I love cooking

So if you say I am the most lackadaisical blogger I’d have to agree. But in my defense, there was the sick mother who I had to nurse like Betty and do all her work, lots of work and three kids (four, if you add the husband). But now mother is back at work, not dependant upon me for stuff, the kids are back at school and hubby’s been promoted so he is too tired at night to want attention !  In fact, things are so much better that mother is beginning to write recipes again!

And you know when a person writes a recipe, it has to be tested and guess who tests her recipes? Yes, you guessed it. I call it my ‘day at the office’ .. what a fringe benefit!  Here is a warming, hearty chicken casserole that my family loved. It’s perfect for now, this cold and rainy weather.

Chicken & Red Pepper Casserole

Here is a mild child-friendly version of an easy-and-hearty chicken dish, perfect for cooler days. You can enjoy an adult version by adding as much dried red chili flakes as you fancy in which case sprinkle with fresh coriander leaves before serving.

And you can use any chicken portions that you fancy, with or without skin. Without of course, will render much less fat, reducing the fat content (and your work to scoop that excess fat off after cooking) of the dish greatly.

• 65 ml cake flour
• 30 ml ground sweet or smoked paprika (or to taste)
• salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 12 chicken thighs (or a mixture of thighs, drumsticks and wings)
• 6 sprigs of rosemary
• 30 ml butter
• 30 ml olive oil
• 2 large onions, cut into slim wedges
• 2 – 3 large red peppers, diced coarsely
• 2 – 3 large garlic cloves, finely grated
• 30 ml sugar
• 30 ml red wine vinegar
• 1 x 425 g can chopped tomatoes
• 50 g tomato paste
• 250 ml prepared chicken stock
• 2 bay leaves

Combine the flour and paprika in a small bowl and season to taste with salt and pepper. Trim the fat and excess skin off the chicken and place the pieces in a large plastic bag. Sprinkle in the flour mixture. Close the bag and then shake it vigorously so that the flour mixture can coat all the chicken pieces.

Melt the butter in a large saucepan and add the oil. Lightly brown the chicken pieces on all sides, drain on kitchen paper then pack them in a single layer in a large casserole dish. Tuck in the rosemary sprigs.

Add the onions and red peppers to the saucepan and sauté until the onion softens. Add the garlic and sugar and stir-fry briefly. Add the vinegar and stir until it has evaporated then add the chopped tomatoes and tomato paste, stock and bay leaves. Bring to a boil then pour over the chicken in the casserole.

Place a sheet of oiled baking paper or foil over the food, cover the casserole with a lid and place in the oven preheated to 190º C for an hour.

Now remove the casserole lid and the baking paper or foil and continue to cook the chicken uncovered until the sauce is reduced to your liking, stirring and basting the chicken every so often.

Remove the casserole from the oven, spoon the fat off the surface and transfer to a serving dish, picking out the rosemary stalks as you go along.

Serve with rice noodles (orzo) and a simple green salad dressed with plain fat-free yoghurt and lemon juice.

Serves 6

Chef’s hint: If you prefer using chicken breasts, use 4 whole breasts with bone and skin intact and cut them in half. Proceed as indicated above but shorten the cooking time to around 40 minutes in the oven. And also reduce the liquids by omitting half the stock.

So also, in-between testing a whole bunch of new recipes from Mom’s pen, I cooked in two video clips that we produced for Werda Salads. Well, ‘cooked’ hardly describes what food blogger Thuli Gogela of Mzanzi-style Cuisine and I did. Using ready-to-eat products as part of a quick meal solution can hardly be called ‘cooking’. Check us in action by clicking on the “watch video” link on the following pages:

• Thuli with her Beetroot & Raisin Chutney
• Thuli with a Potato Bake
• Me with a fab upside down beetroot and feta tart
• Me with some quick and healthy spicy nachos and wraps.

I see now that previously, I also posted a chicken recipe. Oh well, we love chicken and so does the greater part of the world. At least you cannot mistake donkey for chicken!

Hope to do this again sooner than later!

Given my love of simplicity and basics, here is a perfect recipe to celebrate the combination. It’s sort-of based on a Chicken Kiev where the butter oozes from the inside, except this baby gives you the added sensuality of the golden deliciousness oozing from the top! And, if you don’t have these basics in stock, it’s time for a major stock-up, Sista! For more delectable chicken lickens, visit our fantastico recipe-only website.

Bacon-wrapped Chicken with Garlic Butter

• 100 g soft butter
• 1 – 2 finely chopped or grated garlic cloves
• 30 ml finely chopped parsley
• 4 chicken breast fillets
• lemon juice
• salt and pepper
• 4 rashers of streaky bacon
• olive oil

First prepare the butter by mixing it with the garlic and parsley. Chill until required.

