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by Michéle

Simply hummus

February 20, 2012 in Sauces & side dishes, Soups, starters and light meals

1 Comment »

I love simple things in life and food is number one simplicity for me. Unadorned, fresh, seasonal and impulsive food … spur-of-the-moment food is my best. Having had a culinary fest of note this weekend starting on Friday already, I yearn for earthy food today. All that comes to mind, like an obsession which it is, is hummus. It counts as one of my top ten simple recipes. I’ve always felt that if you fool around with a hummus recipe, like a women that you fool around with, it loses its earthy, humble and honest appeal.

Everybody on earth may have a  hummus recipe but I want to add my simple one to the mix. And tell you the uses. Too many times hummus is served as a dip or bread spread – have you tried is as a sauce-condiment with meat (from a burger to a tagine) or vegetables or as a salad dressing? No? Now please liberate yourself and prepare the recipe below and go mad with the ideas. I cannot tell you my best use of it: probably the salad … or maybe the side order to a lamb tagine …  I dunno.

Simple ingredients …

 

A good, soft, hummus is not only good as a spread for bread and crackers or as a dip with chips or veggie sticks. No! For me, it’s best used as a sauce-cum-condiment with burgers or tagine-style stews or thinned down with a splash of water, as the best-dressing-ever for a mixed veggie salad. I often buy a bag of fresh julienne vegetables and toss a cupful of hummus into it. Sprinkled with chili flakes and chopped coriander leaves, you have the perfect meatless meal if you add a tray of steaming hot, fresh pita breads. Green beans, lightly cooked and adorned with softening hummus is a dream of simplicity to prepare and serve alongside a lamb roast … and so I can go on … Oy, mealtimes I miss the family …! Some foods are simply not singleton foods! Enjoy!

Simply Hummus

 

  • 500 ml cooked or canned chickpeas, drained but keep about 125 ml of the liquid
  • 65 ml Italian parsley, coarsely chopped
  • 2 – 3 large garlic cloves, coarsely sliced
  • 150 – 200 ml tahini (a paste made of roasted or raw sesame seeds)
  •  65 – 90 ml fresh lemon juice
  • 65 ml light olive oil (too fruity may make it tastes bitter)
  • 2.5 – 5 ml salt
  • To serve: toasted pine nuts (optional), chopped parsley, extra olive oil and a sprinkling of paprika or cayenne pepper

Place all the chickpeas and parsley in a blender and add roughly two-thirds of the garlic, tahini, lemon juice, olive oil and salt. Blend until smooth. Now taste and add and blend in more of the above ingredients until you love the taste. Now add enough of the chickpeas’ cooking or caning liquid until you love the consistency. Spoon into serving dishes and sprinkle with toasted pine nuts (if using, otherwise use a few whole chick peas), chopped parsley, extra olive oil and paprika or cayenne pepper to taste.

I think it makes about 700 ml but I’m not sure …! By the time I have made it, I have tasted such vast quantities of it, that there is no accurate measure left! SImple word of caution: if your olive oil is too fruity your hummus will be too … even veering towards having a bitter taste. So use light olive oil or a blend of olive oil and extra virgin sunflower oil (Checkers) for a subtle, almost sweet taste.

And if you want more Meatless Monday Recipes, click here , surf the recipe index and have yourself a feast!

 

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by Michéle

Real and honest food and work …

February 16, 2012 in Pasta & rice, Sauces & side dishes

6 Comments »

It may not be a fashionable or a popular hype, but if you want to add value to whatever you do, keep it exclusive and real. Honest. With good intentions; even if the intentions are to market yourself. As a fellow foodster and having made very good friends in this realm, I know what goes into writing a post. I know the hours, devotion, dedication, work, schlepp, excitement, despair, costs, and passion that go into writing one single post. And I also know the expectation … and why we do it.

Some of us do it to market something (like me with our business’s website), others do it to market their service, others do it for fun, and there are at least two biggies that I know personally doing it for sheer, loving passion and sharing – they do not even have a blog or website elsewhere!

