching in chill winds. Here's the rusk recipe I use, just in case you're inspired to stock up yourself.

What did you do this Sunday?

Meatballs Are Meatballs

2011-07-22T10:40:00.001+02:00

Sometimes the meatballs just want to be alone... especially on my son's plate...what's this green stuff doing here?!

Meatballs are meatballs, right? Well I’ve just discovered that all meatballs are not equal. Not when you borrow a fine recipe from Scrumptious South Africa and re-model the Moroccan inspired mini-meatloaves into maxi meatballs, anyway.

Last minute supper plans yesterday had friends coming to us and bringing their trademark delicious vegetarian lasagne along to cook in our oven. So I was racking my brains, to think of something that could go with it, something that our son would eat (vegetarian lasagne ticks all his boxes when it comes to reasons to dislike a dish – vegetables, sauce and all mixed up and unable to be separated into its few edible parts, the pasta itself being the only qualifying one).

Eventually I remembered Nina’s post on mince recipes, that led me on to Juno’s mini-meatloaf recipe. It sounded delicious and I loved her idea of wrapping each mince parcel with bacon for extra tastiness and tenderness. Unfortunately I forgot to buy bacon. So the mini meatloaves transformed into maxi meatballs and ended up working beautifully, baking alongside the lasagne in the oven. They also did go very well together on the plate, for those of us who would eat both. It actually turned out to be the perfect combination for a table made up of a couple of vegetarians and a dedicated vegetable-hater, as well as the omnivores in between: taking the meat out of the lasagne and serving it separately was how one of our friends put it!

The meatballs were soft and tender, with a wonderful mix of Moroccan-inspired spices adding interest to the potentially bland meat: scents of coriander and cinnamon create a warm complexity with the cumin and I will definitely be adding this one to the family repertoire.

I’m not going to re-produce the recipe here, as I followed Juno’s recipe almost exactly, except for the modelling of the mince patties and you can get all the details from her.

All I did differently was to make the mince into about 16 large balls instead of the 8 tennis ball size that she suggests, then I baked them in a roasting tin together, just about touching, but not squashed, so that they kept their shape but didn’t dry out. I also left out the peppers and used carrots instead of celery, just because I was aiming for my son to eat them and not pick all the bits out! I left out most of the optional hot spices – Tabasco and cayenne - just using a pinch of each for interest, and ended up with perfectly child-friendly mega meatballs that went down a storm with all but the vegetarians!

Sag Aloo – My Indian Cooking Quest

2011-07-05T18:36:00.001+02:00

Now that Lamb dopiaza (made with beef!) and Aloo gobi have made it into my repertoire of regular family recipes, I’m on the lookout for more easy and tasty Indian recipes. I’ve set myself an ambitious target. My husband’s 50th is fast approaching. The usually suspects are invited for supper, then to be inveigled into boogying on down to some classic 70s and 80s music. He is really enjoying the spices that are finding their way into ordinary weekday suppers, now that the kids are developing slightly more adventurous palates. So it’s going to be an Indian supper for about 24, half adults, half kids. My idea is to have lots of different dishes, buffet style and I’ll need to cook most of them in the morning to be warmed up later, so they need to re-heat well.

We’ve got so much lovely fresh spinach growing in the garden that it was a no-brainer to add Sag Aloo to the list. We arrived back rather late in the afternoon from the children’s various activities yesterday (one girl off on pony camp yesterday, the other with her friend to a course at the Aquarium, son reduced to his computer, book and table tennis with Dad, as his cricket course is only next week). The sun was setting, so there was a flurry of getting in washing before it got damp again, before settling down to chopping onions for the lamb dopiaza. A desultory exploration of Google came up with Sag Aloo recipes that didn’t really inspire – none of them expected fresh spinach to be used and the spices didn’t quite ring true. And then I returned to my Madhur Jaffrey book, finding the authentic original Sag Aloo recipe there after all, listed simply as spinach and potatoes.

It seemed that most of the recipes I’d found via Google had started off from her recipe, but cut things down or out. The biggest difference is in the amount of oil she stipulates – 6 tablespoons to cook one chopped onion in. No wonder the low fat brigade left out most of it. But going back to the original recipe gives you a chance to try it as it is meant to be. All that oil disappeared as soon as the chopped wilted spinach was added, allowing the mellowed onion flavour to be absorbed into the otherwise rather bland spinach leaves. It was delicious just as she describes. Its child-friendly score in our family was only 1/3, but my husband loved it and so did I.

So without more ado, here is Madhur Jaffrey’s original recipe, oil and all.

Sag Aloo Recipe
Ingredients
About 900g 2lb potatoes (waxy if you have them)
450g / 1lb fresh spinach or 1 pack frozen leaf spinach
6 tablespoons vegetable oil or ghee
½ teaspoon whole black mustard seeds
1 large onion chopped quite fine
2 cloves garlic finely chopped
1 teaspoon garam masala
Pinch cayenne pepper (optional)

Bring a medium pot of water to the boil. Peel the potatoes and dice them into cubes of about 2cm/ ¾ inch. When the water is boiling add the potatoes and 1 tablespoon of salt. Return to the boil, cover the pot and lower heat so that they simmer gently until just tender – about 6 minutes or so. Drain the potatoes carefully and allow them to cool and dry. Be careful not to overcook them as they can fall apart to a mush.

Wash the spinach well (if fresh) and drop it into a large pan of boiling water. Leave it in just long enough for it to wilt, then drain it. Squeeze out as much water as you can and chop it fairly finely.
Heat all the oil in a large heavy based frying pan over a medium high heat. When it is really hot test it by dropping in a mustard seed. If it pops almost immediately it is ready. Add the rest of the mustard seeds and then as soon as they are popping add the chopped onion and garlic. Reduce heart slightly to medium and fry, stirring now and then, until the onions are just starting to turn a light brown at the edges. Don’t let them get dark brown or burn or the flavour will permeate everything.

Add the spinach and stir in well, cooking and stirring often for another 10 minutes.
Now add the cooked potatoes with the garam masala, a teaspoon of salt and the pinch of cayenne. Stir everything together gently until the potatoes have warmed through.

Now I’m on the hunt for a good Naan bread recipe – one that isn’t going to cause too much last minute stress. But I guess I’ll try out Madhur Jaffrey’s recipe before i look any further, unless any of you have a great recipe I should try?

Risotto and A Marcella Hazan Recipe

2011-06-30T09:56:00.000+02:00

Jeanne at Cooksister wrote a great post on risotto recently, covering all the important points of cooking one properly and featuring a version of a Jamie Oliver recipe, which started me off reminiscing on my own risotto journey.

Back in the mists of time when I was a student in Exeter, a group of us from the Italian department went out for a celebratory end of year meal at the local Italian restaurant. Having recently spent a year in Rome as part of the course, I fancied I’d learned more than just language there. My Italian boyfriend had broadened my education to include (besides a colourful variety of parolacci - Italian swear words!) the works of Caravaggio, Italian cinema and an appreciation of proper Italian food, none of which he cooked himself unfortunately, but in those days it was cheap enough to eat out quite often in the trattorias around Trastevere. I’d unsuspectingly been given fried brains to try (delicious!), had eaten spaghetti alla carbonara that would never be matched and all sorts of good plain Italian fare.

In that would-be Italian restaurant in Exeter the menu proudly offered risotto. Remembering some of the delicious creamy plates of risotto I’d enjoyed in Italy, I ordered it with anticipation, looking forward to a nostalgic culinary trip back to the previous year. I choked in disappointment when in front of me was placed a plate of boiled rice with several generous dollops of a tomato-based sauce piled in top. Sacrilege! How could a restaurant claiming to be Italian produce such a thing! Being shy and English I didn’t say a word, but tried to eat it, though every mouthful of strident tomato mixed with bland rice was a painful reminder of what I was missing.

That was the Eighties. Now practically every Modern English or Modern European restaurant in Britain can cook a half decent risotto. Jamie Oliver has made sure that we all know what to expect of a risotto and no Italian restaurant would dream of serving up such a cheat of a dish.

In a way that meal did me a favour. Not that much later I discovered the books of Marcella Hazan, the voice of authentic Italian cooking in the English speaking world, and taught myself how to cook risotto properly. I discovered that by following her recipes faithfully I could recreate the tastes of Italy quite easily, so was no longer dependant on anglicised Italian restaurants for my nostalgia trips. Recently I was very happy to discover that Marcella Hazan is still actively writing and championing good home-cooked Italian food on the Hazan family food blog An Educated Palate, and I am still just as much a fan of her recipes as ever, using my original three books every week for one or other of my favourite recipes.

For me the difference between Marcella’s recipes and, say, Jamie Oliver’s is that hers really do taste of Italy. His are good too, but they are creative rather than authentic and they just don’t take me back to any of the hundreds of trattorias and ristorantes that I enjoyed eating in during my years of working and travelling in Italy. Perhaps because a risotto in Italy is only one part of a meal, it can afford to be simple, showcasing just one clear flavour rather than trying to be a meal in itself and cramming in several principal ingredients, as we are often tempted to do when we serve a risotto as a main course on these English-speaking shores!

The risotto recipe that I turn to again and again in Marcella Hazan’s The Second Classic Italian Cookbook is a very simple celery risotto. Surprisingly enough my girls love it (my son loves rice but hates risotto and chokes down his small obligatory portion smothered in baked beans...!). The celery flavour is clear and fresh and there are no distractions, resulting in a wonderful creamy comforting plate of velvet risotto with a little celery crunch and pale elegant colour. It should really stand as an introduction to second course where you could serve something a little more colourful and complex, but we are usually happy enough with this and maybe some salad for supper.

Risotto Col Sedano – Celery Risotto Recipe

1litre / 2 pints good home-made stock or bouillon
1 medium onion chopped
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
60g / 2oz butter
200g / 7oz celery finely diced
1 tablespoon celery leaves chopped fine
300g / 10 ½ oz Italian Arborio rice
30g / 1 oz freshly grated parmesan
1 tablespoon chopped parsley

Heat the broth in one pan, so that is only just simmering.
In a heavy bottomed pan or casserole, put the chopped onion with all the oil and 30g of the butter. Sauté the onion over a medium heat until golden and translucent, but don’t let it catch, as the burnt flavour will spoil the whole risotto.
Add half the chopped celery and all the chopped leaves and continue to cook, stirring occasionally for 3 more minutes.
Add the rice and stir to coat thoroughly. Add a good ladleful of hot broth and stir continuously as the rice absorbs the broth. The heat should be medium. Too hot and the broth will evaporate too quickly before being absorbed and too low it will take forever to cook through. Keep adding more broth as the last lot is absorbed and stir continuously.
After 10 minutes of cooking, add the remaining celery. Continue cooking and stirring and adding broth until the rice is tender and creamy. This can take anything from 20-35 minutes depending on the type of rice you are using. You may need more liquid, in which case just use hot water.
Once the rice is tender to the bite, with no chalkiness left in the middle, it is done. Stir in the remaining butter and the grated parmesan. Check for salt. Turn off the heat and sprinkle over the parsley then serve the risotto promptly.

Also have a look at Jeanne's post for some good general tips on risotto making.

Mulled Wine Recipe

2011-06-27T11:11:00.001+02:00

Jen asked for my mulled wine recipe, mentioned in passing in my winter festival post.
Spicy aromas of cloves, cinnamon and nutmeg wafting from mugs of hot wine, hands clasped around mugs to warm them, cold winter air and warm fire: there is something about mulled wine / gluhwein / vin chaud that evokes the best part of winter, a comfort blanket for your taste buds. Certainly at our last winter festival it went down very well, the pot drained dry in no time, leaving me making a note to double the quantities next year.

It’s more of a method than a recipe. I do most of it to taste, so don’t have exact quantities for everything, but that’s half the fun of it: tasting a sip now and then as it brews, the spices getting headier with the warmth, adjusting the sugar quantities, so that the acid edge is softened but without it getting sickly sweet and cloying.

Choose a red wine that is drinkable for a start. This isn’t a way of disguising a disgusting plonk, but rather a way of adding to a good well bodied wine. Having said that there is no point using a fine wine of complex structure and subtle notes either. Strong wines aged in oak and full of tannin tend to challenge the spices with too much of their own personality. So the best I’ve found is a simple but medium bodied claret, affordable but not dirt cheap. Here in South Africa I use the Drostdy-Hof Claret Select which now comes in boxes, making it affordable enough for our large gatherings.

Ingredients
4 litres red wine
2 oranges
20 - 30 whole cloves
3-4 sticks cinnamon
½ a nutmeg grated finely
Sugar

Decant the wine into a large pot. Press the cloves into the skin of the oranges so they are studded on both sides. Cut the oranges in half and float them in the wine. Add the cinnamon sticks and grated nutmeg.

The sugar needs to be added to taste, so start with about a cup and taste again when that has warmed and dissolved. The idea is to take the sharpness from the edge of the wine, but not to get too sickly sweet. Always start with less sugar and add a bit more once the wine has warmed until you’ve got the right balance.

Warm the wine over a medium heat, stirring occasionally. Bring it to a point where it is steaming and a few small bubbles are breaking the surface. DON’T LET IT BOIL or all the alcohol will evaporate! Keep it gently steaming over a low heat for about an hour to draw out the flavour of the spices.

Taste the wine every now and again and add a little more sugar if necessary or a little more spice. The spice will mellow and develop as the wine mulls, so expect the flavour to improve and deepen over the time it is brewing.

I don’t add anything else. Some other recipes do add fruit juice and brandy, but I like the simplicity of this with just a little fruit note added by the oranges and the warm aroma of spices lifting the spirits. Ladle into mugs and sip steadily before it cools.

Winter Festival - Fire and Light and Pots of Food

2011-06-20T09:44:00.001+02:00

Our midwinter celebration, a festival of fire and light, giving kids old and young a chance to play with sparklers, make lanterns, sit mesmerised around a bonfire cradling mugs of hot soup and mulled wine, watching sparks fly into the air to join the stars.

By some miracle, year after year, we manage to have an evening that is clear and still, and this year too, the wind dropped on cue, the rain held off till after midnight, when everyone was already tucked up in bed and the bonfire burned in fine style.

As we sat in the circle, the kids with lanterns parked in front of them, others hanging theirs on the sticks to make a colorful dancing circle of light around us, we read our blessings and St Francis' prayer, the girls sang the St Johns song that they all know from Waldorf school and there was a wonderful peaceful quality in the air.

Then it was time for sparklers, hot chocoolate, mulled wine and lighting the bonfire.

I needed my biggest pots – we had 45 people, 20 of them children, who were on hot chocolate, but even so the mulled wine vanished in a flash from my big stockpot. All the mugs from all three houses were requisitioned and we ate soup from mugs, moving on to sausage and boerewors rolls as the stalwart braai team produced them.

I’m going to need to invest in more pots if we have this many people next year – the lentil soup went down so well that the poor old braai master (my husband) only got one, not full, mug and no seconds and the mulled wine also ran out before he got a chance for seconds of that too... proof that everyone enjoyed it of course!

So I’ve made notes for next year, but there’s no guarantee that I’ll find that piece of paper or even remember that I did make notes – so reminder to self: make more soup and more mulled wine next year!

The rain poured down all night, putting out the fire very thoroughly and washing the colour from the crepe paper decorated lanterns.

When the sun came out in the afternoon the sandpit was washed clean of footprints and had taken on another form of beauty – the calm after the storm.

Thank you to all our friends for joining us and making this such a special occasion for all of us!

Aloo Gobi - The recipe

2011-06-15T09:33:00.000+02:00

“She helped me wash the net curtains and she made lovely aloo gobi last week. ...”

Ever since watching Bend It Like Beckham ( a movie we loved so much when we first got the DVD that we watched it ten times in a row), I’ve had a vague desire to learn to make aloo gobi myself. I didn’t actually know what it was, but it sounded so satisfying, especially when Jess’ mother pronounced it. But I was cooking for small kids at the time and the most adventurous we got was chicken korma.
A few weeks ago I was researching some Indian recipes for a client and the aloo gobi quote popped immediately into my mind. Once the articles were despatched, I was left with several mouth-watering recipes begging to be tried out. The lamb dopiaza recipe I’ve already written about, so now I have to share the aloo gobi recipe with you, which was a revelation to me.

Cauliflower has never been a favourite vegetable for anyone in the family, so I knew I was taking a risk serving it up, even combined with the potatoes, which my family love in most guises. But I got away with it! Maybe because the cauliflower florets were small, just a little bit cooked out of shape and the same colour as the potatoes when coated with spices, but the girls gobbled up the aloo gobi without a protest. (Our son of course never touched it in the first place, but then I knew that was too much to expect.) I thought I was home and dry. Unfortunately the next time I cooked it they cottoned on and separated out the cauliflower pieces; my dastardly plot foiled...!

