Blogspiration

How sad that the 2010 SWC is officially on the threshold of completion… I think many a devout rugby-, cricket-, tennis- or whatever-else-sport-supporter was surprised to find how the soccer could seep into the veins and become the main topic of interest and discussion, so quickly and effortlessly… (I know I was!) And now it’s all over… As one radio DJ rightly said last week, “What are we going to talk about now?!” Ah well, it was good while it lasted. Truthfully I am more sorry that the schools are re-opening, which means the traffic will be returning to it’s old, jam-packed self. I will miss the soccer action and the excitement around it, but I am happy that the vuvu’s will get some rest… I pray that the good that had come from this tournament will resonate throughout our country for very many years to come! Enjoy the last game tonight; HUP HOLLAND HUP!

Due to other commitments, cakey-Friday has also sadly had to come to an end… Well, we’ll still be having cake and tea on Fridays, but I won’t be baking for the office so regularly anymore…   As a special treat for this week’s final home-baked cakey-Friday, I came up with these yummy treats:

Milo and Bar One squares

375ml flour

250ml sugar

5ml baking powder

2.5 ml salt

80ml Milo powder dissolved in 100ml hot water and left to cool

150ml cold water

15ml vinegar

5ml vanilla essence

125g butter/marg, melted

1 Bar One bar, cut into +-1cm cubes

60g dark chocolate, grated

Mix the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in a bowl. Make three hollows in the dry mix and pour the vinegar, essence and melted butter into a hollow each. Add the cooled Milo and water and beat until well mixed, but do not over-mix. Fold in half the Bar One cubes and pour into a greased square/rectangular cake tin. Arrange the remaining Bar One cubes on top of the batter. Bake at pre-heated 180C for 50 – 60 minutes or until a testing skewer comes out clean. Sprinkle the grated chocolate over the top as soon as the ‘cake’ comes out the oven. Allow to cool and cut into squares.

Yum!

I’ve finally sorted through the holiday pic’s and would like to show you some of the beautiful places in Scotland that we visited.

Ben Nevis mountains en route to Fort William

Loch Linnhe in Fort William

Well of the Seven Heads

Wallace Monument in Stirling

Jedburgh abby

Rydal – Lake district

Such wonderful memories… Wish I could have a huge teaparty and invite you all, so I could show you all 600 pictures and tell you the story behind each… It was amazing.

Have a fabulous evening and stay warm!

Mwah!

(I mean the winter; not the much-publisized soccer spectacular…) So we’re back from the UK and back in action at work. Oh, how I long for the days of driving through Scotland’s beautiful scenery with no care in the world, no watch to chase us along and definitely no work-related tasks blowing in our necks…What bliss! The trip was truly an amazing experience and I wish we could have stayed at least twice as long. But alas, reality was waiting for us at home. We have been back for a week and a half now and we’re already planning our next overseas trip, albeit only for a year or three from now! Once the travel bug has bitten you…  Anyway, I will still share a bit about our holiday, with pictures, as soon as we’ve managed to sort thorugh the tons of pics. 

Food-wise, we had some delicious dinners in Scotland, Steak-and-ale pie in Jedburgh being the highlight of my eating experiences there. The breakfasts were also generally quite yummy, although our bodies started protesting against the huge portions after a week or so! Scottish shortbread stole my heart and hubby really enjoyed the traditional ‘room-temperatured’ ales and the Millionaire’s Shortbread. Sadly, we didn’t have a good fish-and-chips experience (either in London or Scotland), until we had dinner at Ocean Basket back home on the night of our return… We did have many good visits to Starbucks though and I would become a devout supporter if they ever bring the franchise to SA!

Seems we returned just in time, since the OR Tambo airport was transformed into a real bees’ nest mere days after our flight landed. From the footage on the news, it looked as if the whole world had come to our beautiful country! Busy, busy… It’s quite an experience to walk around in the shopping centres and hear all these foreign languages and see all the unfamiliar (often, lost-looking) faces. And, apart from the constant vuvuzela-noise, the whole soccer-wave is quite exciting! We were fortunate enough to also have the afternoon off on Friday and I watched my first-ever soccer match. (I’m not a sport fan, OK…) I’m glad that Bafana Bafana played well and managed to stand their ground against the 17th-in-the-world ranked Mexicans. All the best to them for Wednesday’s game!

Since everyone’s caught up in the soccer frenzy and I didn’t want to be left out, I had to do something special for cakey-Friday. So I made these yummy cupcakes!

