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Winter warmers

July 9, 2012 in Woolies Pantry

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A cold and wet weekend of rain pelting against the windows of my flat meant any hopes of enjoying the great outdoors were dashed. Instead I succumbed to the charms of Woolworths range of winter desserts because, let’s face it, nothing quite makes a girl feel better than the sweet seduction of hot baked puddings on a soggy Sunday.

Woolworths have been so kind to their loyal shoppers this week as to allow all WREWARDS card holders to indulge in their fabulous offer of saving R20 when buying two winter puddings. Any of you who know me will know that the only thing that could possibly lift my spirits more than a sugar rush is a bargain and in this case I was the proud owner of both!

Sticky with just the right amount of sugar and a sponge surface cracked from the heat of the oven, sticky toffee pudding was my Sunday night date! Dressed to impress with my favourite roasted fruit and a jug of hot custard on the side, the weather was eventually the last thing on my mind.

Seasonal fruit is always better but I am a real sucker for plums and yesterday a punnet of plump ones caught my eye on the cold shelves in Woolworths. Try roasting guavas or figs if you can find them, their tart flavours compliment the indulgent winter puddings perfectly.

Sticky toffee pudding with roast fruit

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Sticky toffee pudding with roast fruit
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Recipe type: Dessert
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Serves: 4
 

Ingredients
  • 1 x Woolworths winter sticky toffee pudding
  • 6 plums, halved (or any other fruit of your choice like strawberries or guavas or both)
  • 1 T brown sugar
  • 50g butter, cubed
  • Juice of one lemon
  • 2 cinnamon sticks
  • Sprig of fresh rosemary

Instructions
  1. Preheat your oven to 200C⁰.
  2. Remove the stones from your plums and arrange the fruit on a baking tray before sprinkling with brown sugar, dotting a few knobs of butter around and squeezing over your lemon juice.
  3. Add your cinnamon sticks and sprig of rosemary for deep, rich flavours that are perfect for winter.
  4. Roast the fruit for 20 – 30 minutes until fragrant and tender.
  5. Prepare your sticky toffee pudding according to the package instructions and serve hot with your roasted fruit.

 

I decided to treat myself to a milk tart sponge pudding as well, just to take advantage of the offer. I am having some of my girl friends over before the end of the week for a little catch-up with some ‘Sex and the City’ re-runs and a few bowls of hot pudding.

How do you like to eat your winter puddings?

Lots of love

Hannah

Consultant Food Editor, Woolworths TASTE

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Pretty in pink

July 2, 2012 in Woolies Pantry

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I like to think of myself as a big of a sports fanatic! The sports I like might not be the run of the mill ones – don’t get me wrong, I enjoy a good game of rugby but I won’t spend the whole afternoon watching it unless there’s a really good braai on the go! But I love spending a good three hours watching a nail-biting rally between Nadal and Federer at Wimbledon. The same goes for the swimmers competing in this year’s Olympics, which happens to be just around the corner!

Since these particular events don’t hold the same sway on the sports calendar as rugby, for example, I have to give my friends a good enough reason to come over and watch! After eating a meal at El Burro, one of my favourite Mexican restaurants in Cape Town, I discovered pink pickled onions and have loved them ever since. I’ve experimented with a few recipes – I prefer mine slightly tart and less sweet – so I heat them up in lots of red wine vinegar and add a few peppercorns.

I have to make a small jar of them every two weeks because I add them to everything, from warm butternut salads, to home-made wraps with grilled chicken and spicy guacamole. My friends love them piled onto slices of rye bread, generously spread with Woolworths’ hummus – it’s a fantastic quick and easy snack for afternoons spent watching your favourite sport. The rye bread keeps you fuller for and the nutty flavours of the hummus and perky pink pickled onions are a perfect combination.

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Rye slices topped with pickled red onions and hummus
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Recipe type: Starter
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Serves: 4
 

Ingredients
  • 1 cup red wine vinegar
  • 8 peppercorns, whole
  • 1 red chilli, deseeded and sliced
  • 3 T caster sugar
  • 2 red onions, peeled and thinly sliced
  • 8 slices rye bread
  • Hummus
  • Extra-virgin olive oil, a drizzle
  • Pickled onions
  • Lemony sumac or a good crack of freshly ground black pepper

Instructions
  1. In a saucepan over a medium to low heat, gently simmer the red wine vinegar, whole peppercorns, red chilli, deseeded and sliced, and caster sugar for 5 minutes.
  2. Remove from the heat and pour the liquid over the peeled and thinly sliced red onions. Chill overnight.
  3. To serve, cut a loaf of fresh rye bread into 8 slices and spread each slice with hummus and a drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil. Top with the pickled onions and sprinkle with lemony sumac or a good crack of freshly ground black pepper.