Anyway we loved it, deep spice flavours adding intensity to the bland vegetables but still allowing the creamy nuttiness of fresh cauliflower to come through. The recipe I eventually found is authentically Indian and though I have most of the spices, I don’t have asafoetida or mango powder. So I left them out and used a squeeze of lemon juice to add a touch of light acidity instead of the mango powder.

Lamb dopiaza and aloo gobi go really well together

Recipe for Aloo Gobi

Ingredients
2 cups cut cauliflower florets
2 medium potatoes
2 cm fresh ginger root shredded
3 teaspoons ground coriander
¼ teaspoon turmeric
¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper
3 tablespoons oil
3 tablespoons water
Pinch asafoetida (optional)
1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds
2 green chillies
2 bay leaves
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon mango powder (amchoor)
2 tablespoons chopped coriander leaves

Mix the shredded ginger, coriander powder, cayenne and turmeric together in a small bowl then add the 3 tablespoons water to make a paste.

Heat the oil in a pan. When it is hot enough, a cumin seed dropped in will crack immediately. Add the cumin seeds and asafoetida to the oil. As soon as the seeds crack add the green chillies and bay leaves and stir. Now add the spice paste and stir for one minute until the spices separate out from the oil.

Add the cauliflower and potatoes with salt and 2 tablespoons water. Stir them into the spice mix until they are well covered. Cover the pan and cook on a medium heat for about 15-20 minutes until the vegetables are tender. Stir carefully every 4 minutes or so to make sure it is not sticking to the pan.

Once the vegetables are tender, remove the pot from the heat and add the mango powder and chopped coriander. Stir it in and leave covered for a minute or two for the flavours to develop. Serve hot.

“Anyone can cook aloo gobi, - but who can bend a ball like Beckham?”

Winter on the Farm - Time for Marmalade Making

2011-06-14T09:23:00.002+02:00

Soft swathes of mist drift over us, reaching around the hill behind us, bringing the vague memory of the sea with them, enveloping us in a cocooning blanket and muting the sounds of neighbours. The nearly full moon is dimmed, only a glow, and gradually all we hear is the steady drip, like rain in slow motion, of the misty dampness on our tin roof. Soft winter weather like this is a balm. We wake to a cool clear morning and, as we breakfast, a glow lights the line of the mountains that are our horizon. The children leave for school, I clear the detritus of breakfast and vacuum the accumulation of sand and dog hair from wooden floors until the sun creeps sluggishly into the sky. Then the day is awake, its beams reach in dazzlingly through the windows, dimming the lights which suddenly look feeble beside its glow.

It’s a time of new growth. Dusty dry ground turning green over night, studded with the vibrant yellow of little oxalis flowers, like jewels spread by a prodigal hand. The oranges, so impatiently awaited, are finally here in abundance. Huge bags for only R12. This weekend they were irresistibly cheap – I bought a bag and then my sister-in-law bought me one too, just in case I hadn’t got them. So I am flooded with them. Nothing for it but to give up an afternoon to making orange sorbet, stashing it away in the freezer for an easy dessert later in the season when oranges are no longer so plentiful.

My first batch of marmalade this year was a disaster. Two weeks ago I happily spent the time shredding peel: limes, grapefruit, lemons and oranges. It cooked away, scenting the house with citrus tang. Sugar added, it was slow to come to setting point. I divided my attention and went to help Youngest with her pony club project, researching the sport of carriage driving on the internet. She’s too young to be able to do this by herself, so ‘help’ really means a grumpy Mum, who would rather be doing something else, trying to find some resources that are simple enough for her to read and understand, and then giving up and writing most of it herself, while Youngest chooses the pictures.

In between mutterings I went and checked on the marmalade, which was nearly there but needed another five minutes. And we all know what happens when you let a computer take you away from the stove for five minutes... I was recalled to the kitchen 15 minutes later by the pervasive aroma of caramelised oranges, which, by the time it had wafted through to our office, was more than just a little hint of caramel. It took me a whole week to get the blackened pan clean. And the rest of the day to restore my sense of humour.

This weekend I took a deep breath and made another batch from my ever adaptable marmalade recipe, which can be three fruit or four fruit or even five fruit quite happily, according to whim. This time I stayed in the room with it. The marmalade is perfect.

Six golden glowing jars await their labels and I have plan to make another batch very soon, to fill the marmalade side of the shelf once more and get me though to the next orange season. Now I want to make some candied peel, which I love but have never tried to make myself.

The soft winter weather is about to be blasted into oblivion by a fine old Cape winter storm according to windguru so I’m getting a final load of washing done while the sun shines and the breeze veers round to the north-west. Two days of rain will be enough to pile the laundry basket high again, so it needs to be emptied in readiness. And then it is our winter festival this weekend – midwinter, middle of the year already. How did that happen?

Stickers

2011-06-13T08:47:00.000+02:00

The girls have been seized by sticker mania. They used to collect stickers in a vague kind of way, happy when they came their way, carefully adding them to their sticker books, but never actually spending their own money on them. Their sticker books are home-made, from those pocket files, with colourful card slotted into the pages; the plastic surface is perfect for holding stickers so that they can be peeled off again later.

Now swapping stickers has become a social activity. Every time they go to their friends’ houses the sticker books come too. New terminology has entered their vocabulary: scratchies are the 3D stickers with rough surfaces; smoothies, the slightly padded stickers with a vinyl surface; softies are stickers with a velvety surface. The value of the sticker depends on what other people are prepared to swap for it.

They exclaim over the deals that have been struck:
“I can’t believe she would swap all those stickers for just one scratchy”.

Conditions are made on the swaps:
“You can only have this one if you don’t swap it with anybody else.” or
"The mummy and the foal have to stay together or they'll be lonely"

I was late catching on to all this. It was only when they were bemoaning the fact that their friends have access to so many more new stickers than them, that I realised their swapping power was severely compromised. One set of friends have adults all over the place looking out for stickers for them. They get sent them from family in Germany; an older girlfriend at school in a nearby town gets interesting ones that she swaps with them; doting adults in the village pick them up for them when they see them. Our family had been falling behind! We hadn’t realised the seriousness of the situation...

When you’ve had no new stickers for a while it’s harder to interest anyone in swapping with you. And the girls hardly ever come shopping with me any more nowadays, so how were they to get new ones to add to their collection? One day visiting Shoprite I did glance through the stickers on display, but realised that I had no idea which ones were desirable and which ones naff. Obviously horse stickers were top of the list but what else? I didn’t get any. I told them to ask their friends where they got their stickers from. “The Crazy Store’ came back the answer.

Luckily there is a branch of the Crazy Store in the town near their brother’s school and we headed there after a piano lesson, armed with purses bulging from the proceeds of their market stall. They sat in the aisle of the shop next to the sticker display, examining them carefully, calculating costs and deciding on the appeal of each set. Most of the scratchies left had cars and planes on, just one set of flowers and one set of insects... they decided to buy three sets of stickers to share, including the flower scratchies. Then Middle daughter bought a further two sets just for herself, snapping up the insect scratchies and spending at least half her money altogether. Of course this threatened the balance, as now she would have far more scratchies than Youngest.

So the car was filled with tense discussion and negotiations, verging on sulks, on the way home, as they worked out who would get what, and whether Youngest could buy into some of the extras. Middle Daughter held firm to her right to have spent money on more stickers and refused to let Youngest buy in, but did concede her the prettiest half of the flower stickers.

The mother of their other friends has got no time for this sticker craze, can’t believe how much time they waste on it... but I’m coming to realise that they are probably getting a thorough grounding in all the skills they need to be successful business women: brokering deals, putting values on commodities according to their desirability and so on. And all for the price of a few packs of stickers!

Lamb Dopiaza Recipe Gets Me Blogging Again!

2011-05-28T16:18:00.001+02:00

I hadn’t realised quite how much of a rut I was in cooking –wise until I tried a couple of new recipes last week. The rapture that greeted the Aloo gobi and Lamb Dopiaza were enough to convince me that I’d been depriving my family of taste sensations for too long. Besides having nothing to write about on my blog, what with the herb garden going into winter remission and endless repeats of old favourite recipes appearing on the menu week after week.

Work suddenly got busy at the end of March and since then I’ve had no energy to spare for blog or food creativity. Head in a spin, I’d head for the sofa with a nice escapist book after reading the children’s bedtime story, letting the computer put itself to bed and rest its weary keys.

Then I got a recipe project to write for a regular client and got out the Madhur Jaffrey recipe book to find some authentic Indian recipes. Spices began to waft enticingly at me from its folds. Unfortunately this job never has the budget or time for testing recipes. I write, winging it, via internet research and an inner taste compass. If they’re tantalising enough I cook them afterwards for myself. There had been a bookmark next to the Lamb Dopiaza recipe for ages, but I still hadn’t tried it. Lot’s of cross-referencing later I came up with an adapted version, going back to some of the original spices. And it was good. It worked first time... and the second time when I made it again this week by popular demand.

Now a confession – I’m all for authenticity and this recipe should be made with lamb, mutton or to be really authentic, goat. Beef never... cows are after all sacred in much of India. But all the lamb here comes as chops, stewing lamb with bones in, or roasts. I couldn’t bear to buy a beautiful leg roast and chop it up into cubes, so I bought cubed beef instead. Still, beef dopiaza doesn’t really have a ring to it, so here’s the recipe for lamb dopiaza – gorgeous fragrant cubes of lamb with whole spices and onions, warming and sustaining on a cold winter evening.

Recipe for Lamb Dopiaza
Ingredients
1 kg / 2lbs boned lamb shoulder in 2 cm cubes
5 medium onions
Vegetable oil
10 cardamom pods, crushed
2 cinnamon sticks
10 cloves
2 teaspoons cumin
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper (optional)
½ cup plain yoghurt
1 teaspoon salt
Black pepper

Dry the meat cubes with kitchen paper.
Slice the onions in half and then into half rings that are about 2mm thick. Heat enough oil to cover the base of the frying pan and fry the onions over a high heat for 8-10 minutes, until they have coloured and softened. Keep stirring so that they don’t burn and stick. When they are done remove them to a plate with a slotted spoon leaving any oil behind.
Put the whole spices into the frying pan and stir in the hot oil for a few seconds, then add the cumin and immediately add the meat and brown it on all sides.
Put the yoghurt in a bowl while the meat is cooking and beat in ¼ cup of water until it is smooth. When the meat has browned, pour in the yoghurt mixture, season with salt and pepper, add cayenne if you are using it and stir. Bring the liquid back to a simmer, cover the pot and cook gently over a medium low heat for about 30 minutes. Stir again then continue cooking until the meat is tender, about another 30 minutes. Return the fried onions to the pan and turn the heat up, to boil away the excess liquid until there is just a thick tasty sludge of spices and oil left in the bottom of the pan. This should take about 5 minutes.

We had this with rice, aloo gobi (potato and cauliflower, for which I’ll post the recipe soon), raita and a daal. It felt like going out for a good Indian meal, without the hassle of driving home in the dark! The only thing missing was the naan bread. I haven’t yet managed to make anything like those wonderful soft pillows of naan that you get at an Indian restaurant, at home. So there still is a good reason to eat out, thank goodness!

When I Was 35

2011-03-01T17:32:00.001+02:00

From where I stand now, 35 doesn’t seem so very far away. A short stretch across the plateau of family life, surely not much has changed in the intervening 10 years? Reading Charlotte’s post on her life at 35 and casting my mind back, I was surprised to discover how much has changed in my life since then. Even more surprised when I read her post of several years ago about being 25 and found that I'd followed her lead that time too and written a post about my life when I was 25. So much I had forgotten about. Thanks Charlotte for setting me off on a nostalgic voyage of re-discovery once again!

When I was 35 I was adjusting to having two children, our new baby daughter having just joined our two year-old son. I was busy learning the tactics of diplomacy, compromise and negotiation. I learned to read aloud as I breast fed and survive on very little sleep, as our son had conveniently given up day-time napping, just as his sister came along.

When I was 35 we lived in a tiny two bedroom house in South London with a pocket handkerchief garden. We’d spent four months living in South Africa the previous year, but had returned to London try and make sure that our business would support us when we moved for real. We still thought we could keep a foot in both worlds. Two years later, we moved to South Africa anyway and plunged in with both feet. Now we’re living in a spacious straw bale house that is the opposite of our London house in almost every way.

When I was 35 I was finding out what it was really like to be a stay at home mum to two small children. When our son was a baby we’d lived in the photographic studio that was both home and work, and there was always someone around to hold the baby, if I wanted to go to the loo or cook a meal. My husband was usually around, even when working and our baby son was happy to be handed around a group of admiring photographer’s assistants. Living in a house a commute away from the studio, there was just me and two kids for most of the day. I had to find my own resources and quite often my husband would arrive home to find me slumped on the sofa with a howling child on each side of me, as I let the afternoon meltdown run its course.

When I was 35 the toddler groups at the local Waldorf school were a regular weekly outing, a necessary escape from the house. I didn’t then know that my kids would end up going to a Waldorf school themselves, but I loved the wooden toys, crafts, natural fabrics and friendly atmosphere.

When I was 35 I bought organic products from Sainsbury’s and Tesco. I could get organic flour and organic everything for very little more in price than the regular products. Fair trade chocolate slipped into the trolley every so often too. Then we moved to SA and to my dismay I could hardly find any organic products on the shelves of supermarkets. It took me a while to figure out alternatives over here, and even longer to realise that even better than buying organic would be growing our own organic produce.We're still a long way from being self-sufficient but enjoy harvesting tomatoes, guavas, almonds, strawberries and veggies.

When I was 35 I had still never cooked a Sunday roast. We had Sunday lunch whenever we visited my parents in the country once a month or so. In South Africa my mother’s Sunday roasts were no longer within reach, so I finally learned to cook my own and now we have them almost every Sunday, except in summer when the very idea brings me out in a sweat.

When I was 35 my life not only revolved around my children but was absorbed completely in their whirlwind. Now my life still revolves around them, but there is a calm space in the middle of the whirlwind, where I can work and write and occasionally imagine that I am separate from them.

When I was 35 jeans and a black Gap rib jumper with a Burberry sheepskin waistcoat were my winter uniform. The Gap jumper is getting a bit holey now, and I’ve bought new jeans since then but I’m effectively still wearing the same winter clothes as then and that warm waistcoat has survived remarkably well – to whoever left it behind in our photographic studio all those years ago, I am eternally grateful!

When I was 35 I developed strong arm muscles from pushing a three wheel buggy up and down the steep hills to the local park near our house. I probably got far more exercise then than I do now, as walking was the easiest way to get out of the house. Now I manage to keep my arm muscles strong by kneading bread dough every other day.

When I was 35 I had never even considered writing for either work or fun. I read avidly as I always had done, and collected books for my kids to read one day, but was too much in awe of writers and their expert weaving of words into enthralling stories to even dream of becoming one myself. Now I write for work and fun, but am still nowhere near writing the stories that I love reading so much.

When I was 35 I was just starting to discover homeopathy and other alternative medicine. I liked the practical stuff, but crystals, reiki, past lives, angels and such like were way out of my comfort zone. Now I’m getting comfortable with all that woo-woo stuff and discovering a spiritual side of me that I didn’t think was there.

When I was 35 I had never heard of blogging. I made new friends who lived close by and had toddlers and babies to share play dates with. Now I have new blog friends on the other side of the world and blogging is the social lifeline that toddler play dates once were.

When I was 35 my garden an outdoor space with a clothes line and a few small trees hopefully planted. I never really got to grips with it. Now at 45 I finally have a successful herb garden much to my own surprise.

What were you doing when you were 35? This isn't a meme, but let me know if you are inspired to join in the retrospective!

Seeds

2011-02-21T20:15:00.001+02:00

The mornings have a touch of autumn now, an occasional chill mist thrusting tendrils in through the door as we eat breakfast. The sun gets up after us on school days, surprised to find us already at the table as he beams in blindingly over the cereal boxes. Not to say that summer is over. Hot days still demand sun cream and water bottles filled with ice cubes. We are just getting the first hint that we need to make the most of summer now, as its days are numbered.

In the herb garden I can see a progression. Summer profusion is gradually being supplanted by the need to make seeds, as the herbs, more aware of the harshness of winter than we are, make plans for survival next season. When I planted, I hadn’t really thought of a seed harvest. I was looking for leafy flavour for the kitchen, and gentle herbal remedies for family ailments. The seeds are an unlooked for bonus. Because now I can harvest even more flavour from the garden.

The coriander that bolts to flower all too easily, is now busily working on a harvest of coriander seed, spicy but with an orangey tinge, perfect for curries and vegetable stews.

The fennel plants, so tall and grand, are bowing over as their seeds ripen, sweet aniseed goodness for digestion, also good as a pinch of seed thrown into a veggie casserole.