I just used a vanilla cupcake batter and a normal butter-icing topping. The detail was painted on using melted dark chocolate (which I had to keep adding little bits of hot water to every few minutes, since it kept setting in the cup) and a tooth pick. It took me more than an hour to paint eight cupcakes… (And my freehand painting isn’t that good.) But my colleagues we’re mightily impressed and I felt proud for catching some soccer spirit in such a unique way. I am very glad though, that the SWC isn’t hosted in SA too often…

On another note (pardon the pun), I started with my piano lessons this week! It’s quite exciting and I can’t wait to be able to play something other than single notes and finger exercises. But I realize it’s going to take time, so I’m trying real hard to keep my patience levels up. Here’s my beautiful new play-thing… Soon I’ll be doing it justice!

OK, all for now. Stay safe and warm, all! Be vigilant on the roads and take good care of yourselves and your loved ones. Take your vitamins too!

Hello everybody! I am hanging my head in shame for neglecting you guys so terribly… I was shocked myself to realise that I hadn’t blogged at all in April and we’re already almost halfway through Maay! It’s as if life has just been spinning uncontrollably ahead… But I’m back for a change!

Kitchen-wise I’ve been concentrating on soups, pretty much. In this weather food has to be warm and comforting and what better than yummy, hearty soup and crusty bread to warm the tummy and the heart?? I haven’t been very creative though – chuck a bunch of veggies with some seasoning into a pot, add stock of choice and cook until soft. Round off with some store-bought soup powder to thicken and serve – so I have no soup recipes to share at the moment.

I was a bit more creative though in preparing eats for the office, when I had my birthday in April. I made a quiche for the first time and it was a lovely success! ALso made a lemon meringue pie with a difference and some good old chocolate cake. Here’s the quiche recipe:

Easy ham and mushroom quiche

Pastry

Mix together 250ml flour, 7ml baking powder, 1ml salt, 50ml sunflower oil, 75ml buttermilk into a soft but manageable dough. Press evenly onto bottom and sides of a 28cm quiche pan. Refridgerate whilst preparing the filling.

Filling

Fry 1 finely chopped onion and crushed garlic to taste, in 50 ml melted butter, until soft. Add 125g finely chopped mushroom and fry until most of the liquid has evaporated. Remove from heat and stir in 100 ml flour and 300ml milk. Season with salt and pepper and cook over moderate heat, stirring continuously, until smooth and thick. Remove from the heat and stir in 125g chopped ham, 50g plain cream cheese and 100g grated cheddar cheese. You can also add chopped spring onion and parsley, if you like. Let mixture cool. Beat three large eggs in a bowl and add cooked mixture, mixing well. Pour egg-mixture into chilled pastry shell, dust with smoked paprika and bake at pre-heated 180 C for 40 to 60 minutes. The quiche should appear golden brown on top and the centre should be set. Let cool completely in the dish and preferably refrigerate overnight. Heat again before serving, if preferred. VERY yummy!

*Any left-over (yeah, right!) quiche can be frozen for up to 1 month, in an airtight, freezer-safe container. Let thaw completely and then pop into a warm oven (160 C) for +- 10 minutes.*

Unfortunately I can’t show you what my quiche looked like, as my phone needs some or other software installation CD (which I didin’t receive, by the way…) to enable it to download photos onto the computer. But if I ever get it going, I’ll be sure to post those pic’s! The twist to my lemon meringue pie was that I used white, mini meringue rosettes on top of the lemon juice & condensed milk filling. While standing overnight, the meringues get nice and soft (but not chewy), so it’s easy to cut. And it looks very pretty!

There is great excitement in our house, since we’re flying to the UK next Friday! It’s my very first time going overseas, so I feel like a little girl on the night before Christmas! We had a terrible fright this morning, though… British Airways sent an e-mail to say that our flight (which we booked in December 2009 already) had been cancelled! Apparently they have a threat of a strike starting on Tuesday next week and they’ve had to cut down on flights to and from Heathrow to accommodate the situation. What a disaster! Luckily they gave some rebooking options and we could get a flight an hour later on the same day; I can’t tell you what a relief it was. Thank God for miracles! So all is set and I’m just constantly praying that the volcanic ash cloud will disappear and not wreak havoc again. I will share all the memories and pictures with you guys when we get back.

Another exciting thing is that I’ll be taking piano lessons from the first week of June! It’s always been my dream to play the piano and now finally I’m going to learn. Since I’m not studying at the moment, I need to do something to keep my brain active! By the way, I had my graduation ceremony in April and it was a lovely evening. To all those still studying and spending hours behind the books; just hang in there! It’s all worth it in the end…

Be blessed, all you lovely people! 