But then … then, you get a few that do it to boost an ailing ego, to get strokes, love, acceptance, fame … who knows but one can spot them a mile away (like your slip is showing, madam) because their work is usually cold, lacks passion, looks hurriedly rushed off or … as we just witnessed yesterday, simply stolen.

I know that I am making myself a target again for the poison ivys and tweets and OMGs did you read what she now says again and so on, but I did write about it before and cautioned against lifting work. And now it has happened in our very dear midst and even though the perpetrator has been eliminated (at least his blog is, which is good enough for now), some of us are probably still being robbed of our authentic, wonderful, dear work and it wil happen again and again, believe me.

Yesterday saw me gobsmacked (trust me, at my age very little manages to smack my gob!) to witness the blatant, flagrant arrogant theft of a blogger having simply just lifted recipes and images from our two biggest blogger’s blogs! His fame and adoration from readers was snuffed out by late afternoon when he removed ALL his  old content and posted an image of a sad, shamed puppy dog with an apology. Too much too late, I say! Apparently he apologised in person to the bloggers he stole from claiming he ‘did not know’. Oy, lame dog excuse! A real tragedy is when the news broke early morning,  I saw he had had about 6 600 reads to date. But by end of play yesterday, he had tallied in excess of 10 000 reads from curious peeps. Wonder how many comments there were. I made three and none of them are repeatable … anywhere!

So, dears. Let’s just please take hands and agree that we on this platform, will keep the spirit of authenticity up and keep it exclusive and classy by being vigilante about other boggers using our work without our knowledge or permission. Remember, if they just add a link, it’s wrong and even illegal - it’s an infringement of your copyright. Using your work has to be done with your prior knowledge and permission! One seldom finds copyright and intellectual property theft in books and magazines as it is a hell of a story to remove material from print media, hello!

On the internet we are sitting ducks for the preying vultures and clinging vines who are probably only yearning to pump up their fragile and hurt little egos. To them, I have a simple message: if you think badly about yourself, just consider that you may have a point, and step it up. Being authentic and humble are probably the best you that you can be and that means, when it comes to work, delivering the best work you can, as authentic as can be. (BTW, if you ‘borrow’ content and change it more than 25%, you may call it your own).

And on that note of authenticity here is an authentic Italian tomato sauce for pasta. It is not my own and I could not find the author – he or she apparently  lived in the 14th century and died more or less around that time. All records are lost so here, with my love and devotion and humbleness is one of my favourite meals on earth because it is simple and honest and real  …   (Suddenly I have a hunch I posted this before ….. oy, but I have to go so it will have to be a repeat – so sorry but the HRT patches may have to come back :-) )

Sugo al Pomodoro is a simple Italian tomato sauce. Like all classic dishes, there are many recipes around, each cook claiming her or his is the best or the original but it’s good to know that actually, there is no such thing as a ‘one and only’ recipe for anything on earth. Some sugo recipes contain carrot and celery, but I prefer the humbleness of tomatoes, onions and herbs –  with ‘simple’ being my idea of classic.

Classic Tomato Sauce for pasta

  • 30 ml olive oil
  • 1 large onion, chopped finely
  • 2 or more large cloves garlic, finely chopped
  • 2 x 425 g cans chopped diced tomatoes
  • 45 ml tomato paste
  • salt, milled black pepper and sugar
  • 45 ml chopped parsley or basil
  • 500 g spaghetti
  • grated parmesan cheese

Heat the oil and add the onion. Sauté until translucent then reduce heat and cook on low until the onion is soft and caramelized. Add the garlic and cook briefly. Add the tomatoes and tomato paste and bring to a boil. Cook  uncovered until the sauce is reduced and thick. Season to taste with the salt, pepper and sugar and stir in the herbs.

Meanwhile, cook the pasta as directed on the pack. When done, drain (do not rinse), season and add a few drops of olive oil. Toss and serve with the tomato sauce and parmesan cheese.

