Nostalgia for high heeled shoes!

My daughters were raiding my shoe box, all the shoes that I hardly wear but think I might one day. My three year old teeters in to breakfast in a pair of black suede 3 inch heels...the highest heels I wear these days are on my Blundstone boots. Why am I keeping these shoes that would be agony if I tried to wear them nowadays? Nostalgia, I guess. It's nice to have a reminder that I used to be able to 'scrub up nice' on occasion, even as I sit here in my pajamas and sheepskin slippers the memory of a past self in sexy black dress and ridiculously high heels somehow managing to balance and take photos at a company do, can make me smile affectionately at my old self, which I guess is still in here somewhere and thank goodness that I'm happier now than then despite, or because of those sheepskin slippers!

Not Too Spicy Chicken Recipe - What Kids Will Eat

Today I decided to go wild! Fed up with all the cautious no spice children's food and playing safe so that they'll eat something at least, I revisited my Nigel Slater 30 minute Cook Book, which used to be my standby source of supper recipes BC (before children). Still playing somewhat safe I halved the quantities of spice in his Moroccan style chicken recipe and guess what, the children ate it without a murmur... well loads of murmuring to tell the truth, as in 'I don't like bones in my chicken', but no protests about spiciness.

So new doors of culinary exploration have opened for me. I can get fresh jars of cumin, coriander and turmeric (mine have been on the shelf so long, they can hardly remember the word 'hot') and try out any mildly spicy recipes I can find. Maybe one day I too can be one of those food bloggers, who cite exotic and wonderful dishes they threw together and photographed the other night and who make me feel very unadventurous and dull. Is there such a word as blog-envy?!

My version of the recipe:

Not Too Spicy Chicken Recipe

6 chicken drumsticks or thighs
1 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon paprika
2 cloves garlic
salt and black pepper
4 tablespoons olive oil
1 onion, finely chopped
1 teaspoon turmeric
a handful green olives
1 lemon
1 cup water

Crush the garlic and mix with the cumin, paprika, salt and black pepper and 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Marinade the chicken in this mix for 15 minutes or longer. Put the remaining olive oil in a casserole or shallow pan with a lid and saute the chicken pieces till golden, then remove them to a plate while you saute the onions in the oil that is left over (add a little more if it is too dry). When the onions have softened, stir in the turmeric and olives and cook for 2 minutes. Return the chicken pieces to the pot, pour in the juice of one lemon and the cup of water and bring to a steady simmer. put the lid on and simmer for 15 minutes or until the meat is done. Serve with plenty of rice to soak up the juices.


Well I'm impressed that they ate it. Even though as a baby my son happily ate chicken korma baby food, since he went through the toddler stage of rejecting everything except a few basic carbohydrates, it has been a very tentative and gradual process re-introducing things to his conservative palate. We are currently at a halfway house: plain food with no sauces on is ok, ideally roast meat and roast potatoes, or rice with two pieces of chicken extracted from the stir-fry and carefully wiped clean of anything that might be sauce or a vegetable. I'm maligning him, he does eat broccoli and lots of fruit, but the preference is for unadorned carbohydrate, maybe in a previous life he came from a poor Eastern country where they only ate rice - I'm sure he'd be quite happy with that today!

My youngest, unphased by the fashion in food preferences, is quite happy to gnaw meat from a bone, eats soup with the vegetables and asked for more sauce from the spicy chicken...I sometimes feel like our family is an illustration from Jack Sprat and his wife...oh well, as long as the platter is licked clean by someone, even if it is the dogs or chickens benefitting.

By the way, the adults in the family liked the chicken too,, though if I was doing it just for us I'd double the spice quantities, give a kick to our jaded palates (or is it just aged palates - I'm sure my sense of taste has faded since I was a child).

A Bereavment in the Pet Family

Tragedy struck today. A week ago we got our children their first small pets - it was my son's birthday and he helped build a cage and then we went to a friend, who has animals to spare, and chose a young rabbit and a baby guinea pig, who were duely christened Speedy and Squeaky. Both very sweet and happy to be handled. Our border collies and cats were intrigued by the new additions and pretty much camped out by the cage, so we put up a makeshift barrier around it, until we could add on an enclosed run for the children to play with them in. Anyway today on our return from school the girls went straight off to see Squeaky and Speedy, I'm busy inside checking messages when I hear an anguished howl from my daughter. One of the dogs has grabbed Squeaky... she dropped him when I shouted and there were no broken bones, but he must have had internal injuries and an hour later died.