A 4-day weekend, hot-cross buns, chocolate bunnies/eggs/marshmallows/anything… (Sounds like my kind of mini-holiday! And I am in dire need of a holiday, I tell you…) But the reason behind celebrating Easter is my most important driver for counting the days until Good Friday, when we’ll spend the morning in church, giving thanks for the greatest Sacrifice ever made; to honour the Reason that we can live with hope! And it makes me smile each time a see a hot-cross bun with that subtle but prominent reminder that a Saviour gave His life on a rugged wooden cross… May you all have a truly blessed Easter!

I still need to plan what I’ll be venturing on kitchen-wise this weekend; hubby has requested hot-cross buns (thanks for the inspiration, Iky!) and I feel like trying out a new cookie recipe I found. Will let you all know what that turns out like! The past weekend was quite busy cooking-wise and I enjoyed every minute. Cakey-Friday saw my first-ever cheesecake attempt. It turned out lovely! 

I used a recipe from Sarie Kos – Autumn 2010.

Basic traditional cheesecake

Make a crust with 200g fine biscuit crumbs, mixed with 100g melted butter, pressed into a greased cake tin.

Mix 500g creamed cottage cheese, 125ml castor sugar and 25ml cake flour in a bowl and beat with an electric mixer for 2 minutes. Scrape the sides regularly. Add 3 eggs, one by one and beat well after each addition. Add 65ml fresh cream and beat for 5 minutes. Stir in 7ml fine lemon zest and 2ml vanilla essence. Pour into the prepared tin and bake at preheated 180 degrees for 15 minutes. Turn the heat down to 140 degrees and bake for another 50-60 minutes until set. Remove from the oven and cool to room temperature. Refridgerate overnight. Serve with Bar-one sauce and whipped cream. Delish!

*The original recipe calls for double the ingredients. Then you have a very big cake! It should bake for 15 minutes on 180 and then 1 hour, 45 minutes on 140 degrees.

*Sarie Kos recommends you bake the cake on a baking tray as the butter tends to bake out of the crust and drip all over.

That’s all for now! Just thought I’d brag a bit with my beautiful little niece again. She’s almost 15 months old now, busy as a bee and real smart! And in August she will be getting her very first cousin; another little girl! The family is growing rapidly.

Have a lovely week everyone!   

I cannot believe that we’re already in March 2010! Less than a 100 days to WCS kick-off, only a few more weeks before it’s winter again, my birthday around the corner (again!), little sister’s baby a mere 5 months from entering this world… Time truly is so precious and our lives so fleeting… We simply have to make the most of each day! Makes me think of that old saying: “Today is a gift, that’s why it’s called the ‘present’…” I hope each of you can see each day as exactly that!

Was in dire need of a proper blogging session, so here I am, sitting in my bed, cat curled up next to me, typing away. Bliss! I still wanted to share with you guys what my hubby spoilt me with on Valentine’s day. We take turns every year to arrange something special for VD and our wedding anniversary in December. So this year I’m planning the anniversary and he did Valentine’s Day. We never go over the top with gifts etc. for VD but we always ensure to spend some quality time together and just enjoy celebrating our love. So hubby decided to cook lunch for me this year; if you knew my hubby you’d know that’s a major gift! He’s not so big on cooking, to put it lightly. (When he lived on his own before our wedding, the most he did was put fish fingers or chicken nuggets in the oven and bake an egg now and again… Oh, and boil up some mixed, frozen veg. At least he didn’t starve!) Anyhoo, he never shies away from helping to clean up in the kitchen and I adore that about him! And the fact that he does sometimes get out of his comfort zone and tie an apron around his waist to spoil his wife. (OK, I’m lying about the apron, but you get the picture… ) So for VD 2010, he made me: Delicious bacon-wrapped chicken fillet, done to a T in the kettle-braai with just the right mix of smoky crispyness and succulent goodness. He served it with foil-baked veggies and potatoes (also done in the kettle-braai) and a creamy cheese sauce. OK, so it probably doesn’t count as real ‘cooking’ as he didn’t spend any time in front of the stove (I made the cheese sauce), but it was delicious and it gave me the afternoon off, which was marvellous!