The dill seeds too, similar but with a slightly less sweet flavour than fennel , are ready to harvest and if I can get round to cleaning them and removing the husks can be sprinkled ion rolls and loaves of bread.

I will keep some seeds over for planting next season and save the rest for eating. The rocket looks like it is busy sowing its own seeds for next season, so maybe my herb garden will be less ordered next year. Fewer neat geometric rows and more profusion of herbs all intertwined where they sowed themselves? I don’t know, but will wait to see, and remain in awe of the abundance that just a few packets of seeds brings forth in one season. I haven’t even finished up the original seed packets yet, despite having more than enough of everything for a far bigger family than ours.

As a total co-incidence, or auspicious timing, whatever you will, after writing this post I have just looked up my moon gardening calendar for the best time to harvest seeds. A waxing moon in Leo it said. I check the date and guess what! Today and tomorrow the moon is in Leo just before the full moon on Friday so the timing is perfect.(edited to add – this was last week, as I never got round to posting!) I’ll be cooking with seeds for sure this weekend!

High School, New School and a Laundry Tip

2011-02-10T12:24:00.001+02:00

First Day

The switch to a new school seems to be more of a culture shock to his parents than to our son. After four weeks of school, he seems to be taking it all in his stride, despite the change from Waldorf to conventional teaching and the jump from primary to high school. We’re the ones still reeling at the demands. This stack of text books – does he really have to carry that heavy weight to school and around classes every day? Homework every single afternoon, which combined with the longer journey sometimes means that he’s only done by supper time. A six o’clock get up so that he can be ready to leave with my sister-in-law before seven. And uniform.

Our kids have never had uniform before; at the Waldorf school they wear their own clothes within reasonable bounds. He has no problem wearing the same thing every day, in fact he probably prefers it for making his life simple. I used to have to steal his clothes away from him after a few days of continuous wear as it was. I’m the one struggling with the new problem of white poly-cotton school uniform shirts, whose collars instantly acquire a dirty stained stripe on contact with sun-screen.

My super-woman status definitely does not extend to laundry. I tend to separate it out into whites and darks, chuck it in the machine and consider it clean. But those bright white shirts, with the grimy collars even after washing, threw out a challenge. The stain remover spray didn’t work, nor did the bicarb (baking soda). The final solution after much Googling was dish washing detergent. In the US it’s Dawn, but here in South Africa I tried our emerald green Sunlight. And it worked! For a nasty moment I thought I’d only succeeded in dying the collars green, but luckily the colour washed out, leaving the collars almost looking like new. Phew!

I may be the last mum in the universe to have newly discovered this laundry rescue remedy for removing sunscreen grime, but in case you are struggling with the same problem – here is the recipe.

Recipe for Sparkling White Shirt Collars

Take one white shirt collar, engrained with a tide line of dirt and sunscreen

Soak it with a generous dash of ordinary dish detergent

Scrub it in and leave to marinate for twenty minutes. * see edited note below

Add to the rest of the ingredients in your washing machine and wash as normal.

Hang out to dry and sparkle in the sunshine.

Repeat daily in term time.

As for the homework, I’ve always reckoned that our children were supposed to be doing it by themselves. I’ve helped a bit when necessary but tried not to interfere too much. But how do I resist an appeal to help with a book review, which has to be 150-200 words to include a summary of the plot and an assessment of its strengths and weaknesses. He’s never had to do anything like it before.

My professional pride is tickled and I give various insightful and useful tips, restraining myself from jumping in to try my own hand at it. But it still turned out to be a collaborative effort, as our opinion was sought at every stage, especially in the editing it down to within the word count. It then had to be set out as a Word document with a picture and printed off, so I was able to advise on formatting and sub-headings.... but after so much involvement, now I want to know what marks we got... really it’s no fun helping with homework if we don’t at least get a Very good or a gold star or whatever carrots are doled out in high school these days.

Repeat to myself three times daily: “I must resist becoming a helicopter parent at this late stage in the game.”

Edited to add: This recipe worked well for a while and then on some occasions I found it hadn't worked. I amended it thus and now it works perfectly every time:
After soaking the collars, scrub them a little under running water before adding to the wash. It doesn't need to be entirely scrubbed out; this just loosens it enough that the wash will do the rest.

Tomato Sauce - Fresh From The Garden

2011-02-04T12:01:00.001+02:00

Every year when tomato season comes round again, I tell myself it’s time to learn the art of canning. Now we’re surrounded by trays of tomatoes, taking over the shelves where my pots and pans used to be stored and ripening too fast, and I still haven’t got around to it. It’s something about having to go out and buy canning jars seals and whatnot, that makes it seem like a huge undertaking. Or maybe it’s that simmering the filled jars in water. Anyway I’m still resorting to the freezer when it comes to preserving our tomato crop and the freezer is crammed to the gills.

When my mother was here we picked, peeled, chopped and froze kilos of tomatoes. They sit in a heap in the freezer in bags of the equivalent size to a tin of tomatoes, so that I won’t have to buy a tin for months. I made a huge batch of tomato sauce for pizza and froze it. A couple of double batches of Jane-Anne’s Roast Tomato and Onion soup are crammed in next to containers of stock, ready for slightly cooler weather. And still the tomatoes are ripening ready to harvest.

But there’s something so nice about having fresh ripe tomatoes with flavour always on hand for pasta sauce or salads. Our son may not agree when it’s pasta with tomato sauce again for supper, but the fresh tomatoes with fresh herbs from the garden are a hundred times better than any other tomato sauce in the world.

I’ve picked up a great tip from Marcella Hazan for a tomato sauce with tuna - start off the sauce with several tablespoons of chopped parsley fried in olive oil with a little garlic. It gives a wonderful depth of flavour to the sauce, mellowing it slightly and anchoring that fresh tomato sprightliness. Then you can throw in other fresh herbs to cook with the tomato and try different combinations to ring the changes. A little lemon thyme, or oregano, a sage leaf or a sprig of rosemary all give a slightly end result. Or a scattering of torn basil leaves thrown in at the very end.

Recipe For Fresh Tomato Pasta Sauce with Herbs and Tuna

About eight ripe tomatoes peeled and chopped
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 clove of garlic peeled and chopped
3 tablespoons fresh parsley finely chopped
A few sprigs of mixed fresh herbs – oregano, thyme, sage, rosemary according to your whim
170g / 6oz can tuna drained
500g / 1lb pasta

Gently fry the chopped garlic in the olive oil until just starting to colour.
Add the chopped parsley and cook for about a minute stirring now and then.
Add the chopped tomatoes with the other fresh herbs and a seasoning of salt and pepper.
Bring to a steady simmer and cook for about 15-20 minutes until the liquid has reduced and the tomatoes have reached a sauce like consistency.
Meanwhile cook the pasta to be ready at the same time as the sauce.
At the very end of the sauce cooking time add the tuna and stir it into the tomato sauce, giving it just enough time to warm through, but not letting it cook for any length of time.
Immediately the pasta has drained toss it with the sauce and serve. No need for parmesan with a tuna sauce, but you could sprinkle it with some torn basil leaves for extra flavour.

I sometimes have a little extra tomato and tuna sauce left over. It makes a delicious spread for bread at lunch time and Youngest loves it in her school sandwiches too.

A Natural Flea Trap

2011-02-02T21:14:00.001+02:00

Living on a farm with dogs, fleas are one of those banes that we are almost never without. Cold weather brings a little respite, but with the first spring warmth the dogs start scratching madly and sharing their fleas with us. With a Jack Russell that thinks she’s a princess and insists on napping on the sofa whenever she can get away with it, that means fleas hopping on us just when we want to relax. I don’t get bitten much, but Youngest seems to be very attractive to fleas and reacts to their bites. It’s an all out war.

The big shot chemical weapons have lost their effectiveness. The toxic pill only works if you can control the environment and how can we control the several acres that our dogs regularly roam? The collar doesn’t work at all. The spot on treatment hardly. Besides the fact that all these things are toxic and cost a fortune for four dogs. We’ve tried the natural alternative of using diatomaceous earth around the house and on the dogs. It may or may not have some effect, but it wasn’t the instant success I was hoping for. So I’ve fallen back on this.

This high tech and very sophisticated flea trap consists of a white bowl of water, with a drop of soap in it to break the surface tension. The lamp is left on all night shining on the water. Fleas obligingly hop towards the light and drown in the water. Diligently applied night after night in several strategic places, I’m sure it is making a dent in the flea population inside the house at least.

What I like is that it is quantifiable. I can notch up the death count on the door post in the morning and have the satisfaction of knowing that that many fleas won’t be perpetuating their species. And it is totally non-toxic flea control. I don’t expect to stop the dogs scratching altogether, but hopefully I can catch the newly hatched fleas before they feast on us.

Any other tips for natural flea control? I'd love to know anything that works for you.

Marigolds

2011-02-01T19:28:00.000+02:00

Pottering with intent in the herb garden is the best way to start a summer’s morning, knowing that soon it will be too hot in blazing sunshine, enjoying the caress of cool air on bare shoulders while it lasts.

The smell of marigolds wafts from my hands as I type, an hour and several hand washings since my early morning pruning spree. Midsummer and the herb garden is burgeoning. The marigold seeds that I planted to ward off bugs, have lived up to their name; a name that I never bothered reading on the seed packet: Sunset Giants. And they are still growing, overshadowing the parsley, surrounding the little rosemary bush, so that its destiny as part of a hedge is now threatened by an inferiority complex. I can hardly squeeze past on the path to pick rocket, where two thickets of marigolds meet and try to push each other out of the way.

It’s the last day of the old moon waning; it’s still in Capricorn and my moon planting calendar says prune, transplant trees. As soon as the children are safely bundled off to school, I forget about breakfast dishes on the table and wander out with secateurs and spade in hand.

Two tiny self seeded white stinkwoods need moving into pots, until winter, when maybe I can plant them elsewhere on the farm to grow into big trees one day. A sprig of yarrow comes with one, so I leave it in the pot. I love how rich the once-dry, sandy soil has grown since starting the garden in August. It’s nothing like the rich loam of some areas but it has a darker richer feel than before, like a sprinkling of cocoa in a sponge cake, and it is smoother and softer in texture.

The mulberry trees are reaching to the sky and need a trim to encourage bushing out, so that I can pick next spring’s crop of finger-inking berries without a ladder. I feel cruel cutting off tips that are so fiercely full of life. It takes a while to get used to that cruel to be kind aspect of gardening. I still can’t bring myself to thin out rows of vibrant rocket seedlings, so they end up growing thickly, vying for space and elbow room.

But I steel myself to deal with those pushy marigolds, planted to protect the other plants and now threatening to engulf them, deprive them of sunshine and air and take everything for themselves. A little trimming later, they look as huge as ever, but at least the path is clearer and the parsley and thyme now have some light. There is a vase of bright orange blooms on the dining table and a scattering of marigold prunings thrown on to an empty space, destined to hold garlic in a month or two, as mulch.

I never used to like the smell of marigolds much, but it’s growing on me, taking me out to my herb garden even when I am back inside, doors closed against the heat, typing away at the computer and gearing up for the dryer, dusty piece of work that awaits.

Herb Story

2011-01-11T16:15:00.000+02:00

Lush growth, rampant flowering, overpowering greenness. The success story of my herb garden this summer has been inspiring, filling me with joy every morning, as I gather a handful of herbs to treat the children's bunnies with. The parsley is so abundant that I can feed it to them with no regrets, in fact they are doing me a favour, as I hate to waste it and it needs picking to keep it growing throughout the season. They even get basil as I nip off the heads about to flower

and they love the rocket, which spirals out of control and into flower in no time.

Yet all this burgeoning fertility conceals a few sadder stories that escape the eye at first glance, concealed by the outsized swathe of marigolds, planted to repel bugs and expected to be half the size that they have achieved so far.

The row of coriander seeds, that I planted a month ago to succeed a defunct row of rocket, struggled to make it through to the light. While the adjacent new row of rocket germinated and grew strong,

only one seedling of coriander emerged. I weeded around it tenderly, straining my eyesight to see if any other seedling would emerge next to it. I watered it every day, determined to preserve this one precious plant, and yet, last week’s several days of over 40C must have overpowered its delicate new leaves. When I looked for it on the weekend, it seemed to have shrunk back into itself, almost back into the ground, its early braveness as a lone survivor fading too timidly to make it in the harsh world I’d exposed it to.

As gardener in chief I could only mourn it briefly, before looking at the moon calendar to find a propitious day to plant a new row of seeds, in hope that they would have a luckier start in the world. The coriander planted in October has totally gone to flower,

so a new row is sorely needed to keep our salads and curries supplied with fresh zingy flavour.

But I empathise with that one brave but vanquished seed – sometimes I feel like shrinking back under a comfortable layer of soil too, away from the harsh light of day. It is having the support of the rest of the row, a family supporting and offering companionship, that raises spirits enough to survive the heat, put out new leaves and brave each new day as it comes.

So fingers crossed that the latest row of coriander germinates prolifically and grows apace with plenty of company.

My herb garden back in September...

rampantly spilling over the paths in January...

Calcium for the Nearly Teens

2011-01-06T10:32:00.000+02:00

Our son is growing fast. No longer a child, he is on the brink of a growth spurt, lanky limbs and no spare flesh. Last year he managed to fracture one wrist playing soccer and on Christmas Day he sprained the other falling from his new J-board. Growing bones are apparently prone to green stick fractures and lanky limbs tend to be uncoordinated, though I think we just need to teach him to fall more gracefully – acting classes or judo?!

He’s been a picky eater since toddlerhood and shows no signs of voluntarily taking to vegetables. Rice and baked beans is a favourite dish. After the fracture we suddenly became more conscious of the fact that he probably needs more calcium than he’s getting from his chosen foods, to build his growing bones properly. He eats yoghurt but not milk. Green leafy vegetables are totally yuk. Eggs bleagh. Nuts ditto. Seeds...don’t even think about it. Sardines, no way!

So I started researching the amounts of calcium required for a growing teen and alternative sources that he might just possibly consider.

The good news is that his bowl of yoghurt, as long as he has it every breakfast, provides 400mg of calcium, so that is a third of his 1200mg minimum daily requirement sorted.

His cheese sandwich for school lunch provides another 150-200 mg.
When oranges are in season right through winter we’re in luck, as one orange provides about 70 mg calcium and he will happily eat a whole one at breakfast. Strawberries in summer have 25-30mg per cup and we’ve had a bumper year, but even strawberries can get boring after a while.

Now we’re scouting around for another 500 mg. The only green vegetable he’ll eat without protest is broccoli and that is good for 180mg per cup... so if he would just eat a few more florets it would make a difference. But there are plenty of other things he eats which have some calcium in – apple juice has 17mg per cup, a baked potato about 26 mg, Even his staple baked beans have a decent amount of calcium.

So it looks like I don’t have to force feed him sardines just yet... thank goodness, because I don’t even like them much myself! For the rest, meat has some calcium, so does wholewheat bread and my herb garden is a calcium supplement in itself. Parsley has plenty of calcium as well as other vitamins and minerals, rosemary and thyme provide calcium too in small amounts, plus are packed with other valuable nutrients. I haven’t persuaded him to accept chopped parsley sprinkled over his food just yet, but he did drink some of my rosemary tea this morning without complaint, so I think he has a chance of growing some strong bones after all.

And the mother’s devious strategy of cooking up mince with loads of chopped vegetables in it works for him, as long as he can swallow the vegetables without having to chew them! So onions, garlic, carrots, tomato paste, herbs and maybe even some shredded spinach will all add plenty of calcium and other nutrients to the meat.

And the vitamin D essential for absorption of calcium is in abundant supply at the moment – the sun is shining and it is way too hot – we’ve had over 40C for three days now, without a cool night breeze to bring relief, but at least he is down at the swimming pool absorbing some bone-building vitamin D and collecting freckles... so now I guess we just have to worry about sun-damage.. those anxious parent blues!

A belated Happy Christmas and Happy New Year to you! My blog has managed to totally ignore the whole festive season this year, but now the tree will be coming down today, I seem to have time and thoughts for writing again. Looking forward to catching up with reading all your blogs again too!xx

Strawberry Tarts for the Queen of Hearts

2010-11-12T20:29:00.000+02:00

When there are strawberries growing in the garden, berries glowing scarlet, abundant, luscious, fragrant, demanding to be picked twice a week before the tortoises take bites out of the biggest juiciest ones, it isn’t hard to decide on the main ingredient for dessert. Strawberries with shortbread, a pavlova, a strawberry cream sponge or just plain berries with pancakes and a dash of balsamic vinegar, you hardly even need to get creative when the strawberry itself takes centre stage.