Serves 4 – 6

If you want to PRINT or DOWNLOAD this recipe for your records, click here for the I love cooking recipe website.

 

 

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by Michéle

When happy is really happy

February 13, 2012 in Fish & shellfish, Soups, starters and light meals

8 Comments »

If it’s Valentine’s day it means there are about three hundred and twenty shopping days left to Christmas - just enough time for us to get through Easter, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Secretary’s Day and Women’s Day and any other day that floats your personal little boat. It’s dizzying stuff, I tell you, all this shopping and specials and fish-paste and blah and hype …  (Oy, guess who’s extra-grumpy this morning) But suffice to say from a person who’s rejected the Xmas hype (read a post in December), the Valentine’s day hype also gets me going off on a tangent. Of course I know that this day is extremely personal to all of us in our own unique way, but truth is that Valentine’s day has caused as much dejection, heartache and tears and arguments and break-ups as extra marital affairs if not more!

One word: expectation. Not all of us have the emotional maturity to make fun or light of this day, ignore it or brush it off as a commercial hype. There are some people who crave and  expect some love validation this day and if they do not get it, well, reactions can range from vengeance against the oke that did not do the red roses thing to serious thoughts of suicide by a chubby spotty teen with braces.

Not that I balk at the day and its sentiment per se, no, it’s the hype.  No, it’s actually not the hype, correction: it’s great to get excited and share it with others. To be exact: it’s the excuse it gives people and companies to hype themselves sky high … And by now my authentic readers, you know how I feel about insincere, unauthentic, self-hypers – oy and it’s often my job to help make hype for brands … but luckily I have emotionally secure, mature, classy, clients who realize that hollow hype is harmful to their brands …

So, after all of that, here is my take on Valentine’s day; adults only, meaning adults older than 45 years who know a fun thing when they see it. So dears, let’s unite and for a change this year,  let’s forgo the gravitas of emotions and expectations and even not celebrating Valentine’s this year. Let’s have fun on the event this year! Eat oysters and bust the myth. Or confirm it. And then, please, please blog about your findings. That will be a real short in the arm for us and a break from all the sugar and syrup and pink and a few red roses costing more than a tank full of petrol.

The recipe below is safe-for-sex: piping hot sauce goes over the raw oyster so it lightly cooks the oysters … you never know – your partner may just spoil the entire idea by feeding it to the cat under the table … and we all know how those dinners usually end up … neither sexy nor sweetly!

Right, here goes!

 

Fresh Oysters with Creamy Lemon-Butter Sauce

 

  • 200 ml lemon-butter sauce
  • some crushed ice or course salt (see image)
  • 24 live oysters, shucked (let’s get sexy and call them topless)
  • 120 g smoked salmon
  • herb sprigs of your choice

First, prepare the lemon-butter sauce from this recipe and keep warm. Scatter some crushed ice or course salt onto two serving plates a arrange the oysters on top (the ice or salt will keep them steady). Next, while still piping hot, pour a generous spoonful of the sauce on top of each oyster. Garnish with a sliiver (no more than a sliver) of smoked salmon and a herb sprig or even slices lemon and enjoy …

Serves 2

PS: do let me know … this is my week’s consumer research (that’s why there are 12 oysters each) :-) LOL!

And take my advice, a full stomach is not sexy! It’s like another but external organ you have to schlepp around with you … So stick to the oysters as one single course (oy, the wordplay) and if you must, have my vanilla-poached pears stuffed with  chocolate crumbs for dessert. Double up on the vanilla, it’s also supposed to be sexy. And the recipe has al the right tones and connotations …

Vanilla-Poached Pears

 Click HERE for the recipe.

So, to sum up: aging has serious side benefits!  We can laugh at ourselves, we can make fun of sacred cows, we can go topless or not and we know that happiness is a habit so here is wishing you a happy happy Valentine’s Day, my darlings! :-)

And on a completely differenc note… I have just noticed the S2 button on the menu bar. It says subscribe form. So I am inserting it here to see what happens. Would be DIVINE and WONDERFUL of we can start re-building our mailing lists……. Jaaay! 