This was the children's first close experience of death and we spent the afternoon dealing with genuine grief, all expressed in different ways by each child. My eight year old son, sobbed briefly then went to bed with a headache and didn't want to talk about it cos it made him feel too sad. My five year old daughter said she hurt inside and wanted to cry but couldn't. My three year old felt sad and keeps saying that she liked Squeaky and that she doesn't want any of us to die ever. We had lots of talks about his spirit leaving his body and being happy to know that he was loved so much, and that we will never forget him but will feel less sad over time. When Dad came home from work we had a solemn burial and said goodbye to him.

It felt very important going through these emotions with my children. I felt grief too myself, it's amazing how much one small guinea pig can wriggle into your heart in the space of one week. We will go and choose another one on the weekend and build Fort Knox around the cage so it doesn't happen again.

No recipes today - I didn't bake bread and supper was a mediocre affair - my heart wasn't in it, but tomorrow is another day.

White Bread Recipe

Today we made white bread. Usually I bake Rye bread, as a healthy alternative and keep the white bread for high days and holidays, so a mid-week baking, brought on by running out of rye flour and hungry children devouring the last loaf at lunchtime, was a treat for the children. When I make white bread I give them each some dough to make themselves a roll for the next day. Better than play-dough cos you get to eat the result. We get some pretty weird shaped rolls emerging from the kitchen but they are yummy Mummy! Proudly the kids take them off to school for snack-time and even eat the crusts.

This recipe is the easiest way to start out on bread-making, the simplest form of bread there is.


White bread recipe

1kg white bread flour
15g instant yeast
1 tablespoon salt
about 700ml water

You need a large bowl or you can heap the flour onto a clean surface and make a well for the water. I use a bowl and mix the flour and salt, make a well for the yeast, then pour the water in gradually stirring with a knife. Once it has formed a dough, tip it out onto a floured surface and knead for 10 minutes, sprinkling on more flour as you go when it gets too sticky.

Knead by holding the dough with one hand and stretching it away with the heel of the other, fold it back on itself and repeat. It will start off sticky and lumpy and gradually become smooth. After 10 minutes it should rise up again if you dent it with your finger. Put it in the bowl again, cover with a plastic bag or cloth and leave in a warm place for an hour and a half till it has doubled in size.

Knock it down - squash all the air out of it again- then shape into two loaves, can be round, long, plaited or sculptural! Leave to rise again for 3/4 of an hour, again covering with a plastic bag or cloth, then bake at 200C/400F for 30 minutes. (If the kids make small rolls they'll be done sooner, check after 15 mins).

The great thing about bread is that it'll be edible even if you overbake it, just crustier. My only failure with this recipe was the first time I made it, when I made one huge loaf with this quantity and the centre was a bit underdone, but even then we could eat the rest of it.

Cool it on a wire rack and try not to scoff the lot while it is still warm...

Wild Child Limerick and Birthday Party Food

My newly eight year old son, has been hearing some of the Just So stories at school including the one about how the elephant got its trunk. The elephant's child being overly curious and its then moderate snout being stretched and stretched by a crocodile. This combined with a spate of birthday parties brought on this limerick:

The elephant's favourite child
was normally so meek and mild,
but a trunkful of sweets
and E-number filled treats
and boy you should have seen him go wild.

My son's birthday party was relatively E-number and sweet free, except for the chocolate coin treasure and the birthday cake covered in Smarties, which I reckon are essential...and, now I remember it, my Supermum halo slipped a bit and I supplied marshmallows (which are nothing but sugar and E-numbers!) to toast over the camp fire but it was a cowboy and indian party and what else can eight year olds do with a camp fire!

Otherwise they devoured large amounts of marmite sandwiches and honey sandwiches, ready salted chips, sausages and even the carrot sticks, cherry tomatoes and grapes, all with equal gusto. I probably could have thrown in some even more nutritious food - eight year olds seem to have a permanent hunger upon them, especially after chasing around finding the clues for the treasure hunt.