School bake sales are another matter. The school encourages healthy snacks like fruit, but I couldn’t work out how they could sell the strawberries on their own without complicated calculations of 20c per berry, 'her strawberry’s bigger than mine', and so on. An image came to me unbidden of those delicious French patisserie tarts with luscious fresh fruit delicately coated in a glaze that preserves freshness. Crisp pastry, succulent fruit and just a smidgen of extra sweetness from the glaze. I wasn’t expecting to achieve the heights of the patissier’s art just like that, but anyway went in search of a glaze recipe to try and at least get close to the tantalising image in my mind.

Discarding recipes that instructed you to use jello or apple juice in the mix, I came up with an easy recipe that did actually work in the way I’d hoped, coating the fruit with a translucent glow without making the pastry soggy. What I liked about this one is that it uses some of the strawberries for both colour and flavour, so no need for any ersatz colouring to be added.

After that it was just a case of making pastry, blind baking lots of little tart shells, and then putting them together with the best looking strawberries and a dollop of glaze.

Glaze Recipe for Strawberry tarts

1 cup of chopped strawberries
1 cup water
½ cup granulated sugar
1 tablespoon cornflour/cornstarch

Cook the strawberries in the water until tender enough to push through a sieve.
Strain and push the pulp through a sieve back into the pan.
Mix together the sugar and cornflour then stir it into the strawberry liquid.
Cook stirring until it thickens and clears.
Spoon it over the prepared pastry cases with strawberries in them.

I used the sweet pastry recipe from Nigella Lawson’s How to Eat, which worked perfectly for these.

I couldn’t resist trying one before it had cooled properly, even though it was by now 10 o’clock at night. It was almost perfect, with crispy crumbly pastry, a bite of lush strawberry and smooth sweet glaze to meld it all together... not French, not perfect in looks with my rough and ready pastry skills, but just right for kids and adults to drool over at breakfast and beg to taste them before they even get to school. Now there are only four left ... how will we work that out this afternoon?

Shiny, Happy Hair

2010-11-08T10:35:00.000+02:00

Heading for the shower on Saturday morning, I armed myself with a box of baking soda/ bicarb and a bottle of apple cider vinegar. Diluting them as per the recommended dose of one tablespoon to a cup of warm water, I shook them up in old shampoo bottles and stepped in to the rush of hot water to try out this crazy idea of replacing shampoo and conditioner altogether with these more mundane ingredients.

After I read about shampoo-free hair care on Simple Mom last week and got all enthusiastic about it, there was a little resistance to the idea from my husband, who can’t stand the smell of vinegar and isn’t over the moon at my brilliant discovery of vinegar as a surface cleaner. He was worried he would no longer be able to hug his wife without feeling nauseous. Middle Daughter was fascinated by the idea and attended the hair-washing experiment in person, a useful audience as I was able to get her to sniff for any vinegar residue after rinsing!

I’m pleased to announce that the experiment was a resounding success! The bicarb felt a bit strange as I massaged it in instead of shampoo, like water in consistency but just slightly squeaky. Then the vinegar rinse went on and I could immediately feel my hair getting smoother and shinier. The best thing was that it rinsed off completely, leaving not a trace of vinegar smell, even while still wet, and my husband’s fear s were groundless. He was able to hug me as much as he wanted!

Overall, once dry, my hair was softer and shinier than after shampooing even with conditioner. My scalp hasn’t had any dry flaky skin at all for the two days since, whereas usually it does immediately after shampooing. My hair is a bit floppier than usual, but that is a good thing, as it tends to bush out rather after shampooing now it’s layered and only gets shiny and smooth after several days, when it is about time to wash again.

The girls were so impressed by the results that all three kids tried it themselves at hairwash time yesterday and they also have nice soft shiny hair today, which is easier to comb.

So apart from the fact that it seems to work better than shampoo and conditioner for us, why give up conventional shampoo in favour of some basic kitchen ingredients?

1. It’s natural. Shampoos are full of goodness knows what chemicals and fragrances, all of which we are rubbing into our scalps and possibly absorbing through our skin. We use shampoo to strip away our natural oils and then conditioner to try and replicate the effect of the oils. Baking soda just cleans without stripping and vinegar balances out the ph of your hair and scalp.

2. It’s very cheap. Shampoo and conditioner for the whole family can get quite expensive, whereas this way we are just using a small amount of cheap ingredients that we already have in the house.

3. Better for the environment and sustainable. The fewer complex chemical products that we need to use in our homes and flush away down the drains, the better for our local environment and for the whole planet.

You can read much more about it here if you want more details of shampoo-free hair-care. As for us, we’ll be carrying on the experiment and I’m going to try out some herb rinses to alternate with the vinegar; rosemary first for me and maybe chamomile for the girls.

Un-Halloween Costumes

2010-11-01T13:02:00.000+02:00

Halloween goes by without a blip on the radar here. While some communities in Cape Town and around have started organizing trick or treating for their kids, it’s an import, not really engrained in the culture in South Africa and out on the farm it’s not even an option. Reading American blogs though it sounds like the biggest fun is thinking up and choosing a costume and our girls did get to do that this weekend. Our school spring fair had a fancy dress competition and they both entered straight away, as soon as it was announced.

Last year was the first year that it had been put on and almost every little girl went as either a princess or a fairy. So this year, in a bid for diversity, the teachers told them they’d get more points for thinking up an original costume, funny, ugly, different.

Much deliberation went into coming up with ideas. Youngest and I went through an online list of suggestions for Halloween and she came up with a shortlist of six options that we thought we could manage. Little Red Riding Hood, Alice in Wonderland, a gypsy fortune teller, a jockey, Little Bo Peep or a cowgirl. She likes to take time over her decision making, weighing every single option fully before coming to a final conclusion.

Then we went through to the bedroom, where Older Daughter was thinking about her costume. She had only one plan so far: a genuine Chinese dress and parasol brought back from China by her aunt. But she wasn’t convinced it would meet the originality/funny criteria. So when I grabbed my bright red winter dressing gown from the back of the door and jokingly suggested to Youngest that we could also add Father Christmas to her list of options, it was Older Daughter that ran with the idea.

She spent the rest of the day searching out an old Father Christmas hat, making a cotton wool beard and trying on cushions round her middle. We unearthed our old sledge from the garage and she carefully oiled it with linseed oil over the next couple of days. She wrapped up boxes in saved Christmas paper. Filled a black bag with soft toys and practised saying Ho ho ho in a deep voice.

Youngest meanwhile had got her list down to three, then two and finally settled on being a jockey. All this needed was her riding gear plus the creation of some jockey silks, which of course I left till the very last minute. Friday afternoon saw me recklessly cutting out some leftover silky fabric into a vest shape, hand-stitching hems and shoulder darts (sewing machines frighten me to death), as I sat on the bench watching her riding lesson, and then handing it over to my sister in law, who is a sewing whizz, to machine stitch on the contrasting pink triangle and contrive a fastening.

I had the bright idea of ironing the hat band into hems to save stitches and fell victim to the menace of a hot iron in contact with man-made fabrics. Before I knew what had happened the band had shrivelled away altogether and the iron was blackened... I still have to Google a way of cleaning it.... But I salvaged enough fabric from the ruins and the costume was complete.

They both looked great on the day. Father Christmas won a prize, our jockey didn’t. In a way Halloween trick or treating would have been a better option for all-round happiness with no winners and losers, but in the end most of the fun was had already in the costume creation itself.

Stevia and Mint Tea For Cold Sores

2010-10-28T11:09:00.003+02:00

Ever since reading about stevia in Margaret Roberts’ herb book I have been fascinated. A herb that is sweeter than sugar, but is also good for blood pressure, blood sugar, cholesterol and even fights against tooth decay? Too good to be true, it had to be. So when I was compiling a wish list of plants for my herb garden I added it in, not at all sure that it would be available in our area. To my surprise my sister-in-law returned with it that very day, along with two tea tree plants, which I’d also thought would be a rarity item.

Now my stevia plants have had a couple of months to settle in, I am finally daring to pick their leaves and try out some of Margaret Roberts’ recommendations. Her 100 favourite herbs book makes it incredibly easy to use fresh herbs for gentle medicinal use. Usually all you need is a quarter cup of leaves infused in a cup of boiling water for five minutes. Then sip. I’m constantly surprised at the flavours, which are mostly refreshing and delicious, not needing any honey, which is an optional extra, to sweeten them.

One of stevia’s properties is as an antiviral and antibacterial herb. I’ve just had a chance to test its mettle against cold sores. Horrible things, making your life miserable just when you thought you were getting over the cold that brought them on. Louise Hay says cold sores are caused by angry thoughts and sure enough this time one showed up on Monday when I was seething about the iniquity of banks. So now I’m a guinea –pig. Will a cup of stevia and mint tea a day help prevent the cold sore from developing, or at least reduce its ferocity? Re-reading the book I see it should be peppermint rather than garden mint and she also recommends adding elderflowers:

Margaret Roberts' tea for Cold Sores
1 tablespoon fresh or dried elderflowers
1 tablespoon peppermint sprigs
2 stevia leaves
Crush and chop the stevia leaves to release the sweetness. Pour one cup of boiling water over the herbs. Allow to steep for five minutes. Strain (or not) and sip.
Drink one cup three times a week to clear the Herpes simplex virus from the body.

So now I have two more herbs to add to my wish list. In the mean time I’m going to carry on drinking my stevia and mint tea. I think it may be helping and anyway it’s delicious; fresh and minty with a bit of sweetness that bursts into intensity whenever you bite into a little bit of the chopped herb floating in the tea. Perfect for sugar cravings too, as it has almost no calories and you can just pick a leaf and chew it whenever the need for a sugar fix overtakes you!

I’m looking forward to making a sweet syrup from stevia in summer to add to cool drinks and lemonade instead of sugar. All it needs is 10 leaves to a litre of water boiled for 15 minutes and you have enough sweetness to save you several cups of sugar. I’ll let you know how it goes and more to the point whether it passes the child-taste-test.

Cultivation of Stevia
Stevia is native to South America where it has been used since the earliest civilizations discovered it and named it honey leaf. It grows fairly easily in South Africa, being quite tough and just needing deep watering twice a week. It dies down in winter and sends up new shoots in spring.

Edited to add, two weeks on: I really do think this tea helped keep the cold sore under control. Although this was far from a scientific experiment, and I also drank a few cups of Melissa tea which helps too, the cold sore never developed into a full blown, crusty, miserable beacon and has healed fairly quickly. It also was less painful and tingly than usual. Margaret Roberts recommends drinking the tea three times a week over a period of time to clear the virus from the body, so I will continue and hope that I get fewer as time goes by!

Banking for Kids – B is for Bank Charges, O is for Overdraft

2010-10-25T10:42:00.000+02:00

Bank accounts for children are a great idea. They can keep their pocket money safe, save their birthday money and learn how to use a debit card and ATM. If they don’t spend their money it just builds up until they have enough to buy that huge Lego kit or a computer game they are desperate for. Unless your children bank at FNB that is.

We opened bank accounts for our children two years ago, so that they could learn about banking and taking care of their money. We were happy to find that FNB provided a Future account, designed for children, with a debit card, three free transactions a month and no monthly fees. Money could be paid in and withdrawn at the ATM. The kids duly memorised their PINs and paid in their pocket money. Occasionally they used their cards to purchase a toy or a Christmas present, but mostly they were saving their money.

Until last week, when our 12 year old son tried to purchase a book at Bargain Books. He learned first hand how embarrassing it is to have your card declined,not once but three times, despite being sure that you had enough money for the purchase. Luckily his aunt was on hand to bail him out.

Back home I logged on to their internet banking and found that he had much less money than he thought. His savings had been whittled away over a period of time by R5 monthly fees. First thing on Monday morning I rang the bank sure that there was a mistake. No, I was informed, the accounts had been changed to include monthly fees the previous year and there were now no free accounts available.

On asking why I had not been informed of these changes, I was told that the onus is on the customer to check their accounts every month. For children’s accounts?

How can a bank like FNB that presents itself as a family bank offer a children’s account and then change it to start charging fees without informing the account holders by letter?

My son has now lost over R100, most of the money that he had left in his account from his birthday, in monthly fees and declined transaction fees.

Our children have learned a lesson in banking that their parents had not intended. Bank fees can run you into overdraft and you are better off keeping your money in your piggy bank.

Needless to say I am outraged, furious, frustrated and all the rest. We are taking this further with the bank, but in the meantime I am spreading the word any way I can. Front page of the papers would be good.

Herb Garden Growing

2010-10-22T12:42:00.000+02:00

Has anyone seen my creativity?

I was sure I had it somewhere around here a while back...

Unless I buried it all in the herb garden and it still hasn’t sprouted.

Everything else is sprouting nicely. My rocket is ready to pick already and I’ve got some recognizable parsley and coriander coming up in not very neat rows. There is still a thrill in planting little tiny seeds and seeing them transform into real plants.

Which I will soon be able to pick. And use unstintingly in my cooking. It is however a lesson in patience. Each day I go out there and wonder whether I can just pinch one little leaf to put in a salad. And contain myself and wait.

Luckily some of the other herbs I planted as bigger plants have settled in nicely.

I’ve been dosing my cold with lemon thyme tea, pinching sprigs of tea tree for gentle inhalation for the kids’ colds, taking a leaf of sage to go with thyme, lemon, honey and ginger for coughs and using the lemon balm/melissa in a soothing tea too.

There is plenty of oregano for tomato sauces and the stevia is getting big enough to try it out as a natural sweetener in cooking. I’ll let you know when I start experimenting.

The catnip is bushing out wildly, unmolested by the cats, who went mad over it and rolled it half to death when I first put it in. The fennel and chamomile have gone crazy and my established rosemary plant looks like an alarmed hedgehog with all its new spring growth.

And the new mulberries are ripening. We’ve been feasting straight from the tree a few berries at a time, but next year, moles allowing, there’ll be enough for berry muffins and summer pudding again.

It’s a growing patch full of wonderful energy, goodness and vitality.

I have a moon calendar on the wall and decided to go the whole way towards biodynamic gardening, planting by the moon, not just when it is waxing but in the most propitious astrological sign too. I know there is a lot more involved than that but am learning a little at a time.

There are a few rose quartz crystals tucked into beds and I’ve been moving them around nearer to any plants that seem to be struggling.

This little basil plant is lagging way behind its siblings, but is looking a little greener on top since yesterday when the quartz joined it... so maybe it really is working!

Even the grass, which is growing all over the garden from the compost we mixed in, has been useful. Whenever the children’s rabbits and guinea pig need feeding I go and weed a handful of grass for them. They convert it almost instantly back to compost!

I'm loving this whole sustainable cycle. Loving the fact that I can pick fresh herbs for teas as natural remedies for all sorts of ailments. Loving the fact that there are all those flavours growing just outside my kitchen.

Soon , soon, soon I’ll be able to try all those recipes that demand bunches of fresh coriander and parsley. Can’t wait.

Spring Festival

2010-09-24T16:29:00.000+02:00

Life has been flitting past too fast, getting away from me, leaving me with a permanent hair-blown-back feeling. Our festivals mark the passing of the seasons and seem to swoop round ever faster. Luckily they also make me slow down and notice things: the flowers, which have passed from pure white snow carpet of white daisies to gold bronzed dusting of yellow daisies; pypies succeeded by watsonias, tall and elegant in all shades from white to salmon pink to fiery orange; the moon still waxing then and now just past full; the herb seeds germinating and showing themselves in my new herb garden; strawberries starting to ripen in the veggie garden with the promise of enough berries for strawberry jam this year.

Our spring festival is a celebration of water and flowers - flower crowns, flowered archway, flowers floating in water. The girls rushed around gathering posies to decorate the circle - bright magenta vygies, red bottlebrush, orange golden shower and pink wild pear as well as gazanias and daisies. Our son's friends only arrived late, so the usual sand and water-work constructions of engineering genius, getting ever more elaborate every year, weren't there and it was a simpler event but just as lovely as ever.

Building A Herb Garden

2010-08-21T21:15:00.000+02:00

Small seeds grow into bigger things. In the case of my herb garden, one seed of an idea has taken root, thrown out off-shoots and taken over completely.

All I planned to do was make another bed. The herb garden was looking neglected and all but the toughest herbs had shrivelled away in the heat of last summer, leaving just my stalwart rosemary and lavender bushes, as well as the scented geraniums that seem to thrive here whatever you do to them. Last year I ended up growing my basil and parsley in a pot, which is crazy seeing how much space we have here.

So this new bed was to be slightly raised, with lashings of compost and organic matter added to make a nice cushy home for the pickier herbs – basil, parsley, sage, oregano and so on. My sisters-in-law planned to give me some herbs for my birthday to re-stock the new bed. That was going to be all.