 

I hope my pickled pink onions will have the same special place in your fridge as they do in mine.

Here’s to healthy snacking, the 2012 Olympics and remember to visit Woolworths The Pantry for more ideas and recipes.

Love

Hannah

Consultant Food Editor, Woolworths TASTE

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Sunshine food

June 29, 2012 in Woolies Pantry

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The weather in Cape Town has been a bit miserable recently so I thought I’d whip up my favourite sunshine food – corn fritters. Sweetcorn is one of our nation’s favourite foods and is high in insoluble fibre, which helps keep our digestive systems functioning properly, and low in fat. I find that sweetcorn keeps for longer if you store it in the leaves, this helps protect them from bruising. They are best eaten within a day or two of purchasing so they retain their nutrients and flavour.

Try making a flavoured butter to serve with chargrilled sweetcorn at a Sunday braai. Mix 1 chopped fresh chilli and 3 T chopped Italian parsley with 100 g softened butter, and add sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to season. Spread the butter over cooked sweetcorn, or wrap the sweetcorn in foil with a knob of the flavoured butter before cooking over the coals. I also like grating a little Parmesan or Gouda over cooked sweetcorn.

Sweetcorn is on Woolworths’ WREWARDS programme this month, so don’t forget to take your Woolworths card along with you when you go shopping to receive 10% off the marked price. I like to add grated baby marrow to this recipe to bulk it up and make the mixture go further. As luck would have it, baby marrows are on the WREWARDS list too!

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Sweetcorn-and –marrow fritters with fresh limes
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Recipe type: Main
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Create this zesty side or light lunch making use of a trio of ingredients, each less 10% for Woolies cardholders.
Ingredients
  • 6 pack supersweet sweetcorn
  • 1 kg marrows
  • 18 extra-large free-range eggs
  • 140 g cake flour
  • 2 free-range eggs
  • ½ cup milk
  • 1 t baking powder
  • 1 t dried chilli flakes
  • ½ t ground cumin
  • ½ t coriander seeds
  • sprinkle of sea salt
  • 2 cups canola oil

Instructions
  1. Cook 2 cobs sweetcorn in salted boiling water for 5 minutes until tender. Drain, then remove the corn from the cob and mix the kernels with 2 grated baby marrows.
  2. Mix 140 g cake flour, 2 free-range eggs, ½ cup milk, 1 t baking powder, 1 t dried chilli flakes, ½ t ground cumin, ½ t coriander seeds and sprinkle with sea salt. Add the corn and baby marrows and mix to combine.
  3. Heat 2 cups canola oil in a saucepan and carefully spoon bite-sized portions of batter into the oil. Fry until golden brown, about 30 seconds on each side, remove using a slotted spoon and drain on kitchen paper.
  4. Serve hot with sea salt and a squeeze of lime juice.

 

I hope this brings a little sunshine into your kitchen this weekend!

Love

Hannah

Consultant Food Editor, Woolworths TASTE

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I Heart butternut

May 18, 2012 in Cooking with Woolies

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It’s that time of the month when the contents of my fridge is looking a touch bleak, and pay day is still a week away. It makes me realise that I’m an extremist.recipes using butternut

I love to completely spoil myself in the first two weeks after being paid and indulge in fat, juicy free-range steaks and perfectly seared salmon fillets. Then I live off of hearty, low-budget soups and freshly made pasta with a good home-made tomato sauce for the rest of the month.

So now is the time for those aforementioned hearty low-budget meals. But they’re actually fun to make because they tax my creativity and force me to come up with something new, exciting and satisfying at the same time.

I always have big fat butternuts(on a super buy-bulk-and-save promotion at Woolworths right now) in the bottom of our vegetable basket at home, so this lovely member of the pumpkin family is usually the star of most of my dishes.

