Roast potatoes do not have to give you a headache. Follow a few simple steps and one thing’s for sure, if you can master the perfect roast potatoes, you’re well on your way to the perfect Sunday lunch.  Once you’ve learned to do it properly, your family will most definitely not wait for Sundays to have roast tatties. You might have to make it for a midweek meal with roast chicken too!

Roast Potatoes

(click here for recipe)

There you have it……. which one will you choose!

Anyway, back to the mushroom and the other strange things I mention in my title…… At the moment, it seems every body is doing the LCHF thing…… No, it is not the name of a new  pop band, nor a new drug on the market, it is actually a diet, a lifestyle that more and more people choose to follow, because they feel better, look better and can eat the so called forbidden fruit…..fat and meat…loads of it! It is the same as the Paleo diet, the so-called caveman diet or the Stone Age diet, which according to Robb Wolf, is the healthiest way you can eat because it is the only nutritional approach that works with your genetics to help you stay lean, strong and energized. No, I am not on diet yet, considering it, yes, but I can develop and invent recipes and I am always up for a challenges so when the good people at Nosy Rosy asked me to send a few LCHF and Paleo-friendly recipes their way, I was happy to oblige!

LCHF-friendly Stuffed Mushrooms

“No man is poor who has a Godly mother.”
― Abraham Lincoln

Thank you mom for all you do, all your prayers, thoughts, deeds of loving kindness and just being who you are, I find great comfort in knowing that you are my mom!! Lief vir Mamma!

“There’s a story behind everything..but behind all your stories is always your mother’s story..because hers is where yours begins.” ― Mitch Albom, For One More Day

As a mother I am so aware of my children and their well-being that I was honored to get involved in the Bake a Difference/Save Seven Lives campaign. You will hear a lot more about it in the next few days and weeks, but for now, hop over their website and get involved, register as a donor. You can save a life!

Cornflakes Florentines

(click here for recipe)

Tomorrow morning just after the 9 o’clock news, I will be  back in my seat at RSG studios, chatting to Mine and Retha Voslo who are also involved in the Save Seven Lives Cupcake Drive. Get ready to be amazed! I will also in weeks to come take you into the kitchens of other bloggers, chefs and interesting South Africans this year. So buckle up, it is going to be an awesome ride. Tune in 100-104FM or listen online here!

My sister and I were both late bloomers  where men and babies where concerned and while our peers ran after drooling and teething toddlers, we were content at building our own careers and even threw in a few memorable holidays every year. When we eventually got hitched and pregnant quickly after that, we had our babies more or less at the same time, although there is a 4 year gap between the two of us. My sister being the eternal student, raised her children according to the book and her children were fed the ultimate  vegetable meals and for good measure she would stir in a spoonful of beetroot, just because it is packed with iron.

One would think that her children later in their lives would love vegetables, but “Oh No”, her plan failed miserably. Her daughter said up till last year: Nina’s  food is too detailed and her son just refused to touch vegetables most days.  Anyway, beginning of this year, my niece proudly asked if I will make stuffed peppers for her. Needless to say I was dumbfounded. So dumbfounded that it has taken me till now to make her stuffed peppers.

Stuffed Peppers with Spicy Rice

Pastry making does not have to be that difficult. As with so many other processes, life is to short to sweat about stuff. I will show you the easy pastry recipes, the recipes that will make your life easier, not more difficult.  O f course we all want to, at some stage, try our hand at the integrate processes of real puff pastry, but I am talking about life here…… mom comes home at 5 and has to serve supper at 6. Yes, you can stop at the shop and buy some puff pastry… or you can make your own. It cost less and it tastes way better!

The cottage cheese recipe was given to me yesterday in a coffee shop by my dear friend and chair lady of the Fynproewersgulde, Retha Cronje. I made little Spanish Empanadas with the pastry today and it was delicious. Flaky, crumbly and rich pastry, just the way I like it. So in this post I will aim to share a whole variety of easy pastry recipes. Recipes that have been passed down through generations on little scraps of paper. I love those recipes, because they work.

Click here for more

Easy Pastry Recipes

Tomorrow morning just after the 9 o’clock news, I will be  back in my seat at RSG studios, chatting to you about easy pastry recipes. I will also in weeks to come take you into the kitchens of other bloggers, chefs and interesting South Africans this year. So buckle up, it is going to be an awesome ride. Tune in 100-104FM or listen online here!