Then I thought of bricking the main path through the garden, basically just a sandy track worn by the dogs running through to chase cars, with some leftover bricks we had stacked in a corner.

That is when things took on their own momentum. Before I knew it, the whole family had taken the idea and run with it. Now one bed was nicely laid out the others needed to be raised to the same level. No point just bricking the one path, we’ll level all of them to be bricked. And what about the area beyond the bed.

We should lay out that at the same time, and round the rain-water tank… so we’d better make a proper retaining wall that side to build up the area around the olive trees, which is at a higher level than the main herb garden.

Our two farm-workers also joined in the enthusiastic makeover and have been working on the paths and beds all week making everything just so, asking me to decide things every step of the way, so my usual vague, see what happens, not quite ever finishing things off modus operandi has been thwarted. Now I have to live up to the garden, which is obviously planning to be finished and beautiful this year, rather than in some dim and distant future.

Seeing how things were taking shape so alarmingly quickly, I felt that I needed to put my own mark on the garden. The scarily straight and perfect motorway outline of the main path, so carefully worked out with string lines and levels, had to have something to slow it down, to keep the energy meandering among the herbs.

So I decided that I would lay the bricks for the path myself, in a herringbone pattern. And that is why I’ve stayed away from my blog for a couple of weeks. Last weekend I was putting in the time and putting in the bricks. Every day in the week while supper was cooking I’d nip out and put in a few more. This morning I reached the house end of the path. The only reason I’m here writing about it now is because the rain started bucketing down.

The only trouble is, our vision has expanded way beyond the leftover bricks in the corner. We’re going to have to go and order another shed-load of bricks to get all these paths paved and my weekends are sorted for the next month or so! But it’s going to look gorgeous. And once it is all planted up, I’ll have a medicine garden on my doorstep. There are already two tea tree plants waiting to go in and some buchu, as my sister in law couldn’t resist buying a few plants even before we got to my birthday.

So my next project is learning about herbs and their medicinal uses, courtesy of Margaret Roberts’ excellent books and hopefully a visit to the herb lady who lives on a farm quite near us.

I'll post some more photos when more paths are finished and the beds are planted up.

Guava Delight

2010-08-05T20:58:00.002+02:00

Spring is in the air and yet the guava season continues. Our trees have been prolific this year, but are considerately allowing their fruit to ripen a little at a time now, so that we can get through one basket before we fill the next and stagger back to the house weighed down with golden globes of perfumery.

At one stage I really did think I was going to get sick of guavas before the end of the winter, but they keep luring me back with their fresh fragrance and unique flavour. Hard to remember the time when I first came to South Africa and found the scent overwhelmingly pungent, in my less charitable moments likening it to cats’ pee.

Recently I’ve been working on finding new ways of processing and preserving guavas, so that they will last us year round. My attempt at guava jelly was an abject failure, or at least not the jewel-bright perfumed delicacy that I was hoping for. Plus I was horrified by the wastage involved in making jelly: all that tasty fruit pulp left behind in the jelly bag. So I moved swiftly on without bothering to perfect my jelly-making skills.

I found this suggestion for using guavas instead of the traditional quinces to make a paste, or rather a sweetmeat, in Jane Grigson’s Fruit Book: my absolutely favourite recipe book on fruit of all time, in fact I'd go so far as to say it's the bible of fruit recipes, so I'd hope they use this book in cooking schools online. Reminiscent of Safari dried fruit snacks, these guava squares have a much better texture and of course they are home made, so a whole lot cheaper…. unless you charge your time by the hour that is. The thing about this recipe is that someone needs to stir the pot constantly for about an hour and a half, as the mixture burps and splutters its way to the required thickness. So this is a weekend job, for when you have several willing helpers to take turns at stirring, or at least entertain you with scintillating conversation as you perch on the counter working on your stirring muscles.

The rewards are a house smelling wonderfully of guava jam and a few months’ supply of reasonable healthy sweeties, to sneak into your kids’ lunch boxes or package as loving gifts for home-sick family members overseas who haven’t smelt a ripe guava in ages.

This is only really worth doing when you have a couple of kilos of guavas to process so that you get a goodly stock of sweets from all your hard work stirring, but you can use any amount of fruit as the sugar is put in according to the weight of puree.

We’ve christened the result Guava Delight, as it is just a bit like Turkish Delight only much, much nicer.

Recipe for Guava Fruit Sweets
(adapted from Jane Grigson’s recipe for Quince Paste)

Ingredients
Guavas – about 2 kg/ 4lbs
Sugar – about 1.5kg

Rinse the guavas and cut into quarters. Put into a heavy based pan with ½ cup of water. Bring to the boil and simmer covered until the fruit is tender, stirring a few times so that it doesn’t catch. Puree through a sieve or food mill/mouli. Rinse out the pan.

Weigh the resulting puree and return it to the pan, with 750g sugar for every 1kg of puree. (1 ½ lbs sugar per 2 lbs puree.) Cook over a low heat until the sugar is dissolved, then raise the heat to medium and cook stirring constantly until the mixture is very thick and is coming away from the sides of the pan. This usually takes us 1 ½ hours and we could probably carry on longer to get it really thick, but we have usually had enough by then! It will splutter and spit as it thickens, so have a glove on your stirring hand to avoid burns from the hot mixture.

Line a baking tray or two with baking parchment and pour the mixture into it to cool. It should be about 1 cm/1/2 inch deep. Smooth it out evenly. Now it needs to cool and dry out a bit in a warming drawer or over a radiator for a day or so. It is ready when it can be cut with a hot knife into squares that retain their shape.

Cut the paste into squares and dip them in sugar then pack into air-tight boxes in layers separated by baking paper. These should keep for months or years as long as they are kept dry.

Storytelling

2010-07-29T20:44:00.001+02:00

This story was related to me today from memory on the way back from school in the car; the fruit of Middle Daughter’s class assignment to make up her own story including a list of words, the meanings of which they had to check in the dictionary.

The Maid Servant
Once upon a time there was a maid who worked for a rich man, who had a long beard. One day she discovered that she was pregnant. When she told the man, he felt rage grow in him, and tore at his hair and shouted at her that she couldn’t work for him any longer. She went home and took her dogs for a walk.

Later on he came downstairs and saw some plumage on the table. He felt ashamed of his anger and wanted to say sorry, but then thought he couldn’t. He made a heart out of metal.

The next day he went to her house and said he was sorry and that she could have her job back. She said Yes.

I haven’t done justice to the story in the re-telling here and have probably got some of the words wrong, but hopefully I've captured the drama and high emotion of her story-telling.
I tentatively asked whether ‘pregnant’ was one of the words on her list, thinking it a little strange for a class of 10 year olds.

“Oh no” she replied, “but I wanted to use the word ‘discovered’.”

We racked out brains to think where she could have got the inspiration from for a story involving a woman thrown out for being pregnant. Not Disney of course (I don't remember that particular re-working of Cindarella), none of the horse books they’ve been reading, and they never watch any soaps. Finally I remembered the scene in Mamma Mia where Donna tells Sophie,
“When I was pregnant with you, my mother told me to go, and not to bother coming back”.
Phew! That must have been the germ of the idea, I was beginning to put it down to a traumatic past life experience!

Now it remains to be seen what her rather conventional male teacher will make of it.

Green Muffin Cases

2010-07-22T17:23:00.002+02:00

My inner Scrooge really loves the whole green movement – Reduce Reuse Recycle is a great excuse to save the pennies and polish your halo at the same time. No longer are you stigmatized as being stingy when you re-use your shopping bags, you are now a green heroine, nobly saving the planet as you shop.

Paper muffin cases are a case in point. We bake muffins every week, often double batches for school bake sales. I used to use muffin cases all the time. It’s easier and more convenient. But if you think about it, that piece of paper just becomes litter within minutes, if the kids pounce on the muffins straight away, and it’s just one more non-essential to add to the weekly shop. So I stopped using paper muffin cases most of the time for home-baking, and it wasn’t a big deal at all. I just had to soak the tins a bit before washing them.

And yet there are times when a paper case really does make a difference, like when you are trying out a chocolate chip muffin recipe and envisage gooey melted chocolate going to waste all over the tins. Of course I now had no paper muffin cases in the house after my frugal/green spree of conscientiousness. I’d also nearly run out of baking paper for the same reason, just a few odds and ends left over from a series of cakes, which left me with the stash of butter papers in the fridge.

When I was growing up, butter papers were always saved in the fridge. They knew about frugality in those days, having grown up with rationing and wartime shortages and lived through Seventies coal miners' strikes and all. Saving butter papers was a habit that transferred itself to me, despite our generation's prodigality. A fridge full of butter papers generally isn’t all that much use, not very zen either, cluttering up the place. Quite handy for greasing baking trays, but that’s about it. Except when you need muffin cases at the last minute.

I think they worked perfectly – perhaps not very elegant, but they have a certain green chic about them, don’t you think?!

But perhaps the scraps of baking paper made the more elegant version. They make me think of The Sound of Music, a drift of nuns in sparkling white wimples…

And Marisa's chocolate muffin recipe? The kids loved them, in fact Middle Daughter made them all by herself. Me, I'm holding out for dark chocolate chips for the next batch, with the good dark Nomu cocoa, but then that would be my inner chocoholic, who vanquishes the inner Scrooge every time.

Chocolate Surprise

2010-07-19T16:26:00.001+02:00

It will come as no surprise to my blog friends when I confess to a not-so-secret addiction to chocolate, the darker the better. I have long been a reliable tester of all the big chocolate names, from Green and Black, who seem to have disappeared from the South African marketplace of late, to Lindt with their blossoming and branching out into a multitude of sophisticated flavours (perhaps the reason behind Green and Black’s ousting?), sea salt being my current Wow factor to the taste buds.

After attending the fantastic Cape Town Food Bloggers Conference in March, I found that my blog was occasionally targeted by the foodie PR people. Juno wrote about the ethics and complications of accepting freebies when you are writing an independent blog. Her rule of never accepting freebies to review made sense in many circumstances, but I found myself tested immediately by an offer from Lindt to bring me some goodies to sample. How could I possibly say no to chocolate?

I mean, when you live 60km from town it can be hard to persuade friends that it’s not too far to come for lunch. It’s not very often that you have complete strangers offering to drive out specially, just to deliver you some free chocolate, no strings attached. So I accepted and told them to ring for directions.

Two weeks later on a gorgeous sunny day they did. It turned out that they had already shot 20km past our turning and were in the next town asking at the info office for directions. Of course nobody had heard of us there. We’re quite used to talking couriers and various delivery people to our farm from all points of the compass, so I gave directions again and waited. And waited. Eventually a very sweet little Smart car emblazoned with the Lindt logo and pictures of chocolate rolled up the dirt road to our gate. It was immediately met with impassioned barking from assorted manic border collies, which is the usual welcome our visitors get. I ran out to rescue them and to photograph the cute car in its incongruous country setting... unfortunately the camera battery was flat. The two pretty girls smartly dressed in red stayed safely in the car, handing out to me a be-ribboned box of goodies, then revealed that the info office in our local town had sent them to the next town further on, 30 km in the wrong direction. They seemed quite happy though and it was a lovely day for a scenic drive around the Swartland, so I tried not to feel too bad about it.

And my spoils? Well I have to admit that my greedy chocoholic alter ego had ideas of lashings of dark chocolate samples, perhaps unveiling the latest wicked 99% cocoa bar to be tested on that secret sector of food blogging choco-gourmet elite, of whom I had now been elected one of the chosen few...

But nestled in the box were instead some samples of baked goodies from the Lindt Chocolate Studio in town: some miniature macaroons with chocolate sandwich filling, a couple of orange chocolate brownies and a white chocolate truffle…Now they were nice. But not Wow Chocolate Explosion fantastic. In fact my Lindt chocolate stash in the larder rather put them in their place on the chocolate scale of things. Which seemed a bit of a shame after all the trouble they’d taken to get them to me. Plus I think from reading about it that the Chocolate Studio sounds like a fantastic idea, learning to bake with chocolate, make your own truffles and even temper chocolate to a professional level. I’d still love to go there myself and create marvels of chocolate sculpture, tasting just a little on the way.

So thank you Lindt for going to such lengths to send me free samples. I do appreciate it, really I do. Just, if you’re going to be marketing another product, please can I have the chocoholics dark dark version, and I’ll be much more enthusiastic about it, I promise!

All this writing about dark chocolate has got to me. I can feel that stash of sea salt chocolate in the larder calling to me. Tell me what you thought of the Lindt samples if you are another Cape Town blogger who couldn't resist them.

Back To School

2010-07-12T12:46:00.004+02:00

The World Cup is over. There is a back to school feeling all over South Africa, and not just among the kids who have had the longest winter holidays ever in honour of the World Cup. Ours go back to school tomorrow and it’s going to be a sharp shock for all of us getting up in the cold winter dark again and leaving the house before the sun is up. Our internal clocks have adjusted to hibernation mode and our once early rising toddlers are now big kids happy enough to snuggle under the duvet with a book and a torch until the sun finds its way through the curtains.

Five weeks is a long time to keep track of, when you get back to school and have to write “What I did in the Holidays”. Luckily I took photos and so here is a visual reminder for my kids to write from and to fill in the gaps of all the blog posts I didn’t get round to writing.

Our Winter Festival

We had a perfect still and starry night for our winter festival. There was just us and one family of friends this time as many of our regulars had already left on holiday, but it was a really special celebration with a wonderful atmosphere.

We found this prayer in Diana Cooper's latest book and read it aloud together. It felt like it created a powerful energy.

THE VISION PRAYER
I have a vision where all people are at peace, fed and housed,
every child is loved and educated to develop their talents,
where the heart is more important than the head and
wisdom is revered over riches.

In this world, justice, equality and fairness rule.
Nature is honoured, so the waters flow pure and clear and
the air is fresh and clean. Plants and trees are nurtured
and all animals are respected and treated with kindness.
Happiness and laughter prevail

And humans walk hand in hand with angels.
Thank you for the love, understanding, wisdom, courage
and humility to do my part to spread the light.
May all the world ascend
So be it

The Breede River

We got away to our favourite river for four nights. It’s a wonderful place to go in summer with swimming and boating, but is just as beautiful in winter with aloes aflame and chilly foggy mornings, burning off to still sunny days.

The Weather

It rained, but never on match days!

10th Birthday

Middle Daughter celebrated her 10th birthday in fine style with a party and treasure hunt.

Day out to the Cape Town Waterfront

A visit to Spur to spend the children's bravery award vouchers from the dentist for free burgers. A walk along the shore towards the stadium in search of the World Cup gees.

Watching the boats come in.

Some brilliant Kenyan acrobatic entertainers risking if not life then certainly limb! Then off to see Toy Story 3, top of the holiday activity wish list. What's with this 3D craze... those glasses give me a headache!

And we finally found the gees, parked right near our car. Ayoba! May this sunny shiny ayoba feeling spread and sustain South Africa even without the soccer fever!

Scottish Breakfast Tea Arrives

2010-06-29T13:40:00.002+02:00

One of the things I love most about blogging is the way we can get to know people on the other side of the world, share a love of a place, food or pastime with strangers, who we soon feel are friends, and if we are lucky enough to meet them in ‘real’ life we do discover that they are indeed old friends.

I have a nostalgic love of Scotland from a childhood spent visiting grandparents in Edinburgh, being dragged protesting up mountains from picturesque cottages in remote areas of the north as a reluctant teenager, visiting historic houses and castles and picturing myself living there and enough Scottish blood in my veins to be entitled to a wear a kilt if I ever felt so inclined.

I’ve been reading Sophia’s blog Scotland for the Senses for ages, delighting in her gorgeous photos of Scotland’s landscapes and castles, seascapes and cloudscapes, all a million miles from where I am now in South Africa. There is something about the light in Scotland that she captures, which is so different from the light here, even though we also have endless mountains and coastline. Every now and again Sophia generously holds a giveaway of something Scottish and I got lucky last month and won some Scottish Breakfast Tea samples from the Edinburgh Tea and Coffee Company.

Since living in South Africa I’ve become a dedicated rooibos tea drinker, naturally caffeine free bush tea which is full of antioxidants and tastes great black and unsweetened. But I grew up drinking proper tea made with leaves in a warmed teapot: Ceylon tea for breakfast and China tea at tea-time: perhaps smoky Lapsang Souchong or an Earl Grey blend. We had a proper tea caddy and I learned early how to warm the pot and then put in one teaspoon of tea per person and one for the pot, before adding the water on the boil and letting it brew for a few minutes.