BUTTERNUT WEDGES WITH THAI PASTE

One way I use them is to cut the butternut into wedges then slow-roasting the chunks with a splash of olive oil in the oven until done. I serve these with a home-made Thai paste that I make by blending 1 large handful of coriander leaves, 1 5-cm piece of ginger, grated, 2 cloves of crushed garlic and 1 fresh chilli and mixing that with a couple of splashes of sesame, olive or canola oil.  I also like to add the juice of limes or lemons for great tart flavour.

I use the paste to flavour up a thick Thai butternut soup, sprinkled with chopped coriander and cashew nuts on top.

I also love to simmer the fragrant paste with coconut milk and stock for a Thai butternut curry. At the beginning of the month I’ll add a few plump pan-fried prawns just before serving with delicately steamed jasmine rice.

ROAST BUTTERNUT AND BEET SALAD

This is one of my favourite winter salads. Beetroots, including those lovely little baby beets, are in season and their earthy flavour goes so well with butternut.

Butternut and beetroot salad

I like to serve this salad warm with a splash of red wine vinegar, olive oil, small chunks of goat’s milk cheese, chilli-roasted pumpkin seeds and lots of fresh rocket.

To make the chilli-roasted pumpkin seeds, toast a handful of pumpkin seeds in a dry pan. In another pan, gently fry dried red chilli in olive oil for 1 minute, then add the seeds and toss to coat.

I would love to hear what you make for yourselves at home with butternut.

Lots of love

Hannah

Ps, don’t miss blogger Alida Ryder’s yum Indian-spiced potato and butternut pies in The Woolies Pantry or try Woolworths TASTE’s butternut crisps with fresh rosemary.

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Secrets of a smashing cold dish

March 22, 2012 in Woolies Pantry

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If I were to ask you what your favourite cold dish was you’d probably answer me without even a moment’s hesitation.  But when the guys over at Masterchef SA asked the thousands of entrants to produce their own cold dish, it sent most of them into a flat spin.Crunchy summer pizza

That needn’t have happened. My secret for a show-stopping cold dish, or any dish for that matter, is making it with confidence. Why should it be any different when cooking for a bunch of judges?

When you finally place your bowl of chilled gazpacho or handmade vanilla ice cream in front of a judge it should be the same as making it for someone you love. When you know you’ve put your heart in to it, it will show! That’s what will make all the difference.

Once you can put your heart on a plate, however, you do still need a couple of fail-safe tips to perfect it. Here are mine.

A cold dish is all about showing off the flavours – think sweet with tart flavours to awaken your tastebuds – and textures (crunchy mixed with creamy) of the best and freshest produce you can get your hands on. This balance will make or break your dish so it’s important to get it just right; keep it simple and don’t try to combine too many flavours and/or textures.

For example, beef Carpaccio, might lose some of its flavour if left in the freezer for too long. Make sure it’s only in for an hour or so until you’re ready to slice it wafer thin and serve it super cool. This, combined with a good-quality free-range beef fillet, is half the battle won. You need to serve this dish immediately, so don’t let it hang around for too long.

Salads are of course the perfect cold dish. A tomato salad may sound dull, but not if you do it the Jamie Oliver way, which has become my favourite way. Slice a mix of different tomatoes into uneven, chunky pieces – the less uniform the better. Sprinkle them with coarse sea salt to release the excess water and drain in a colander. This intensifies the flavour. Place in a bowl and add a couple of balls of torn mozzarella. Finally, tear over a handful of basil just before serving – don’t do this too soon as it will discolour over time.

Woolworths has recently introduced a great new range of exotic tomatoes – from rosalini to stripy red and green, to vibrant yellow and orange. Using different tomatoes makes a feast for the eyes and the taste buds.

You also can’t go wrong with a sweet dish, especially your favourite dessert! A baked New York style cheesecake with a chocolaty fudge base and a decadent, smooth vanilla-flecked filling, is hard to resist and easy to make.

Keep it simple and don’t overcomplicate cold dishes with too many ingredients. But, most of all, believe in your dish and it will do the rest for you.

Enjoy

Hannah

Hannah is the Assistant Food Editor for Woolworths TASTE magazine

Find more of her recipes online at www.tastemag.co.za and follow her tips and tricks on Woolworths The Pantry where she has joined forces with other prominent SA bloggers to help you shop and cook like a chef.

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