So it is possible to do healthy food for a child's birthday party without being lynched by a mob of sugar deprived monsters, in fact I think you're more likely to be held up at gunpoint by mini bandits demanding party packs, if they have been on a sugar binge!

Winter Stews

A long time since my last post, due to technical hitches. In the meantime winter has descended upon us here in South Africa, the long awaited rains have started to transform the countryside from brown to green and freezing cold draughts whistle in through unsuspected holes in the eaves. In a country that doesn't know what central heating is, we light a roaring fire, pile on the blankets and go to bed with a hot water bottle. Now we can bring out all the recipes that call for long, slow cooking. The oven on a low heat gently warming the kitchen and filling it with appetising aromas as astew or casserole simmers gently. As unthinkable in the summer to have the oven on for long periods adding to the already considerable heat in the kitchen as it would be to eat a meal of stew and baked potatoes. Definitely winter fare.

The important thing about a stew is to give it plenty of time to cook slowly - think two or three hours or more, so that the meat is so tender that it is falling off the bones. You can and should use the cheaper cuts of meat, the bones add flavour and density to the stew too. Use plenty of vegetables in with the meat for flavour and goodness to produce a hearty meal at no great expense. I always start with the standard base of onions, carrots and celery, then add sweet potatoes, turnip or potatoes or mushrooms. The herbs could be bay leaves, thyme or rosemary. The vegetables soften first in olive oil, the meat is dipped in seasoned flour and browned seperately then added to the vegetables with a tin of tomatoes or the end of a bottle of red wine, some stock or just water to just cover the meat. Then it can sit, with a tight lid, in a 150C oven for a 2-3 hours with no attention needed other than to cook some potatoes or rice to go with it. This works with beef and lamb, chicken needs less time - maybe 1 1/2 hours.

I have yet to try out the hay box method , where you bring the stew to simmering point in the morning, cover with a tight lid, then put in a well insulated box, so that when you come home from work it has cooked in its own heat, partly because I can't imagine getting it together to put anything on to cook early in the morning. Let me know if you are masters of this though - I'd like to try it.

Banana Bread Recipe

Banana bread, the bread that's really cake, but not too sweet, plenty of chew to it, perfect in the morning with a cup of tea. No need to ice it, in fact better not and just the thing to use up that bunch of overripe bananas in the fruit bowl, that are perfectly ok but no-one will eat cos they're just beginning to go squishy. It keeps well too.

Banana Bread Recipe

240g plain flour
125g butter
250ml/1cup sugar
4 ripe bananas, peeled and mashed
2 eggs
2ml salt
5ml bicarbonate of soda
65ml water
7ml baking powder

Cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Stir in mashed bananas and beat to combine thoroughly. Beat in the eggs one at a time.
Sift the flour and salt into the mixture and stir in. Dissolve the bicarb into the water and stir in then add the baking powder stirring again. Pour the mixture into a greased and lined large loaf tin and bake at 180C for about 45 mins. It is done when a skewer comes out clean and the top is firm and springy. Cool in the tin.

The first rains of autumn have started this weekend, which meant a Saturday afternoon of keeping the children busy inside. It is funny how on a sunny day they are perfectly capable of keeping themselves busy inside, but if it's raining suddenly organised activity is called for. My answer is to put them to work baking biscuits.

The seven and five year olds can manage, with only a little help to weigh ingredients, then I leave them to it, shut my eyes and deal with the mess later. The three year old doesn't want to be left out, but only really wants to taste the mixture and cut out the odd cookie, so it is more an exercise in diplomacy than a culinary adventure. But the afternoon goes by quickly and they can proudly offer their own biscuits to visiting family later on. I used recipes, surprise surprise, from Nigella Lawson's 'How to Eat', which has a great section on cooking with children. The cheese biscuit recipe is very tasty and is our standard thing to take to school festivals and for kids parties, the adults scoff them down pretty quickly too.

Herbal teas for high cholesterol

My husband got back his test results for cholesterol levels...aaagh...way over the safety limit. Various conventional drugs seem to have drawbacks, so a phone call to our homeopath produces among other things the suggestion of homeopathic olea europea.