Bean soup is such a classic and food cultures around the world  give it their own unique twist.  This Italian White Bean Soup with prosciutto is not only a feast for the eye, but it is darn tasty too.  If you feel the need for a thick stew-like bean soup, try this Spanish Potatje de Garbanzos, a meal on its own!  Here in South Africa traditionally our fore fathers or mothers have  cooked it for hours and hours  on end and later when pressure cookers arrived in our kitchens, making bean soup became a breeze. I find it quite ironic that after making bean soup in  a pressure cooker that many housewives then went back to the slow-cooker, because the slow-food movement was the next to hit our kitchens.

I am not sure which meat is the correct one to use in the classic South African version, some swear by spek or pork knuckle and other by shin and marrow bones.  My mom used pork spek that she cut up in small cubes and when the soup was done, the little nuggets of yumminess will float on the top of the soup. Either way your bean soup will be delicious, even if you decide to make it totally meat free, like I did here.

Bean Soup

In the last couple of months, cancer has entered the sacredness of my circle of friends. First we go through anger, disbelief and then sadness and fear, that you might actually lose someone you love so dearly. Yet, although we are very close and we feel as if our friendships will last a lifetime, our fears are nothing compared to the real feelings of the victims. I just chose cancer as an example, but  people, neighbors and friends around us are dealing with major issues such as the death or sickness  of  a loved one and most of the time we feel so helpless. Nothing we do or say can take their pain away!

I have learned again this week, that we are not suppose to take their pain away, that is how they grow, that is how we grow as human beings.

“Our real blessings often appear to us in the shape of pains, losses and disappointments; but let us have patience and we soon shall see them in their proper figures.”
Joseph Addison

The best we can and must do is to sweat the small stuff for them, fetch the kids, cook supper, empty the rubbish bags, do the dishes. All insignificant little tasks for us, but for  them, it is major things to deal with. Or bake them a batch of muffins, straight from the heart!

Feta, olive and sun dried tomato muffins

This weekend I will be cooking at the SA Cheese Festival in the DStv theater every day at 2pm. Come cook along or just say hello. Great prizes and recipe ideas to share.

If you need tickets for the Friday, please enter this competition!

I recently made boozy figs and served it with Fairview Camembert which is now made with 100% goats cheese and what a plate of sexiness that turned out to be.  Not all my cheesy recipes are a threat to your heart though, I have a very healthy, gluten-free, Paleo-friendly recipe for Goats cheese tarts, asparagus and peas that will convert any hard-core carnivore to  a vegetarian diet.

Competition

I have 4 tickets available to the Cheese Festival for Friday 26 April. This ticket allows you to visit every stall and sample your way through tons and tons of cheese. You can also come and see me cooking with , guess what CHEESE! I will be in the DStv Arena, everyday at 2pm.

To win these tickets, please email me at myeasycooking@gmail.com with your answer to the simple question.

Where is the annual Cheese Festival held?

For today however, I can help you out with a beetroot salad, perfect for a Monday detox! The pigment that gives beetroot its colour, beta cyanin, is an antioxidant that speeds up detoxification in the liver. This again enables your body to turn the alcohol into a less harmful substance that can be excreted quicker than normal.

Beetroot contains betaine, a substance that relaxes your mind and is used in other forms to treat depression and contains trytophan which is also found in chocolate and contributes to a sense of well being.

Two very good reasons to hurry and get some beetroot, won’t you say?

Beetroot and Feta Salad

More beetroot recipes

Crumbed Tenderized steak with pickled beetroot

The art of roasting vegetables

Salad with crumbed goat’s cheese, beetroot and figs

Luckily my dad and his neighbors in Hermanus seem to have green fingers and their tomato plants not only yield an abundance of tomatoes, but also many different kinds! Every bowl or bucket full, my mom brings, has different sizes and colors, I just love it! I loved the variety of red and green tomatoes in the chutney, not only does it look too beautiful, the green tomatoes give a delicious acidic kick to the chutney. We had the chutney with a simple supper of sausage and grilled aubergine, but it will be as good on grilled fish, lamb, chicken and just cheese!

Tomato Chili Chutney