 

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by Michéle

The show must go on …!

February 9, 2012 in Chicken

9 Comments »

Having come op for air after preparing six pitches of the eight (for a myriad of television serieses … what is the plural of series? Serias?) we submitted for evaluation in the last month, I was instantly sadangry to see that my favourite bloggers’ latest posts are once more pushed to the bottom of the leader board (Blogs home page) by some self-entitled expedient common flippen arseholes invading our space to sell their crap online. I recently received the longest, probably 20000 characters of URLS selling viagra that was posted to my blog’s comments. Now, chicks, at my age, I no longer require Viagra or the people who use it. In fact, if I saw one of those in my house or yard or anywhere else, in his birthday suit walking behind the extended results of the viagra, I’d first call my crew to record the proceedings for posterity, and then do what Misses Bobbit did not have the heart to do ….  Anyway, this and more blog gripes are on my to-do list and freed-up now, I will see what can be done to these spammers and other matters.

But, time to get back to food – for the next few months until we hear if any of our pitches was successful, my focus wil be on food. Especially I love cooking food, our awesome website for ordinary people. We created this website for cookin’ mommies and daddies and couples and singeltons wanting to put great good food on the table. Our food is honest, respectful, without pretence, it does not seek approvals from chefs, food critics or ‘foodies’, it uses ingredients you can easily get and mostly from your local shops, it does not push a person or personality or somebody’s name, it simply cooks: beautifully, deliciously, easily and quickly – as ordered by busy people who do not have time for showing-off grand dishes but who simply want to eat well. We have invested a fancy car’s money in this website and approached big brands to help with the funding so that we can continue doing what we love and also, continue to give the consumer something of value online that is free and totally unconditional. We sell nothing, expect nothing and in fact, we do not even push the funding brands in anybody’s face!

So, that is our baby for now but it’s going to include you. We (my incredible daughter and business partner Michéle) are busy with concepts that will make you happy and give you some well-deserved exposure. Since I started blogging I have made some very good friends (and even manage to greatly pee a few off with my opinions) and with every contact I have with an active blogger, I am left humbled time and time again. It touches me to  hear and see and feel the passion, the breath, the life, the love with which they approach all matters food. This is a joy to behold and it needs to be acknowledged and rewarded. We can not reward you financially, but we can bring on the tributes and accolates. So start prayers and postulations that we succeed (like all  great plans, we need advertising funders) and in about ten days or so, we will reveal all to you.

And back to my own life for a moment – gee it feels I’ve been away for years …!! Yes, I could (and had to) go shopping yesterday (with much resentment and sighs and sorry-for-myselves) and afterwards, hit the sack. Hard. This morning, it feels that life is getting back to normal again and I bought the ingredients for sandwiches. I love sandwiches and even have categories. Dry or Wet (eating over a plate as it drips counts for ‘wet’). Hot or Cold (oviasly, toasted is hot) and Stacked, Open or Closed. I even have Single, Double or Platter. Go figure. At my local Shoprite (yes, I know … but this is the Strand, sigh …) I grabbed a really great ciabatta. It should still be OK (I’ll grill it) and then soon, in a few hours in fact, I am going to have a Caesar Salad Stacked Sandwich! I am not going to give you the recipe as you simply:

  • Grill slices of ciabatta lightly (sprinkle them lightly with olive oil before)
  • Rub them with a fresh clove of garlic on one side.
  • Top with cos lettuce leaves, slices of grilled chicken breast and shavings of  Parmesan cheese.
  • Serve well-seasoned and with Caesar Salad Dressing on the side to drizzle or dip or olive oil, whichever floats your boat. (Now I get it Sam!)  

And if you want to grill the most terrific chicken breast fillets, click on the title below.