This sets off the thought processes, cogs whirr, olea europea is the olive tree, of which we have plenty growing in our herb garden.. check what Margaret Roberts (our South African herb and tissue salt guru) says on the olive tree. Hey presto, you can make a tea with quarter of a cup of leaves and sprigs to one cup boiling water, leave to infuse for five minutes and sip slowly, 1-2 cups a day. It is good for loads of things including: lowering high blood pressure, antiviral, antibacterial, lowering blood sugar, cystitis - get her book Herbal Teas for Healthy Living for the full run down.

Other herbal teas she suggests for high cholesterol are: basil, celery, fennel, green tea, parsley and turmeric. i assault my poor husband with olive leaf tea first, then try turmeric then finish him off with green tea, which is supposed to have miraculous properties too but makes him feel queasy. We'll stick to the olive leaf tea for a while and see how it goes - you're supposed to take it for 10 days then break for 3 days before starting again.

I was going to give a recipe for banana bread today too, as we had a load of bananas overripe to use up, but it'll have to wait till tomorrow now as it is kids' bedtime and stories are required.

Pasta Recipe

I've been trying to write down my quick and easy pasta with tuna recipe today for the website we are building. Discovered it takes far longer to write it than to cook it. All I usually do is put water on to boil for the pasta. Chop some garlic and ginger and saute in olive oil very gently, chuck in the tuna and some herbs, salt and pepper then toss with the cooked pasta. The trouble comes when I try to give exact quantities and allow for different possibilities such as adding some fresh tomato etc. My own made up recipes don't tend to be very exact, come out different each time I make them which is half the fun - variety being the spice of life and all that.

A major change in my life - my youngest has just started kindergarten, aged 3 and a half, so suddenly I have the mornings free for undisturbed work. A huge mental shift, accompanied by bursts of nostalgia for the days of babies and toddlers. Part of the challenge is ignoring the housework, which can be done with the children around in the afternoon, and sitting down at the computer for long stretches of time - sitting down to anything for any length of time is fairly foreign to a full-time mother - time to readjust to the ways of the working world. She is loving it, so far, in the same class as her big sister, she knows most of the children already and has been itching to get her hands on the toys for months.

A rhyme I heard which sums up our household:

Cleaning a house,
where children are growing
is like shovelling snow
while it is still snowing

Eggs for Easter

Easter: a time, for mothers of primary school age children, of blowing eggs and then doing lots of baking to use them all up, so that we don't have to eat scrambled eggs again.

A silly Easter limerick inspired by the latest demand for eggs to decorate:

A cook who used lots of eggs
Said "I'm totally run off my legs,
For while I am beating
Everybody is eating
And leaving me only the dregs!

Well, my Simnel cake is finally in the oven. It had to wait till the children were in bed, previous attempts at mixing it being thwarted by various requests for help in the egg painting process, which means I'll be staying up late to take it out after its two and a half hours cooking. If I can stay awake long enough at least I'll get a chance to dip into the tempting stack of books from today's foray in the library. So far there hasn't been the chance to even riffle through one of them. The Simnel cake recipe I use is Delia Smith's from her Book of Cakes - ever reliable is Delia on the classics. It works every time. One tip: leave out the almond essence in the almond paste, unless you like it very almondy that is. I've converted a few anti-marzipan family members thus. It still has a gently nutty flavour but less in-your-face!

Recipe for Crunchies (or Flapjacks UK!)

I promised this recipe the other day and even though I've been to a children's party, feel sugared out and the last thing I want to think about is sweet syrup biscuits, here it is.

Oat Crunchies (or Flapjacks)
90g plain flour
180g rolled oats
125g dessiccated coconut
pinch of salt
125g sugar
2.5 ml/1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
125g butter
2 tablespoons golden syrup
5 ml/ 1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
30 ml milk

Combine flour, oats, coconut, salt, sugar and cinnamon in a mixing bowl. Gently melt together the butter and golden syrup, then stir into the dry ingredients. Dissolve the bicarbonate in the milk and add to the mixture stirring well. Tip into a greased baking tray, press down all over till even, with the back of a spoon. Bake at 350F/180C for 15-20 mins until golden brown. Cut into squares in tin then leave to cool for a while before taking out of the tin.