Obviously I still have a hankering for these ancient traditions, as I jumped at Sophia’s offer and was very excited about the arrival of a small package yesterday with the promised tea and a gorgeous postcard of Edinburgh castle and Princes Street gardens. I solemnly brewed myself a cup mid-morning today. It seemed to require more than just a biscuit to go with it, so I made a slice of slightly singed toast with marmalade, which was just perfect. Sitting in our South African kitchen, winter rain blowing outside, one child doing sums for holiday homework, another watching a world cup DVD of the best players, I could picture myself in my grandmother’s Edinburgh basement kitchen thirty years ago, preparing to go out to Jenners or up Arthur’s Seat, finishing breakfast, looking out at her neat city garden. I don’t know whether I ever did drink Scottish Breakfast tea there, but it felt like I did as I sipped at it here. It was full bodied and strong but not overwhelming and with a lighter top note that just tickled the taste buds. I generously allowed my husband a cup and he agreed that it was a very superior tea indeed! I hope we haven’t spoiled him for Five Roses!

So thank you Sophia for sharing the tastes of Scotland with your readers, it is much appreciated!

Marmalade and Vuvuzelas

2010-06-10T15:40:00.001+02:00

Golden tangy marmalade at first seems to have nothing to do with the vuvuzelas and flags to be seen and heard all over Cape Town today. With the excitement over the World Cup mounting, I’ve been mulling over the question of national identity in a mild way. As a transplant from England taking roots in sandy South African soil, my allegiance to a particular team is blurred. Any excitement I feel over the soccer World Cup is caught from the prevailing atmosphere, gees (spirit) and flag-waving around me, but I feel no need to get out a Union Jack to assert my original roots and cheer on ‘my’ team.

Instead I’ve realized that my national identity reveals itself through food. No surprises there! I love the variety of South African food, but still cling to my origins when it comes to a few basics. Threaten my stash of marmalade and you’re toast.

How the British developed a national taste for a preserve made from sour Seville oranges especially imported from Spain, oranges grown purely to feed the marmalade habit of a small (but perfectly formed) island on the edge of Europe, I don’t know. But the habit is as entrenched as PG Tips, fish and chips and Christmas pudding.

No-one else on our farm likes marmalade, thank goodness, so I can make a couple of batches every winter to last me through to the next orange season with a few extra for fellow devotees when they come my way. I haven’t yet discovered any Seville oranges here in South Africa; for some reason the oranges here are grown to be sweet enough to eat as they are! So to get enough tanginess to my marmalade I make a three fruit one, with grapefruit and lemons added to sweet oranges to balance out the taste. The first batch of marmalade I ever made here, with just sweet oranges, was revolting: sweet and cloying, it was orange jam, not marmalade at all.

So if your taste-buds reveal an element of English, Scottish, Irish or Welsh in your heritage and you are stranded in a country that doesn’t understand marmalade, then try this three fruit marmalade recipe; experiment with different citrus fruit combinations, (a couple of limes add a subtle and pleasing fragrance) and enjoy year round citrus tanginess on toast for breakfast, for the taste equivalent of a spirited blast on the vuvuzela!

Three Fruit Marmalade Recipe
2 grapefruit
2 lemons
3 oranges
4 pint/2 litres water
3 ½ lbs/1.6kg sugar (if you use sour Seville oranges you need more sugar - 5lbs)

Wash the fruit, scrubbing the skins gently to get rid of any chemical sprays or wax, but without losing all the aromatic oils from the zest.
Cut the fruit and rind into shreds, however thick you like your peel in the finished marmalade.
Remove any very pithy bits and pips. Usually one is told to tie these in muslin and cook with the fruit, to extract the most pectin available, then remove the whole package pips and all. I have never bothered to do this and the marmalade still seems to set.

Put the fruit and water into a large pan (preferably thick bottomed) and bring to the boil, then simmer gently for 1-2 hours until the rind is tender. Add the sugar, off the heat, and stir till it dissolves. Don’t let the marmalade boil again till the sugar has dissolved.

Boil briskly for about 30 minutes. Test for doneness by putting a drop on a cold plate. If it forms a light skin that wrinkles when you push your finger through, it is done. Keep testing every five minutes if not. The bubbles also change to be slower, larger rolling bubbles when it is ready. Ladle into hot sterilised jars and seal.

And if you love marmalade and have not a drop of British blood in your veins, I’d love to know how you came to acquire your marmalade habit, as my marmalade/national identity theory comes crashing down around my ears!

South African Baking Recipes and World Cup Fever

2010-06-08T13:51:00.003+02:00

South Africa is exploding in a fervour of flags, vuvuzelas, rainbow wigs and World Cup paraphenalia in the lead up to the big day on Friday. We’re slightly out of it here on the farm, but every time we go to town we get absorbed into the fever. The children are asking to go shopping in Spar on Friday to see all the staff in their crazy hats and wigs and feel some of the atmosphere. As a phlegmatic Britisher, I watch all this excitement over what is really just another sporting event (please don’t shoot me, I am flying the flag in the car, honest!) with slightly bewildered pleasure .

I don’t remember any of this national exuberance when Britain hosted a World Cup… or maybe we never did, it would have passed me by completely. (edited to add: My husband tells me I'm wrong, that there was great excitement and gees over the European Football cup when Britain hosted it. I must have been in Italy at the time, enjoying the emptiness of the roads and wondering where all the people were!) Here though, even people who are not remotely interested in soccer as a game are thrilled by the whole event. Perhaps it is because South Africa was so isolated for so long, that to be the centre of the world’s attention and entrusted with the honour of hosting the World Cup, makes us all feel proud and happy (I do feel proud of my adopted country too). Perhaps it is just that we need occasions like this to bring our diverse rainbow nation together in a common opportunity for hope, goodwill and celebration. Here's an article on what the World Cup means to South Africa that expresses it way better than I ever could.

So in honour of the occasion, I'm posting a round-up of my most searched for, authentically South African recipes: all baking recipes and learned from my in-laws or adapted from South African cook books when we moved here. After all my South African gees (spirit) manifests best through food!

Malva Pudding Recipe: Number one on the list of my most searched for recipes is Malva pudding, which seems to capture the hearts and taste-buds of so many visitors to South Africa. The restaurant version is soaked in a rich creamy sauce at the end of baking and is delicious and heart-stoppingly rich, but my home version is just the pudding itself, spongy and slightly caramelley with the apricot jam and served with custard. It's the kind of pudding you can throw together from store-cupboard stand-bys and still make the family happy.

South African buttermilk rusk recipe: A lot of people come to my blog looking for a rusk recipe. They fall in love with Ouma’s rusks when they come here and want to re-create them back home. Or else they are ex-pat South Africans desperate for a proper South African rusk, for which there is no substitute abroad. I can’t promise that my buttermilk rusks are exactly the same as Ouma’s, but they have been a staple in my family for eleven years now and are essential to mid-morning tea in our house.

South African Milk tart recipe: Milk tart is another dessert that you never see abroad. Our family crustless milk tart version is a whole lot easier to make than the traditional tart, as there is no pastry case and it can be whizzed together in the processor in no time: ideal for a calcium rich snack for the kids, or just comfort food for the whole family.

South African Crunchies: Last but not least the South African crunchie: I have got in a lot of trouble, both in the family and with patriotic readers for comparing it to the English flapjack, but it is true that the flapjacks (not pancakes at all) that I grew up baking in England were just like these wonderfully South African crunchy oat and syrup biscuits, except that they didn’t used to have coconut in. I make huge batches for class camps now and they always go down well.

So stock up the biscuit tin in time for the Fifa World Cup opening ceremony and then, even if you can't be here in SA yourself, it will taste like it!

An Empty Weekend... with Chocolate Brownies

2010-06-06T18:35:00.004+02:00

A weekend with nothing planned is a gift. When you wake up on a misty Saturday morning, knowing that there is no soccer match to rush to, no shopping still to do, the day stretches out invitingly with myriad possibilities beckoning, most of them centred around food.

Those oranges and knobbly lemons brought straight from a friend's farm are desperate to be turned into marmalade, with a little support from a jewelled pink grapefruit for extra tanginess.

The winter sun breaks through the mist, tentantively banishing the chill of morning and soon citrus smells waft out to greet it. The pot bubbles throughout an impromptu outdoor picnic lunch, preserving sunshine in pots for my personal delectation through the year. This year's first batch is now ready to fill up the yawningly empty shelves in the larder. Just in time. I was down to my last jar, an unthinkable state of emergency.

While the marmalade simmers there is plenty of time for a sortie to the orchard and veggie garden. The sun is afternoon hot now, what would pass for summer in England, so Middle Daughter comes prepared.

Our two guava trees are surpassing themselves this year, bearing the most glorious golden globes, the largest guavas I've seen before, with unblemished skins and fragrant fruit. We pick all the ones approaching ripeness, fill the basket to the brim, and still the boughs of the trees bend under the weight of more green fruit, promising to provide enough guava puree to fill our freezers over and over. We leave the heavy basket under the tree and continue on to the veggie garden, where Youngest and her aunt are busy spraying bugs with a garlic spray, checking for out-of-season strawberries (they found three!) and harvesting carrots.

The sunshine slowed our footsteps, no hurry to return to the semi-darkness and cool air indoors. We wandered back to collect the guava basket, up over the rise to our house, welcomed by the fluttering of laundry rapidly drying on the line on the stoep.

I tore myself away to the kitchen to hobnob with the marmalade and a brownie recipe and left the children to stock up on Vitamin D till sunset chilled the air once more and they had to be dragged inside from trampoline and garden.

Today the promise of more sunshine was never fulfilled, the clouds stubbornly blanketed the sky and a light drizzle hustled the kids back inside from the trampoline to find refuge on the sofa.

The importance of having a big sofa is never so apparent as on cold cloudy winter Sundays. I was getting Sunday lunch ready, but could have squished in if necessary... right in the middle of the card game.

I got busy working on my food photography instead, trying to style my precious brownies according to the advice from the Food Bloggers Conference. The clock approached closer and closer to lunch time as I went backwards and forwards between the computer and the kitchen checking out the latest shot and eventually getting what I was after, while the potatoes got crispier and crispier.

The joy of having an empty weekend stretching ahead to fill, now concertina-ing to a close with a flurry of playing Pit, hairwashing and walking dogs, but still time left to blog as my husband makes cheese on toast for supper.

Natural Firelighters

2010-06-03T18:01:00.003+02:00

If we were truly environmentally friendly, then we probably wouldn’t be lighting fires just to warm ourselves and brighten up cold winter nights. After all wood cooking fires are one of the many contributors to the familiar murky brown line of smog that sits over Cape Town on fine days in winter, snuggling up to the mountain, after a run of fine winter weather, with sunny days and oh so cold nights. A spell of windy, wet weather blows it away and it is gone and forgotten till next time.

Sitting here on the farm the hazy tendrils of smog reach us too and yet we’re not ready to give up the joys of a roaring log fire to toast backs and warm hands before bedtime. Bedtime stories move to the sofa, so we can enjoy the fire a bit longer, before braving the chillier air of bedrooms and tucking up with a hot water bottle, bed-socks and extra blankets.*

All the kids, from an early age, have learned how to build and light a fire safely and take turns in the evenings. Our eco conscience is salved by the thought that we are only burning the wood from trees cleared from our farm as alien invaders. Our logs are Port Jackson, a tree from Australia brought to control the shifting sand dunes of our coast, which is now out of control and taking over fallow farmland at a rapid rate in our area. Our firelighters are also gathered from our property – the best natural firelighters in the world – dry pine cones. They really are the secret of lighting a good fire: two or three open cones nestled in the centre of a nest of newspaper with a tower of logs built around them will coax even the most sluggish of logs into action.

Every so often we lead a mission to the top of the farm, armed with bags. It takes no more than twenty minutes to collect all the cones we can carry and the pine trees are still loaded with more cones that will come down the next time the wind blows. The pine trees too are alien invaders, threatening to take over our top camp, but at least if we collect the cones we are slowing them down. We’re unwilling to clear them completely as they are the only full sized trees we have and they also provide us and our friends with Christmas trees. And where would we be without our incredibly effective natural firelighters?

Today I dragged the two boys unwillingly up the path to collect a sack-full, R. complaining loudly about the girls left ‘relaxing’ back home (Youngest with a sore knee and Middle daughter with a cough). I’d offered the services of our patent firelighters to the school for their St John’s festival bonfire next week, on the last day of term before our extra-long, soccer-world-cup winter holidays. Last year an immense heap of dead wood had been collected for the bonfire, but it wouldn’t burn, as the fire had been heaped higgledy-piggledy rather than built. It only really got going, (with the help of flammable liquid applications) after the kids had finished singing and throwing their wishes on to the sullenly smouldering fire, which was a bit of an anticlimax. So, this year I hope that our pine cone donation will do the trick and send those wishes merrily circling up into the air for the angels to read!

*Note for overseas readers - central heating is a rare luxury in South Africa, where houses are built for hot summers and we tough out the winter months dressed as Michelin men in the mornings and evenings. The kids often emerge from school in T-shirts at midday on sunny days laden to their eyeballs with shed layers of fleeces and jackets. The houses however stay fridge-like from May to September.

Cocoa

2010-05-15T17:21:00.004+02:00

I have just had a cocoa revelation. Not all cocoas are equal.

I have to admit to blithely ignoring Nigella’s instructions to use the best quality cocoa in her recipes for years. Not because I didn’t think it would be better, but when feeding a family on a budget it seemed to be wanton extravagance. After all if my standard Nestle cocoa will do the job, why spend a whole lot more on another variety?

This parsimonious attitude was helped by the fact that our local supermarket only stocked two basic cocoas anyway, so in my once-a-week whisk round the shelves there was no temptation to splash out… until recently. Our Spar has been creeping up in the world. Exotic items have been finding their way onto the shelves over the last year, upmarket brands with understated packaging politely inviting the garish mass-produced goods to 'shove over, make room for your betters'. It has been harder and harder to resist impulse buys of gourmet food-stuffs. I've done pretty well, until today... when my usual brand of cocoa seemed to have run out and sitting next to its empty space there was a cool and trendy tin of Nomu cocoa. More expensive of course.

If you’re forced to try a new brand what can you do. Buy the one that is even cheaper (undoubtedly nastier) than your trusted standard brand, or buy the quality alternative that promises to be even more chocolatey? I succumbed to the lure of the good stuff. It was for my sister-in-law’s birthday cake so the choice was doubly justified. But would we be able to taste the difference?

I am proud to announce that we could. The cocoa itself was darker, finer and denser than the usual stuff. Even the cake mix of my favourite chocolate birthday cake recipe taster deeper and richer. The cake had a different texture, more crust to it and a bigger crumb, it wasn’t as sweet as usual, but deeper in flavour, much more of a grown up chocolate cake, (though the kids devoured it happily as usual) and the butter icing made with the cocoa was a chocoholic’s addiction in itself.

I’m afraid my budgeting habits are blown. I’m going to have to upgrade myself to Nomu cocoa on a permanent basis, or else start shopping in a less tempting supermarket.

Disclaimer: I wasn't asked to review this product, paid my own hard-earned cash for it in fact, so the views expressed here are completely genuine... but I'd more than happy to receive free cocoa, chocolate or other delicious goods to review here at any time in the future.

Cook Books, Chefs and Fridges

2010-05-05T11:48:00.004+02:00

We finally watched Julie and Julia a couple of weeks ago and loved the story of Julia Child. Meryl Streep portrayed all her quirks, warmth and life so fantastically that we were left wanting to know more. I was left with no desire at all to emulate Julie and blog through a seminal cookery book, but the movie did push me to explore some of the long neglected books on my kitchen shelf.

I was given the Constance Spry Cookery Book when, in my early twenties, I asked for a proper cookery book. I’d outgrown Delia’s One is Fun and wanted a point of reference. In the end I dipped into it but rarely, its old-fashioned insistence on doing things properly and cordon bleu methodology sending me thankfully into the arms of Nigel Slater who promised a good meal in 30 minutes.

On Sunday I found myself leafing through its pristine pages, unsplattered by flour and sauce, not so much for the recipes themselves, but reading all the introductions and prefaces. Her voice was so reminiscent of Julia Child’s, that I realised they were probably contemporaries, Constance Spry grappling with the shortages of everything after the Second World War in an England only just letting go of rationing, at the same time as Julia explored the cuisine of a France that seemed far less worried about lavish use of butter, eggs and cream than dreary old post-war England.

Constance was a flower arranger with a renowned school before the war – her knowledge of cooking was limited to the domestic, but after the war she teamed up with Rosemary Hume, who headed the Cordon Bleu cookery school, to write this book and she took on the role of making the recipes and methods accessible to the British domestic cook, just as Julia did for American cooks. Their book is an encyclopedia of the British take on cordon bleu, with over 1000 pages of recipes and advice all aimed at de-mystifying good food after many years of palates dulled by war-time austerity.