Juicy Grilled Chicken Breasts

That’s it for now, and in mitigation for my tardy blogging lately ….  this here below is what I have been up to. Each pitch is about 30 pages deep and wide and long and has to have budgets in which  EVERY single THING has to be accounted for. The budgets are about 12 pages long each …

(A variety series for erm…. people born between 1946 and 1960 … go figure)

 

(A heavy drama in Afrikaans … we are not ALWAYS plesierig … like below …)

   

(An Afrikaans game show … )

(A reality drama … real drama without a script about real people in real situations …. don’t you just love it!?)

(Reality show about people in financial trouble and hoping we can solve it for them … or our experts, at least!)

(For the little ones ….. a daily!! Ouch! But we want … and so the one below …)

So you see?  No kidding when I say busy and tired…. and on that note, here goes with the next project and to use the famous ”The show will go on!” Hopefully, it’s about you and us! But before I say more I have to say thank you to my two sisters who offered to cook, gave encouragement, inspiration and I swear if I called, they would have been here … thank you beloved Nina and Janice !!!

That’s it. Watch this space. Untl then, cheers dears! XXX

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by Michéle

Raw

February 1, 2012 in Salads, Soups, starters and light meals

9 Comments »

With all the proposals out of the say (well, one is outstanding but the deadline is next Thursday) life is getting back to normal, as normal can be … whatever that may mean!

During that intense time of working, writing, budgeting, creating concepts, food was the last thing on my mind and survival came from a packet of soup, noodles, mash, whatever. For variety I’d zip open a can … but now, I have a little window in my schedule to shop and cook … and what do I want? No cooking!

So fresh oysters (divine oysters at the Gordon’s Bay harbour eatery), sushi, salads, fruits, Carpaccio, gazpacho … you name it, my taste buds and mind keep veering towards raw. And weirdly, classic. The real deal, original  classic recipe or style of serving. I am sure old Carl Jung would have had a lot to say about my subconscious, but there you are: right now I want fresh, raw and classic.

So, let’s take it on the gradient for the faint of heart. There is a recipe fo reaw lambs liver that the Turkish folk love, but let’s leave that and settle for a 19th Century classic.  It has yet to lose its appeal, especially in summer … and winter, for that matter! It’s perfect for those large family events because you can make it the day before and just plate it with the lettuce, on the day.

Waldorf Salad

 

  • 50 g walnuts, broken into pieces
  • 65 ml mayonnaise
  • 65 ml plain yoghurt
  • 45 ml fruity olive oil
  • 15 ml white wine vinegar
  • about 30 ml sugar
  • salt and white pepper to taste
  • 2 large stalks of celery with some leaves
  • 4 whole spring onions
  • 2 large crisp apples (Starking, Pink Lady and/or Granny Smith)
  • 2 washed baby cos or -gem lettuces, dried and torn into pieces

Toast the nuts and set aside to cool.

In a large bowl, whisk together the mayonaise, yogurt, olive oil and vinegar. Add enough sugar to produce a lovely tart yet sweet dressing. Season with salt and pepper. If the dressing is too thick, thin down a little with apple juice, water or milk. You want the salad coated, not clogged …

Slice the celery with its leaves thinly and place on top of the dressing in the bowl. Slice the spring onions and add to the bowl. Halve, core, and cut the apples into thin slices and add to the bowl together with the walnuts. Toss
well and cover and chill if not serving immediately.

Just before serving, arrange the lettuce on a large platter, or divide them among individual salad plates. Place the salad on top of the lettuce and serve.

Serves 4

Chef’s hint: Even with classic recipes, there are no hard-and-fast rules. Follow your taste and what you have in stock. For a complete light meal, add shredded cooked chicked breasts. And then, for a change, add a spoonful of curry powder to the dressing, some seedless sultanas and voila! A near-perfect Coronation Salad!

If you want more raw, visit I love cooking for a terrific stroll through our culinary delights – delicious and easy recipes that look great – or click onthe recipe titles below.

Home-made Classic Carpaccio

Classic Parma Ham with Melon

Classic Gazpacho

 

So now talk to me about these squashed images … How do I fix it please? Any of my fundi friends …? Advice?

 

 

 

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