On another note, I made Rose&Thorns chocnut fudge last week for cakey-Friday, as top layer of my own version of millionaire’s shortbread. I literally baked up a batch of shortbread, let it cool and then whipped up R&T’s DELICIOUS treat and spread it over the shortbread. Once completely cool, I refridgerated it over night and then cut into squares the next morning. (TIP: cut into squares and preferably serve at room temperature.) R&T, thanks for the lovely recipe! Unfortunately I don’t know how to link to your site… But everyone can go search for it on R&T’s blog. If you like chocolate and peanut butter, THIS IS FOR YOU!!! Here’s what it looked like:

Then I felt like baking something for dinner tonight and made a delightfully light corn-bread with a slightly scone-ish texture. I baked four small loaves and they came out light, fluffy and moist with the perfect balance between sweet and savoury. Delicious!   

Mix 1/2 cup cake flour, 1/4 cup corn flour and 1/4 cup nutty wheat flour in a bowl. Add 2 tbsp sugar, 1 tsp baking powder and a pinch of salt. In a seperate bowl, whisk together 1 large egg, 25 ml cream/buttermilk and 25 ml sunflower oil. Add the liquid with 1/3 of a tin of creamy style sweetcorn to the dry ingredients and mix well. Spoon into 4 greased small loave tins and bake at pre-heated 200C for +- 15 minutes until cooked and golden brown. (I suppose you could also bake these in muffin tins.) Serve warm as is, or with butter, jam, syrup, honey, cheese… Whatever your heart desires! 

Now that was a good session! Off to dreamland now… Sleep tight all!

It’s been a while since I blogged about cakey Friday, mostly because I’ve been doing some repeats of recipes used in the past. But this week I tried something new and it was delicious; firm South African favourite: custard slices! (Although I did go the puff pastry route and not the short cut with cream crackers.) I didn’t get a picture, unfortunately… Next time! But here’s the recipe:

Custard slices

Divide a roll of puff pastry in half. (You can roll it our slightly if you need it to fit into a rectangular dish, like I did.) Prick the pastry all over with a fork, chill it and then pop into a preheated oven. Bake the two pastry rectangles at 230 degrees C for 10 minutes, until golden brown.

For the custard: Mix together 30ml corn flour, 15 ml custard powder and a little (from 1 litre) cold milk to a runny paste. Heat the rest of the litre of milk with 45ml sugar and a pinch of salt. When at boiling point, mix in the cornflour mixture and heat again until the milk mixture becomes thick. You need to keep whisking so it doesn’t burn! Then add 4 large eggs (beaten together well) to the milk mixture – first add a little of the hot liquid to the eggs and mix well before adding the egg to the pot, otherwise the egg may cook when added to the hot milk – and heat until boiling point. Remove from the heat and add 7.5ml vanilla essence and 30ml butter. Whisk well and leave to cool, whisking every five or so minutes to keep the mixture smooth. Once cooled, spread mixture evenly over one pastry shell and cover with the second. Leave to cool completely and then refrigerate overnight. Finish off with a mixture of 1 cup icing sugar, 30ml hot water and 2 ml vanilla essence that is beaten until smooth. Cut into squares and serve. Yum-Yum!

Have a blessed Sunday all!

Hello all you beautiful people! Yip, I’m still here… Though I don’t blame anyone for thinking that I pulled a David Copperfield… Things have been extremely busy at the office and trying to blog via a cell phone connection at home was just frustrating the heebie-jeebies out of me!

But then my wonderful husband decided that it was high time for us to get properly connected at home. And here I am, writing my very first post via our own ADSL line! It’s amazing! Although, I do find this site a bit slow… And I suddenly long for the days before letterdash when I could even blog from the shared ADSL at the office without any glitches… Change is definitely not always for the better.

Anyhoo, I’ve been missing you all terribly and I’m SOOO looking forward to blogging regularly again! Seems I’ve missed so much in the last few weeks.

It’s great to be back!

Sleep tight, all!

So the first week of the fast has passed and I’m nicely into it now. The first two days were absolutely horrible as I had constant headache; the detox’ing, I know… Not very good for concentrating at the office. But after that it’s been getting easier. I have learnt however that you need to stay away from birthday parties when you’re fasting! I had to attend two (picnic at Pretoria zoo with one of my bestest friends on Saturday morning and my SIL’s braai on Saturday evening) on the weekend and it was near impossible to remain focussed… For the next two weekends we’re staying at home!

So we’re doing a Daniel fast which basically boils down to having only fruits, veg, water and some pulses, nuts etc to keep up the protein content, for a 21-day period. The aim is to steer clear of all animal substances, processed foods, caffeine, alcohol and sugar etc. Hubby and I also avoid television and radio during this time, using the evenings to study the Bible and pray in addition to our normal morning ‘quiet time’. It is actually such a wonderful time as it forces one to focus on those areas of life that need to be alligned to God’s way of doing; we get so caught up in work and other things throughout the year that we easily forget the more important things in life… Like praying for our friends and family members on a daily basis; there is so much stress, fear, depression and unhappiness in this world and the people closest to us are not exempt.