The subject of birthday parties can wait until another day, but here is one tip: for children and mothers who have over-indulged on sugar and junk food at a birthday party, take one Tissue Salt No.10 - Nat Phos before, during and after the party. This should reduce the monster effects of party food. Keep taking them every hour until normality is reached!

From Soup to Baking

Such are the vagaries of family life - yesterday I was making soup, as the only form of sustenance possible for a sick family - one child vomiting and headache, other two sniffles and chesty, husband all of the above - today, a clear cool sunny day, everyone is miraculously better, even all playing amicably together. I have time to work on the computer, help them with some sewing (felt creations for a family birthday imminent) and do some baking. Some days seem to stretch to accomplish all sorts of things, others shrink into nothing achieved and grouchiness.

Thankful that today was a good one, I managed to bake bread for the next couple of days (see my article Recipe for Rye Bread for the recipe), bake a cake for a visitor coming to tea (a wonderful recipe from Nigella Lawson's "Feast" for a Rosemary Cake. I do have books by other people but she is still my favorite, for practical delicious no-fuss recipes and I like her writing too!) and make a batch of crunchies for a children's play date tomorrow. Today I can polish up my Super-Mum halo, because sure as eggs is eggs, tomorrow will be another story.

There is a linguistic debate as to the crunchies in our family. We both speak good English, but it is on matters like these, that growing up in different countries makes itself felt. These biscuits (cookies in the U.S.), made of oats, syrup, butter etc are called Flapjacks in England, here in South Africa they are Crunchies. When we still lived in London I indoctrinated the children into calling them Flapjacks too, but now we're here in S.A. I'm beginning to lose the battle and surrender to the inevitable decline of standards! A recipe will follow in my next blog.

Soup kitchen

Beware sick child in the house! No work today, moans and groans issue from the sofa. A tummy bug has struck, one child down two to go, hopefully I'll get away without catching it too. Cooking goes by the board, something quick, easy and nutritious is needed. Easily digestible too. Luckily I've still got some turkey stock in the freezer, left from Christmas. Soup it is.

Chop two onions, fairly small. Garlic and fresh ginger very small. Olive oil and simmer gently to soften. Add some diced carrots and celery. Soften, then throw in the stock, simmer for half an hour then throw in a handful of small pasta shapes. Allow ten more minutes then serve - to the parents to stop them getting sick - the sick child of course turned up her nose at it. Try again during convalescence.

Fairy cakes for the market

It's market day tomorrow. Once a month I run a stall at the local market to raise funds for our kindergarten - mostly this means baking fairy cakes, decorating them garishly and selling them along with my surplus jam stocks and second-hand children's clothes. Sometimes we make a decent amount of money, but mostly we are there to let people know that the kindergarten exists.

Anyway my standard recipe originally came from Nigella Lawson's How to Eat, which has for a while been my culinary bible. I have used this recipe so many times that I feel like I've acquired squatter's rights in it - for all the background writing go and read her book, but I'll share my version of the recipe here and hope she doesn't mind. One thing about recipes is that they are handed down the generations of cooks, with adaptations here and there, ever evolving, so no one person ever has intellectual property rights over it - food culture is about sharing after all.

Fairy Cake Recipe
125g self-raising flour
125g caster sugar
125g butter
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla essence
pinch saltl
1 teaspoon baking powder
3 tablespoons milk

Put all the ingredients except the milk into a food processor and blitz. Add the milk, so it gets to a soft consistency. Line a muffin or tart tin with paper cases and put a generous dessert spoon of mixture into each. Makes 12. Bake at 200C for 15-20 mins. Cool on rack. Once cool, choose between tasteful and lurid decoration. My favorite is plain white icing (icing sugar with a little water added) topped with a Smartie and hundreds and thousands. Or you can do a grown-up version with two-tone chocolate and white icing piped on in different patterns.

Surprisingly or not, adults do like these. They are light and fluffy and if you are sparing with the icing, not too sweet. I get into trouble for taking them all to the market and not saving some for my husband at home. Must go and check the clothes for the market stall, my youngest daughter has a habit of reclaiming her outgrown clothes from the market stock and squeezing into them to assert ownership. It's hard being three.