Cut off the slim end of each chicken breast (the tail end) and freeze for a future stir fry, stock or soup.  Season the remaining chicken well with lemon juice, salt and pepper. Run the back of a knife smartly down the length of each bacon rasher to stretch it and to prevent curling. Now wrap a rasher around the outer edge of each piece of chicken and secure the ends with toothpicks. Brush liberally all over with olive oil and lightly brown in a heated oven-safe pan.

Place the pan in the oven, preheated to 190 ºC and bake the chicken for ten minutes or just until cooked through. Remove from oven and allow to rest for 5 minutes.

Serve with a generous portion of the garlic butter melting on top with some mashed potato and a crisp green salad on the side.

Serves 4

Chef’s hint: you can prepare less butter, the quantities given are generous! Or, you can serve smaller portions and reserve the leftover butter for tomorrow’s grilled fish! And remember, chicken that is overcooked is a dry as the mop used a week ago. So watch it, darling. Rather undercook and let it rest for longer, covered, than dishing up stringly bits of hard, dry pale flesh. Ugh.

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

To be honest, I was going to but then a darling friend called and said there is no way they will be able to stand it if I spend another weekend behind my PC. He reminded me that as far as they (he and my kids) know, I have taken off three weekends in 2011!

I feebly tried the work angle and began to explain the term deadline but he did not budge. Then I tried the intellectual snobbery angle and said my fear of dumb braggers is stronger than ever after a couple of uber bizarre socials I have had to face this year … But he just laughed it off as well.

After a few more tries to wiggle out of it, I ran down the inevitable list of Q & As and finally pointed out that stupid snobs (as well as clever snobs, I realize now) will be in danger of my being near-the-limit-annoyance with them and he just carried on laughing it off. (Very nice friend, must tell you.) Then I wanted to know if all the women will be in one part of the property and the men in another and he said probably this is South Africa and then he reminded me that I kuier with the men usually in any event so what will change tomorrow?

Eventually he said something that made me laugh and I decided I won’t chicken out on braai day …

What made me laugh? He said oh well then, if I won’t come, to please send over my lemon chicken. The image of the chicken crossing the road to his house was too much for me and I decided to take it myself.  So for a change I will be joining this unique South African table of unity. Enjoy and have yourselves a magnificent day.

But remember to eat also!

 Lemon & Rosemary Barbecue Chicken Wings and Legs

Click here for the recipe…

We’re facing a torrent of work today so chicken is on the menu. It is such a forgiving food, the poor chicken. Virtually any flop you have with a chicken can be fixed and speaking of which, we are going to have a Love my Flop celebration soon. Yes, we have to celebrate our failings to keep us humble (I think that’s why!? J) and share our stories. For a laugh …

But seriously, if you are having a serious dinner party and you dare not have a flopped dish, do not tell them beforehand what you are going to serve them! It’s fatal as it raises their expections and you cannot then “tune your flop” to resemble another recipe, no! They will enquire … if they’re sober …!

I once had very important people (read people I wanted to seek approval from – ugh, those were the days my ego was really so embarrassing) coming to dinner and told them I will be cooking my world-famous (brag bag brag) salmon trout fillets with soufflé dill topping as main. Well, the friekking pan fell out of the my helper’s hands as he lifted it from the oven and landed upside down, soufflé topping on my (by then no longer clean) kitchen floor, the fish fillets shattered in million little pieces with the pan on top of the whole lot. There was no back-up plan, back- up food or anyway out. I had to come clean and apologetically proffered something that looked like fishy scrambled egg. What saved the show for me was that by the time I had cleaned up the mess, re-styled the fish onto a platter and garnished the living days out of it (even added dollops of good mayo!), they were so tipsy they did not remember what I was supposed to serve them and they were starving. Consequently they did not care two hoots about me and my little tender ego. They greedily scoffed at what they called “this salmon salad” as if there was never going to be a tomorrow. Well there was a next day and I cannot begin to describe to you the hangovers we all had.

Moral of the story? Never tell people what you are going to serve them until it’s on the table. Do have loads of wine at the table and let them wait a long time before serving . Believe me, that thing called ’appetite’ will take care of the rest and probably boost the compliments as well!

Anyway, here is a humble family chicken that will delight you and yours. Y’all probably have your own variation on this recipe but I like this one the best as I flavour the buttermilk to high heavens and you can do the same. Sometimes I even add honey, curry powder and loads of chopped coriander to the buttermilk (obviously, Miranda you’d omit the sage). And sometimes I use other meat like lamb or beef strips – obviuously with other kinds of flavours in the buttermilk.  One caution though, chicken can easily be undercooked, so if you are uneasy (this one is for you Sue!), then pre-cook the chicken as the chef’s hint suggests on the recipe. And have fun with your own version of flavours!

Crispy Buttermilk Chicken

Click here for the recipe.