Anyhoo, I’ve been running out of ideas for dinner (I have new respect for vegans, I tell you…) and thought that soup would be the easiest as you can chuck a whole lot of veggies in a pot and it should end up tasting good. So I made the below and it was indeed delicious!

Baby marrow and brinjal soup

1 medium onion

1 teaspoon crushed garlic

1cm x 1cm chunk fresh ginger, sliced

1 small red chilli, chopped

5ml olive oil

1 medium potato, peeled and cubed

1 medium brinjal, peeled and sliced

10 small baby marrows, washed and sliced

6 mushrooms, cleaned and sliced

300ml warm vegetable stock

Boiling water to top up as necessary

Fry the onion, garlic, ginger and chilli in the olive oil in a large pot over medium heat, for a few minutes. Add the potato cubes and fry some more. Then add the brinjal and keep frying! (If the mixture starts sticking to the bottom of the pot, add little-by-little hot water to prevent it from burning.) Add the baby marrow and mushrooms for the last bit of frying and then add the vegetable stock. Reduce the heat slightly and allow to boil for 30 minutes. Regularly check that the pot still contains sufficient water; it is a soup after all! After 30 minutes, turn off the heat. As soon as the soup stops bubbling, get in there with a masher or stick blender to smooth it out. You can also transfer the cooled soup to a fodd processor, if you prefer the soup really silky. (If you prefer chunky soup, you can leave it as is, but it might be slightly watery… The potato binds everything into a thick, creamy soup when it’s mashed/processed.) Add some black pepper to taste and enjoy!

I took a picture of the soup with my cell, but the lighting wasn’t any good so it doesn’t look all that well. Basically the soup had similar colour and thickness to guacamole. Real pretty and very tasty! It was quite spicy too, so the chilli can be left out of the equation for those who don’t do the spicy thing!

The weather in Gauteng is perfect for soup today, so I might just experiment some more tonight. Will keep you posted!

How can it be??!! I’m so busy at the office already, it feels like I’ve been here for months… It’s crazy! But, I’m going to stay positive. (It would be so helpful to my resolution if this letterdash site would be a teeny-tiny bit faster, though…) All’s back in full swing; hubby’s gone off to the UK (again! But hopefully the last time now…), the office is a beehive of activity, house to be cleaned, food to be cooked. Same old, same old, I guess! 

Our church (and many others, I understand) enters into a time of fasting and praying each year around this time and it kicked off today; so I might have to avoid you lot with all your yummy-scrumptious foody pic’s and recipes for the rest of January! It’s too much of a temptation, I tell you… But before I go into hiding, I wanted to share this great carrot cake recipe. (I missed taking a pic; the last slice was pinched before I could get to it with my camera. But it looked pretty much like a carrot cake!!) It’s dairy free (except if you use cottage cheese for the topping), egg free, low fat and low GI. So go ahead and indulge! (I adapted the recipe from a dairy and egg free cupcake recipe I found on PicknPay’s website years ago.)

Almost guilt-free carrot cake

Mix together 90ml sunflower/olive oil, 10ml vanilla essence, 190ml brown sugar, 25ml lemon juice and 7.5ml gelatine powder dissolved in 67.5ml warm water. Add 250ml nutty wheat flour, 210ml white cake flour, 10ml baking powder, 5ml bicarb and a pinch of salt. Mix well and add lukewarm water to achieve a thick but smooth consistency. Mix in 2 medium grated carrots, 1 small grated apple, zest of a small lemon and 2ml ground ginger, 2ml ground cloves and 4ml ground cinnamon. The batter should be pourable but quite thick. Transfer to a greased ring cake pan; bake at preheated 180 decrees C for 50 minutes. I topped it with icing sugar mixed with some fat free cottage cheese and sprinkled almonds on top. Yummy!

Be good guys and gals!

Mwah

What a lovely holiday we had!! But alas, it couldn’t last forever and so we’re back in the rat-race for another year… I still haven’t sorted through the holiday pictures but promise to share some as soon as possible. Will also get back to cooking properly this week!

I wish each of you a most blessed and peaceful 2010, filled with all you hope for and dream of. I think it’s going to be an exciting year; graduation coming up in April and a trip overseas in May… Little niece is turning 1 on Friday and my youngest sister and her hubby are expecting their first-born in July… We’re planning some alterations to our house in preparation of bigger things to come. So much to look forward to! 

Have a lovely day, all! Mwah!