One thing that must have lodged in my subconscious was a passage about fridges quoted from a letter from a Frenchwoman to a new chef entering the service of friends of hers:

“A good cook is economical. He goes to endless trouble to turn out his best efforts without wasting a crumb… To make sure of using up everything to good effect it is absolutely essential for him to plan ahead.
As soon as the washing up is done each evening he should run his eye over his provisions. Opening the door of his Frigidaire, he stands in front of it and thinks. He thinks rapidly, but that moment’s reflection is absolutely necessary…. His kitchen companions should be made to understand that he is the absolute master of the Frigidaire, and he must insist that everything in it shall be kept in absolute order. A chef proves his worth by the scrupulous order in which he keeps his refrigerator, for which he is solely responsible…”

Today I opened the fridge and was dismayed at the state of my sole domain. Usually the week’s shopping fills it to capacity: five or six 2 litre bottles of milk cram the top shelf, yoghurt crowds into another, bowls of leftovers tussle with half filled jars of olives for the best place on the shelf. It is only when the next weekly shop looms that the true state of the realm is revealed. Thriftily saved butter papers crammed in corners, out-of date medicines stuffed in the door, build-ups of gunge threatening the condensation drain thing… nothing was actually threatening to walk out by itself, no blue fluffiness breeding new strains of antibiotic, but still way short of the chef’s nirvana pictured above.

So instead of making bread and doing the laundry, as planned in my self-inflicted hour of housework before approaching the computer, I micro-cleaned the fridge, and realized that never in its life had I actually removed the shelves to clean properly, they were still firmly attached with sticky tape, just as when it was delivered.

Slightly horrified by this proof of neglect, I did manage to conjure up some memories of cleaning it in the past, just not in quite such saintly detail as I was now attempting. I wielded the vinegar spray liberally and made sure my husband was aware of these unprecedented goings on, so that my halo could be acknowledged. Not to be outdone, he got out the gaffer tape (duct tape - fixer of all things, from tents to fridges) and stuck together the plastic shelf in the door that is threatening to resign its position as holder of full milk and juice bottles.

So now I have righted my fridge in the eyes of Constance Spry’s French friend, I wonder if I dare approach some of her recipes. Flipping through now I see a recipe for croissants that looks manageable… mmmm… tempting.

The Bookshelf

2010-04-26T20:54:00.003+02:00

A funny asymmetrical book shelf, bought in a antique/junk shop long ago, before I had a house, before I’d found my man, before I had children, way back in that misty time when the nesting instinct was starting to take hold, feathers and twigs busily collected, the ingredients of a home put together in a hotch potch, ramshackle way without a recipe.

Once we met, we found we had a love of books in common, a shared history of favourite children’s books to explore: a list that often overlapped, but also brought each of us great new stories to explore. Any second-hand bookshop was a magnet. We’d dive in and head for the children’s section, finding old favourites and starting a collection for children that weren’t yet born. Unthinkable that our future offspring should grow up without the joy of exploring Narnia, Pridian, Green Knowe and Earthsea. We were eager to share the treasures of Susan Cooper, Ursula LeGuin, Geoffrey Trease, Cynthia Harnett and so many more.

By the time our first child was born we had assembled a fine library, re-read most of them more than once and filled the book-shelf to capacity and beyond.

My memory of our son’s first introduction to the library we’d so painstakingly assembled for him is set in our rented flat in South London. The bookshelf stood just inside the sitting room door. He was fascinated with it. For weeks his favourite activity was to pull all the books joyously off the lower two shelves and distribute them around the doorway. His first lesson in appreciation of fine literature was to learn how to put the books back on the shelf again.

A toddler view - no wonder the books are irresistible.

We were encouraged that he was an avid listener to stories. The very hungry caterpillar was succeeded by Herb the Vegetarian Dragon as prime favourite by the time he was two. The bookshelf moved house with us and took up a less precarious position out of the firing line by the time our daughter was born. She cut her literary teeth on the well chewed edges of the hungry caterpillar and his ilk, with only the occasional incursion into the gems awaiting her on the Bookshelf.

Yet another move and a third baby saw us in South Africa with the bookshelf. It stayed swathed in packing materials for a year, its books in boxes, while our house was built. Then it took up its rightful position in the centre of our living room to be raided in turn by the Youngest toddler of the family, following her brother’s earlier example of pulling books off shelves.

All this time it was patiently awaiting the time when it could share its stories. It began slowly. Bed-time stories for the oldest child took him to Pridian, battled the Dark with Will Stanton in The Dark is Rising series, while the girls were still listening to fairy stories. He was selective though when choosing books for himself to read from the book shelf. Fantasy worlds and adventures were his preference. All those stories set in historical times so beloved of his mother were overlooked. They waited their turn.

In this last year, the pace has picked up for the book shelf. The same bed-time stories now enthral all three children. Victor Canning’s The Runaways trilogy was so absorbing that evening DVD watching was frequently abandoned, to have a longer reading of the story each night. Some choices are more magnetic than others. Oldest often has his own book in hand, especially if he’s read the story we’re reading before or thinks it’s too young for him, but the good old classics can lure him back into the story fold. A Little Princess, ostensibly being read to the girls, had him asking questions to be brought up to date whenever he’d missed a bit. Heidi had them all glued despite its simplicity. So now I’ve slipped in my own choice, a Geoffrey Trease set in Ancient Greece that I’d tried to interest our son in a while back when he was looking for something new to read, but which he’d never taken to. Two chapters in and he still seems to be listening.

The bookshelf is now regularly despoiled of its contents, no longer the random pulling off the shelves of toddlerdom, but a focussed raid by Youngest and Middle Daughter, competing for the easier books to read to themselves. At the moment they still go by the size of the type, anything too small is rejected as too difficult. Any minute now they’ll discover that they can actually read anything on the shelf to themselves, a world of stories, adventures, poignant tales, humour, history, fantasy and old-fashioned moral tales all theirs to explore at will.

A visiting toddler looks set to repeat the pattern

What are your old childhood favourites? Any other essential reading we should add to the bookshelf?

A Season of Soups and Mellow Fruit

2010-04-24T15:08:00.002+02:00

Autumn is well installed here on the farm. The last vestiges of late summer are gone, a few tomatoes left clinging on the vine, but no longer bursting with ripeness, rather sulkily deciding whether to make the effort or not. A few early guavas have ripened on our trees, too fragrant and sweet to be cooked, they were eaten long before thoughts of guava parfait came to anything. But more are ready to harvest, enticing with crystal scent of fruit and flowers.

The patchwork blankets, knitted by my mother-in law, are back on the beds, after a summer of sleeping under sarongs and ceiling fan. Slippers and dressing-gowns are dug out of cupboards and soup at lunch time has become a life-saver after a morning spent with sluggish circulation labouring at the computer. Warm sun outside never quite banishes the chill from inside the house in the day time and, though we haven’t yet been desperate enough to light our first fire of the year, there is wood stacked by the front door in case. The time is getting nearer.

My two old faithful soups were getting a little jaded even before we really got into the cold weather. The kids aren’t too fond of soup anyway and can only tolerate a few basic recipes: the clear one with the pasta and the lentil one, though that is fast falling from favour. This year, all three of them are at school with sandwiches for four lunches a week and I felt inspired to make soup just for us, getting more adventurous with flavours.

So with a glut of tomatoes still to be processed last week, I came upon this South African tomato and onion soup recipe of Juno’s. Roasting the onions and tomatoes gives a far richer and more intense flavour than your average tomato soup, and with the addition of some Tabasco sauce, it was warming and suitably grown-up. I have to confess to not following all instructions and quantities to the letter and ended up creating a huge mess in the kitchen, as I used both food processor and mouli to get the texture I wanted. I didn’t leave everything softening in the oven quite long enough, as I had bread impatiently queuing up to go in at a higher temperature. The end result was superb though and kept the two of us happy and warmed for three weekday lunches.

Inspired by this success I put some white beans on to soak, intending to find a new exciting recipe for them. Google didn’t come up with just the recipe my tastebuds had in mind, so I ended up putting together elements from several, and my new creation is bubbling on the stove for lunch today. Now I’ve just got to taste it and decide whether it’s worthy of entering into Taste magazine’s soup competition in which case it might have to stay a secret… except that now you know it’s got beans as an important ingredient!

This afternoon, spring bulbs need planting, it’s a still, sunny, warm day, the first oxalis are peeping out of the dry looking earth, the watsonia leaves way ahead of the rest of the pack of spring bulbs, even though they won’t flower until September and the sun birds are merrily flitting between the wildedagga flowers and the tekoma, glittering iridescent as their wings catch the sunlight, making time to play in between the busyness of living.

Autumn on the farm is pretty good.

Autumn Festival - Pumpkins, Sand and Straw Angels

2010-04-01T16:59:00.008+02:00

Preparations in the sandpit

Our Autumn Festival combines sand and water, pumpkins and straw angels, toddlers and big kids in a fine celebration of harvest and earth. Mix them all up and you have a recipe for sand strewn around the house, a carpet of cut restios and raffia over the floor and a new generation of small kids discovering the delights of limitless space out on the farm.

Our kids are now the big kids. It seems not long ago that they were the littlies, loving chasing around after older kids after supper, playing hide and seek in the mysterious darkness of the stoep until way after their bed-time.

Now they are the ones who know what is what, spend hours constructing elaborate castles and try to stop the little ones from destroying them too soon. They can make their own straw angels without any help now, and they are no longer just straw but weave flowers and and all sorts into the making.

They are also very gentle with the toddlers helping them bounce on the trampoline and making sure not to leap too wildly themselves when a delicate little fairy of a toddler who has only just found her feet on solid ground decides to wobble precariously in their midst.

This year I gladly left the carving of pumpkins to the first volunteers to arrive and they cheerfully produced some gorgeous grinning lanterns.

Instead of pumpkin soup I’d planned on doing a baked pumpkin dish to go with the bean stew that my sister-in-law specializes in. I couldn’t find a recipe for what I had in mind, so just made it up and it turned out pretty well. Wedges of red onion tossed in with the pumpkin bits rescued from the lanterns, a sprinkling of cumin and cinnamon, olive oil, salt and pepper and then afterwards a generous scattering of Nomu egyptian dukkah. It was good, gentle enough in flavour to be a side dish and not steal the lime light, but interesting in its own right too.

One of our friends took the straw angel theme and went way beyond our usual creative efforts to produce a stunning restio/straw woman and man to go on the top of our archway. When the almost full moon came up behind them, it created a wonderful mystical energy that seemed to link back to the age-old harvest traditions of ancient Cornwall or Scotland, evoking fertility for the land and prosperity for its people.

This year our festival coincided with Earth Hour, and the prospect of switching off all the lights and appliances and lighting the house with candles with a bunch of toddlers on the loose was just a little unnerving. In the end it was fine. We just remembered to put out the lights at 8.30, by which time several of the little ones were drowsy anyway. Tea lights in glass cups glowed on low tables and high, and though we kept a weather eye on them there were no incidences of pyromania. That had already been indulged in by the big kids with the pumpkin lanterns in the circle, so no doubt the little ones will soon learn the joys of fire.

Delving Into the Goodie Bag

2010-03-26T21:53:00.003+02:00

The Cape Town Food Bloggers Conference on Sunday is nearly a week gone, but the flavours are lingering. Some in the memory, like Jenny Morris’ wonderful pear and blue cheese tart which has outlived all the other wonderful lunch dishes in my taste bud memory bank, and my first ever sushi from Saul's (I’ve lived on a farm with small kids for a long time now!). Other flavours brought home in the hefty goodie bag to peruse at leisure or inhale rapidly (like the Lindt chocolate bar).

I got lucky and won a whole box of Kara’s Original Greek herb and spice mix. I decided to try it out as a marinade for some beef strips, which I was briefly stir frying to go in tortillas, along with some extra garlic and olive oil. Mixing culinary metaphors de luxe here I know, but I couldn’t see any reason why tortillas shouldn’t have a Greek flavour once in a while. The verdict from my family was positive and I really liked the simplicity of the Greek herbs, transporting me straight to a Mediterranean shore and a dry scrubby island hillside scratchy with wild herbs. Oregano, rosemary, garlic, mustard and black pepper are listed as ingredients and I can see them going wonderfully with chunks of lamb char-grilled over the coals of our next braai. So thanks Kara, I've never yet been to Greece, but now I can waft there on an aroma of herby freshness!

The other thing I’ve sampled was the Verlaque balsamic reduction with Persian pomegranate. It’s a sweet fruity vinegar infusion, gentle in flavour and perfect for salads where you don’t want too aggressive a dressing. I tried it drizzled over sliced avocado and tomatoes and it mellowed nicely to a background note of fruit.

The Lindt chocolate bar is long gone. Mine was a crème brulée version, really rich and sweet, more like a pudding than a bar of chocolate and I swore it was too sweet for me… yet the packet is empty and I alone am responsible!

Non-food memories of the event are the fun of meeting fellow South African bloggers for the first time, listening to some excellent talks by Cooksister, Juno, Sam and Nina, and gathering new impetus to add life to my nearly four year old blog. My blogiversary is next week and the old lady (borrowing from Charlotte’s imagery on her 4th blog birthday) desperately needs a facelift, or at least a haircut and a new outfit.

I now intend to take the tripod into the kitchen more often and give myself more time to take photos before the food is devoured, find a new banner photo, who knows where the old one disappeared to, update my blog roll and post more consistently. My blog is unlikely to become a pure food blog, despite all the inspiration from the conference, as the family, farm and snippets of life here will always be jostling for room, but our life here does revolve around food, no day complete without it, and my blogging will always be a reflection of that.

So here's to another year of food and flavours. Now I need to figure out what to do with the organic coconut oil from Kapruka. Any ideas?

Vinegar for Cleaning – A Mild Obsession

2010-03-25T20:59:00.002+02:00

The smell of vinegar wafts in my nostrils. This time it is not balsamic, not destined to adorn crinkly salad leaves or rich marinades. It is plain old spirit vinegar, not going anywhere near my food if I can help it, but my latest discovery on the cleaning front.

I’ve never been a neat freak. My Virgo star sign has never yet extended its renowned attention to detail to the housework. I have a high tolerance threshold for dust and clutter and, as long as the kitchen is wiped down regularly, I usually manage to turn a blind eye to the rest. So my latest obsession with environmentally sound (and cheap) cleaning alternatives has to be put down to a hormonal obsessive compulsive episode. Tomorrow it will probably be over and the house will settle back into its shabby chic dustiness with a sigh of relief.

But for now I have discovered the joys of surface cleaner in a squirty bottle. Half and half vinegar and water is all you need for instant, non-polluting, spray-on, wipe-off shiny brightness. It works on the counters, on the sink, on the fridge, on the cooker. I’ve wiped the light switches (I swear that never in my life before have I cleaned a light switch or even noticed their grubbiness… it must be the hormones). I even started wiping the plug sockets. I took apart the free-standing fan which has gathered a warm cloak of woolly dust over the last couple of years but now is pristine and sparkling. My husband was getting worried that if he sat still long enough he’d be on the receiving end of a squirt of vinegar water and a wipe with a damp cloth.

I Googled vinegar and found about a hundred uses for vinegar in cleaning, some alone and others combined with bicarbonate of soda. It’s a revelation! No more need for a cluster of specialist chemical cleaning fluids cluttering up the place. Just one big bottle of vinegar and a tub of bicarb…. but I might tire of the smell.

I can feel the obsession dwindling to liveable proportions as the hormones recede. I haven’t yet made it around the whole house and my computer still bears a gentle layer of dust. Probably a true neat freak visiting would still be horrified at the state of our house, in fact I know they would. Straw bales with clay plaster, a posse of sandy farm dogs, a clutch of cats with a liking for sleeping on the ironing board and three kids of a creative disposition, don’t make for labour saving neatness But I know those light switches are sparkling, so I can hold my head up high with the rest of the Virgo brigade.

Anyone got any frugal and environmentally brilliant cleaning tips, just in case this uncharacteristic obsession keeps on for a little while longer?!

Late Summer Tomato Fest

2010-03-19T20:20:00.003+02:00

Our son is away for the night taking part with his class in the Waldorf schools’ Greek Olympics. They do all sorts of ancient Greek athletic events and sleep out under the stars, for a taste of what is was like for those Spartan youths way back when. Except they have nice warm sleeping bags to tuck up in and a blow up mattress to keep out the damp. By the time we go to watch them compete tomorrow I’m sure they’ll all be knackered, but hopefully they will have had fun.

Back home I took the opportunity of his absence to cook something he hates – pasta with a fresh tomato sauce. Our self-seeded tomatoes are still going crazy and loving this late summer sunshine, so when I went to pick as the sun was setting, it was like collecting bright baubles off the Christmas tree. Every time I moved I could see another one glowing in the depths of the tangled vine. My colander was overflowing with little red rosa tomatoes in no time and there are loads still to pick.

With so many gorgeous fresh tomatoes it would be a crime to open a tin of the lesser stuff, so I changed my quick tuna and tinned tomato pasta sauce recipe to use fresh ones instead and it was a hit with the girls.

It doesn't look that pretty but tasted great!

Pasta with fresh rosa tomatoes, tuna and fresh basil

150g fresh rosa tomatoes (or as many as you like!)
1 clove garlic, peeled and halved
3-4 tablespoons olive oil
1 tin tuna
fresh basil
salt and pepper
300g farfalle pasta

Start the pasta cooking first, as this sauce is really quick.
Halve all the tomatoes.
Heat the olive oil with the garlic clove in it, then remove the garlic once it turns light gold.
Add the tomatoes and turn them in the sizzling oil. Season with salt and pepper.
As soon as they are softened but not mushy (only 1-2 minutes) turn off the heat.
Stir in the drained tuna and torn basil leaves. Check the seasoning.
As soon as the pasta is al dente, drain it and toss with the sauce.
You don't need parmesan, but could perhaps add some diced feta or goats cheese for an extra dimension.
Buon appetito!

I hope our son got something to eat that he liked too.

Now I'm having a bit of an anxious time over my latest batch of yoghurt, for which I'm trying a new culture. I peeked at it way too early and it wasn't set, so I just hope I haven't scared it into not setting. I'll update the yoghurt adventures here, when I know!

Further Yoghurt Adventures

2010-03-14T20:35:00.004+02:00

I’m getting the hang of this yoghurt making business now. The third batch came out a little on the sharp side, much to Youngest’s displeasure. A fair amount of Googling later, I came to the conclusion that I had left it incubating too long.

Once it has set, any further time just allows the yoghurt to get tangier and sharper. So overnight was too long in the case of the culture that I am using. Most of the guides suggest 6-8 hours, but in my latest batch I checked after 4 hours and it was set already, quite tangy, and I think I just caught it in time before the cultures had partied on too long and got the tang levels too high. Phew! I shoved it in teh freezer for half an hour to calm them down, then left them in the fridge overnight and now have the best batch so far.

I have high hopes that it will be acceptable to Youngest. She is the one who eats the most plain yoghurt without mixing in anything else (virulent pink, smooth, strawberry yoghurt in our son's case), so I don’t want to drive her to adding sugar by getting it wrong, and there’s no way I’m going back to buying her favourite brand of plain yoghurt now that I’ve discovered the joys of home-made.

The other tip from my Google trip that I tried, which worked well, was creating a double boiler from two saucepans that sort of fitted one in the other, so that the milk can be heated without it burning on the bottom of the pan.

It leaves you with that much less scrubbing later and it was easier to heat in a controlled way.

I also found the solution to the initial stringy texture in my first batch - I'd used a bought live yoghurt that had corn starch as a thickener - apparently that or pectin results in that strange elasticity. Luckily by the third batch, using each last batch as a starter, that effect had completely gone and now the texture is perfect.

I went one step further today and made the rest of the too tangy batch into yoghurt ice cream. Several people recommended draining the yoghurt through muslin first, to reduce the water content and get a creamier frozen yoghurt. In the absence of muslin I used a new J-cloth, well-rinsed, and it worked fine.

I got a cupful of whey from it (that strange cloudy liquid in the background of the picture), which is supposed to be excellent in baking and full of good enzymes and minerals, so that I kept for my next batch of bread.

Somehow I got very excited about the whole neat process of dairying: turning milk into yoghurt, using the whey, and turning excess yoghurt into ice cream. It's not just that it is frugal with no waste, which often seems like a good thing but rather dull, it is something about the whole natural cycle of it with everything slotting into place and nothing being thrown out or wasted... and more importantly it all tasting good. Now all we need is our own cow... but I'm not quite ready to start milking one yet!

After all that domestic goddessness, I felt I should be adding home-grown organic fruit puree to make my first ever yoghurt ice cream, but I blew my self-sufficiency badge and any chance of earth mother status and used tinned peaches instead. The only ripe fruits we have at the moment are tomatoes and I couldn’t really see the kids going for tomato flavoured ice cream.

The peach yoghurt ice cream is now in the freezer so I have to wait until tomorrow to taste the results, but pre freezing it was pretty darn good. Just hope it passes the child taste test. This could be the answer for any yoghurt batches that get too sharp in the future, that and yoghurt muffins. Gotta have a back up plan.

Adventures in Yoghurt

2010-03-12T20:15:00.001+02:00

It took me a long time to get my head around making my own bread. I thought it would be too fiddly to fit into my day, all that rising and knocking down and stuff. Once I tried my first ever white loaf I never looked back and we’ve been eating home-made bread ever since. Now it has become just part of the daily routine, like doing the dishes, or putting on a load of washing.

So why has it taken me so long to try making my own yoghurt? I’ve been thinking about it for a few years, and dismissed it. After all I’m already making our bread, so why add another thing to the list of chores. But it’s been creeping up on me and last week I finally bit the bullet and gave it a go.

I did my research on the internet and found several accounts of yoghurt making that de-mystified it nicely and finally one that told me how to do it without a thermometer. So on Saturday I gave it a go.

The whole process is straightforward:
1: Heat up the milk to just below boiling to kill any bacteria
2. Let it cool to a temperature that is comfortable to dip your finger in and hold it there.
3. Stir in 2 tablespoons of live yoghurt.
4. Put in clean jars and tuck up nicely at a warm temperature for 6-8 hours.
5. Refrigerate.

And it worked! The yoghurt thickened and set and both girls pronounced it edible, though Youngest didn’t like it as much as the Darling yoghurt that we usually buy. Unfortunately that one doesn’t have live cultures in, at least it doesn’t say so on the label, so I can’t use it as a starter.

The only thing I wasn’t quite happy with is that the yoghurt had a slight stringiness to it when it dripped. I looked up that on one of the sites I’d read and found that it could be due to too hot a temperature when it is brewing. The two jars disappeared quite quickly anyway, so I’ve since tried another batch which had a better texture and more of the tanginess that Youngest was missing in the first one. So it looks like I’m on a roll here. Yoghurt making should be quite easy to slot into an evening after the kids are in bed or even while I’m making supper. It can then be tucked up overnight in the cool box, wrapped in a towel, until morning when it will have miraculously turned into nice creamy yoghurt.

One puzzle though from my second batch: The two jars were full, so I put the extra amount into a bowl covered with clingfilm and tucked it into the cool box next to the jars. In the morning, they had set but the yoghurt in the bowl was still runny. I warmed it again and added a little more live yoghurt to try and persuade it to set. When I came back to look at it a few hours later, it had separated perfectly into curds and whey. I’ve drip-dried it and now have a little ball of something approximating cream cheese!

I’ve just made a third batch, which isn’t at all stringy, but Youngest said tasted a bit sour, so I now have to try and get the right balance and work out the exact right combination of factors to get the perfect result.

If there are any experts on yoghurt making out there, I’d love any hints and tips on refining my yoghurt-making, without having to buy any fancy gadgets..

Recycling

2010-03-04T15:17:00.003+02:00

One of the everyday problems of living on a farm is dealing with rubbish. There are no convenient collections of black plastic bags, magically whisked away to a landfill site a nice distance away from civilization. In the good old days of course there was very little that you couldn’t either compost or re-use on a self-sufficient small farm. But we live in the good old nowadays, which means milk in plastic 2 litre jugs (we don’t have our own cow, not much of a farm!), endless cardboard packaging, cat food tins and miscellaneous bits of plastic packaging.

All of this we have to dispose of somehow. Anything that can’t be composted goes into a big pit a little distance from the house and is burnt. It's been a thorn in my environmental conscience for a long time, but it’s the best we can do, unless we shove those stinky plastic sacks into the back of the car and drive them, using precious fuel, to the dump near our local town and let them fill up their big pit with our rubbish.

Recycling has also been a problem. I refuse point blank to chuck glass into the rubbish pit and the same with tins. But our local town doesn’t have any of those handy bottle banks that are so liberally strewn round Europe and to make recycling worth doing is has to be in a place you are going to anyway on a regular basis. A special journey pretty much cancels out the ecological virtue of all your efforts.

So I was really overjoyed to discover, when I googled local recycling facilities for the nth time, that our local dump actually does have a recycling facility. I rang them up and spoke to an efficient young man who explained exactly which plastic they do and don’t recycle and gave me directions to the dump.

For the next two weeks I diligently separated out the plastic 1s and 2s (good to recycle) from the 5s (all our yoghurt pots, not good, but being reused to plant cuttings) until I had a large sack full of plastic, two bags of tins and a bag of cardboard. I skimmed the surface of our bottle mountain at the back of the garage and filled two boxes with dusty bottles and then drove off to town my halo glowing just a little (low energy bulb of course).

This is recycling African country style. I was given a friendly wave at the weigh bridge and directed over to the recycling depot: a large open fronted shed, with a fork lift truck busy tidying up, by shoving a mountain of recyclable material further into the depths of the shed. The driver climbed down to help me unload. My carefully sorted bags seemed faintly ridiculous in the face of the mountain, but he carried each one over to a lady who was in charge of a conveyor belt. Along the conveyor belt sat a string of other ladies. Bags were emptied onto one end and sorted as it went along. My bottles were dumped straight on, the other bags added to the enormous heap beside and around it. The system obviously works as there were enormous bales of sorted plastic and crushed cans stacked outside.

After my first visit I came away feeling good about it. Not only was my rubbish being recycled instead of polluting the air we breathe and the earth we live on, but at least 10 women were being employed and earning a wage sorting it. A subsequent visit today in the heat, with flies busy showing that not everyone washes out their recyclables, and an ever present mountain of mixed plastic tins and cardboard that never seems to get any smaller, made me think that it must be an extremely dispiriting job to do and perhaps nice tidy bottle banks would be a step forward, but then who would feed their families... an ever present African dilemma.

One side-effect of the recycling drive is that we have far less rubbish in our main kitchen bin. This was great in cool weather, but our summer has now hotted up. First thing in the morning last week my husband called me through to the kitchen in a doom-laden voice. Silently he pointed to the floor around the bin. Without my glasses on I could just distinguish some white specks liberally strewn around.
"Has somebody spilt the rice?" I ventured.
And then even without my glasses I could see the grains were moving, making a break for freedom from the confines of our nicely stewed bin. Maggots… It was left to my husband to vacuum them up.

Hope for Haiti – A Food Blogging Charity Raffle

2010-02-23T20:55:00.002+02:00

Jeanne at Cooksister has put together a great raffle to raise funds for relief work in Haiti. Now you can donate money and have a chance of winning some great prizes at the same time. Just visit Cooksister and see if some of the prizes don’t tempt you into bidding for them. I’ve been having trouble deciding between several signed cook books and some delicious French baking goodies, but I’ve made a choice at last.

If you can afford a GBP6.50 (about $10 or R80) ticket then go and choose a prize to bid for now… the draw closes at midnight on Sunday 28th Feb and prizes can be shipped worldwide. Just remember to note the code for the prize you’ve chosen to enter it at the end of the donation process.

About the campaign:

H2Ope for Haiti is an online raffle that Cook Sister! has launched together with BloggerAid - Changing the Face of Famine (BA-CFF) to raise funds for Concern Worldwide's relief effort in Haiti. They've selected Concern Worldwide because of its long track record and quick response after the quake to provide clean drinking water and water purification tablets. This non-governmental international humanitarian organisation founded in 1968 works around the world to reduce suffering and work towards the ultimate elimination of extreme poverty in the world's poorest countries. Concern International has been working in Haiti since 1994 and had over 100 staff members on the ground when the earthquake struck. Despite losing several team members in the tragedy, they have been quick to act with distribution of supplies.

Concern Worldwide estimates that its initial response to the emergency will last at least six months. The money raised by this raffle will be paid directly into Concern Worldwide's account by Justgiving and will be used exclusively for the Haiti relief effort.

On Cook Sister! you will find the list of all the wonderful prizes from the generous donors - from personally autographed cookbooks to parcels of French baking goodies to original art - there is something for everyone. Unless stated otherwise, all prizes are available for worldwide shipping and tickets cost £6.50 (roughly $10) each. Once you have chosen the prize or prizes you want to buy tickets for, take a note of their prize codes (very important!) and click through to our Justgiving donations page where you will find complete instructions on how to buy your tickets and specify your chosen prizes. Please read and follow the instructions carefully and e-mail my friend Jeanne (emailcooksister AT googlemail DOT com) if you have any questions.

Be My Guest – A Review

2010-02-23T10:12:00.002+02:00

I love cooking for people, having friends round for supper or lunch, Sunday lunches for twelve people or one of our festivals with forty. I’m great at tastes and flavours, feeding everyone well, but presentation is not my forte. A le Creuset casserole is one of my favourite inventions, going straight from the oven on to the table. We always eat at a long table in the kitchen end of our main room, which can be extended with another table, and another when necessary. Candles will be there and usually flowers, paper napkins only if I remember and no elaborate place settings. It’s more family kitchen meal than dinner party, even when I am doing a dinner party. It’s not that I don’t like beautiful styling, it’s just that I’d rather focus on the food and it would drive me crazy doing both.

So when I was asked to review Fay Lewis’ Be My Guest, I was thrilled. A book about entertaining might give me a few tips to smarten up my table. The book duly arrived, a beautiful thick hardback with lots of glossy photography. I settled down for an evening’s read on the sofa. And my Virgoan critical facility started to niggle. At first glance it is all about styling. Various beautiful scenarios have been created, with the help of several stylists and we are invited to recreate them at home… without a stylist. The photos are beautiful but intimidating for a non-style orientated person, with a minimum of practical tips on how to create the effects, leaving me with the feeling that I’d have to go on a major shopping expedition at a hip home store to throw a dinner party ever again.

There are lots of delicious sounding menus proposed for various events: a pool party, a tea party, a cocktail party, a festive celebration and so on. The recipes look good, are well-researched and well photographed, but, here’s my Virgo niggle again, I like recipe books that write about the food with introductions that tell you how it tastes or evoke something of the crunch or gooey ooze… tactile writing. I like to read about what I’m going to cook and I’ve just realized that the words are just as important to me as photos in gauging how a recipe will taste. This is just a personal preference, but I’d like to see more writing in this book!

Having said all that, I think this book could be a great help in planning menus and finding achievable recipes, when you want to put on a special event and have everything just so. Just remember that the effects in the book were most likely achieved by several people working together and if you are cooking and styling it all yourself, it will probably take a couple of days’ solid work to achieve the same.

I’ll probably have another read through, pick out a few recipes to try and carry on throwing my food on the table with a scattering of candles and flowers and then have to use kitchen towel for napkins… but that’s just me!

If you want to have another opinion, Homemade Heaven enjoyed the book much more than I did!

Heat, Hearts and Long Division

2010-02-20T12:09:00.004+02:00

I opened the door just now to be greeted by a wall of heat that was almost solid to the touch. Greeted is the wrong word though. It was more like the welcome you might get from a bouncer at a happening club when you turn up in a dirndl skirt and a neat blouse. The best option would have been to retreat inside to the cool shadowy interior of our house, but determination to conclude my mission drove me on. The laundry must be hung out to dry.

The summer has at last asserted itself with a vengeance, having had a half-hearted flirtation with autumn most unlike February, who usually doesn’t allow the faintest wisp of morning fog and chill nights to intrude on her dominion of heat. Two nights ago I went to bed with a hot water bottle and winter pyjamas. Today it is heading for 40 degrees and an afternoon spent by the swimming pool.

Middle Daughter made a batch of iced heart biscuits for her grandmother’s 88th birthday today. She also baked them for Valentines Day with a cluster of heart-shaped cookie cutters that were a Christmas present, and lovingly iced each one.

We had trouble getting the icing to the right consistency to pipe but she persevered, making one for each member of the extended family, with their initial on as well as silver balls and sprinkles. Unfortunately they didn’t all get delivered to their intended recipients. By Wednesday there was still a fair selection in the box. I was attacked by the munchies and consumed one or two that had somebody else’s initial on… I have been forgiven and this second batch should make sure that everyone gets a heart cookie baked with love. We used Nigella’s recipe for birthday cookies from Feast and they taste great.

And the good news is that I have finally got long division sussed. For some reason I never picked up how to do long division with remainders at school and it has been a mystery to me ever since. Middle Daughter missed two weeks of school with mumps and tonsillitis and, when she went back, her class were in the throes of long division. She came back with a homework sheet, saying she had no idea what to do. I got her to show me what they had been doing in class and was finally able to figure out the whole process they were supposed to use stepping down the page from each number. I have become an expert on it now and she proudly came back the other day saying that she had got 10/10, so I guess she has got her confidence going again too.